5

"What the hell is going on here?" Aamir asked looking at their intertwined hands. Areesha tried to get her hand out of his grasp but Fawad tightened his grasp unknowingly.

"Hey Areesha! What's up baby? Looks like you're having a cozy time without me! " he said mockingly to her. The venom in his words cut Areesha's fragile heart more than anything. 

"Aamir its not what you think-" she started but he cut her off. Areesha pulled her hand out of Fawads iron grasp and stood up to calm down Aamir.

"Forget what you have to say. You were cheating on me. I wanted an excuse to get out of this engagement anyway. I don't love you anyway. I love Shazre and only her." He said taking of the ring of his finger and throwing put at the table in front of him.

"Good luck bro dealing with this depressed girl!" He said sarcastically to Fawad.

"Aamir! What's wrong with you? Are you out of your fucking mind?" She yelled at him not caring what the on lookers thought.

 Aamir made his way out of the restaurant not looking back even once. Aamir knew deep deep down that what he had just witnessed wasn't what it looked like and that Areesha loved him more than anything. He felt a pang in his heart, he couldn't understand what it meant. What was his heart trying to tell him? He should be happy, shouldn't he? He finally got rid of this excuse of a relationship. But he himself could not decipher his feelings. 

Back in the restaurant Areesha was trying to make out what had just happened. She felt betrayed. What was a relationship where they didn't trust each other.  He had said that he wanted to get rid of her for a very long time didn't he? That means he didn't love her. But come to think of it he had never told her that he loved her. Did he really not? Was that all a facade? 

She kept on repeating that she loved him and he couldn't do this to her as treacherous terse rolled down her cheeks.

Fawad's heart clenched seeing her like that. Every time she said that she loved him, his heart twisted. He felt jealous of that bastard. He didn't know what a precious girl he had rejected. She was one in a billion.

He took her to the car and started driving with her sitting on the front seat beside him. She was an emotional wreck trying to  suppress the sobs that threatened to overcome her.

He didn't know what to do within religious boundaries to comfort her. He let her get it all out of her system. Suppressing all these feelings would hurt her more. He felt so helpless. Yes the famous Fawad Ali was feeling helpless. To begin he didn't even know that she was engaged.

Parking his car at an ice cream parlor he went to get her some ice cream. His sister loved ice cream more than anything and it always calmed her down. He just hoped that it worked for Areesha too.

He went inside and bought two chocolate and vanilla cones. He came back and offered one to her. 

"I just had lunch. I am not hungry." She replied grimly, her sobs had somewhat subsided.

"You don't have ice cream when you are hungry. Come on take it please."

Looking at his sincere eyes she accepted the ice-cream. She felt so embarrassed that she had shown here weak side to her boss of all people.

"I want to go home." She said to him.

"Sure thing. I'll drop you. Here hold my ice-cream for me." He said handing her the cone as he started driving.

"But my car is at the office," she told him

"That's not a problem. I'll ask the driver to get it to your place. Address?"

She explained the address to him. When they stopped at a signal he took his cone from her. The only problem was that it wasn't his. It was actually Areesha's.

"Umm you actually require eating my ice cream," she pointed out sheepishly

"So it's even more yummy." He said winking at her.

"Are you are flirting with me!?" She asked him with narrowed eyes.

"Don't worry, most girls have the same reaction when I flirt with them. They can't believe that the Fawad is flirting with them!"

She laughed at his cockiness and he felt that he was actually succeeding in cheering her up.

"You know you can eat that ice-cream before it melts onto your clothes." She didn't want to hurt his feeling stop she took a bite from his cone. She couldn't believe that she was eating something that was tasted by someone else. She was always so concerned about her hygiene.

After that he dropped her to her apartment. She entered the apartment using her keys from her purse. She just stood behind the door leaning on the as she slid down.

Areesha didn't know what to do. She was lost without Aamir. He was the thread that kept her attached to her life. Otherwise she saw no point in living this life. She was broken. She couldn't trust anyone in her life. She didn't have anyones shoulder to cry on.

Tears of helplessness trickled down her cheeks. Grief and depression covered her like a thick choking blanket. She wondered if her father had been here, would things have been different? Would somone care then? She was disconsolate and without hope. She just stood there sobbing silently.

"Areesha? Is that you?" The voice of her mother drifted from inside. She had probably heard the door open.

But Areesha's throat was too raw with pain for her to speak. She didn't reply so her mother came out of her room, shocked to see her daughter crying so badly. 

"Areesha? What's wrong?" She asked her face etched with worry. Areesha couldn't help but laugh at her humorlessly. She was the one who was the cause of this. She had gotten her engaged to that bastard Aamir.

"He left me." She said in a small stricken voice.

"Who?" Her mother's face morphed into confusion.

"A-Aamir."

"What? How could he do that? What did you do?" Oh the irony! Her own mother stood there and asked her that. 

Without replying she sauntered to her room and slumped against the door. She was broken once again. In the confines of her room, she was far from that carefree girl whose first language was sarcasm and didn't take crap from anyone. She was utterly helpless. 

She cried and cried taking out all the emotions she had suppressed inside herself. She cried till her tear ducts dried out but her mind kept on replaying what Aamir had said to her. He had called her a depressed girl. Just because he helped her when her father had died that gave him no right over her to call her depressed and dump her like that. She knew she was depressed but he was the only anchor she had and he left her ruthlessly too. No on stayed with her, everyone whom she loved left. First her father, then he  left her then her mother and finally Aamir left her too.

Overcome with grief and self-hate, she took a knife from her side table and cut arm. She enjoyed this feeling of relief. She wanted to tear herself apart but she knew suicide was haram. This was the easiest way out so she resorted to it.

She took out all the anger she had on Aamir on herself. She hated him for what he did to her. In fact to she hated herself more for letting this happen to her. She should have been more stronger than this. She shouldn't let anyone hurt her so deeply. She hated herself for getting so attached to him. She hated how weak she was. She hated how she had let Fawad see her a glimpse of her real personality. She hated herself more than anything. So she punished herself. She wanted to teach herself to be strong.

She didn't understand that Allah was testing her to give her the same strength but in a better way. Allah wanted her to come back to his path but she let Satan take over her thoughts and didn't come to Allah who would give her the real peace of mind and soul.

She missed her father so much as well. She hated herself for crying over something she couldn't bring back. It was the first time she had cried over her father's death in these two years. She wondered if he had been here would he have been able to stop Aamir breaking her heart.

She didn't understand that crying didn't mean you were weak. In fact it meant that you were human enough to feel something. It showed that you could still endure the pain without turning into a selfish person. 

There was no one to tell her that. All the important people in her life didn't care about her. 

She hated herself for being weak. Everyone else thought of her as a sarcastic, carefree, sweet girl. Only she knew what she was going through. His words circled her mind. He had called her depressed and she was proving him right.

When she looked at her arm now covered with cuts, she found blood gushing out of some of them. Her blood. She hadn't realized that she was digging the knife deeper when she was thinking. She quickly hurried to the washroom and washed the blood of. When the water came in contact with her cuts she hissed as it stung. But she relished that feeling. She wanted to punish herself for getting close to Aamir.

She felt that the physical pain she was giving herself relieved the mental anguish she was in. It felt good that she could control her own pain. 

With those pitying thoughts in her mind, she fell asleep lying on the floor.

***

This continued for some more days she had stopped eating and was crying like a hopeless person. Actually she was hopeless. Her mother called her for dinner once or twice but didn't force her to eat like caring mothers would force their children to take care of themselves.

She had no hope until he came back to save the damsel in distress, someone whom she both hated and loved from the very core of her heart.

It was a bright morning, in contrast to her dull mood. She had stopped going to her office after that miserable weekend for a few days. Her boss hadn't called her either. But she knew she would be fired anyway so she didn't care. Her car was parked outside her building as her boss had promised. But she was silently thankful to him for not coming to see her face to face anyways she didn't know how she'd be able to face him.

So that morning the door bell rang bright sunny morning the door bell and rung and thinking it would be the sweeper so without opening the door, she yelled to the other side and told the sweeper that he didn't need to do their place today.

To her utter surprise it wasn't the sweeper. It was someone whom she had tried to forget over all this time, someone whom she didn't want to see at all....

To be continued...

Please vote and comment!

Who do you think is behind the door?

Any guesses?

There have been subtle hints in the previous chapters so can any one guess??

Tell me in the comments section below!⏬⬇⤵☟⤵