Book I: My Muslim Man | COMPLETED

Chapter 16: Big Reveal

Afaaf's POV

Why would Uncle Khan not want to talk to his own son?! This didn't sound any good. A series of questions ran through my mind as I fell asleep next to Imran. Something about this new information didn't feel right. Was Imran lying about the person he talked to on the phone? But Imran never lied about anything.

Next day, after Fajr prayer and reciting Qur'an, I took Imran to the same park for a quick jog this time. There was a slight pain in our legs since both of us were just beginning to set into this new routine. After two rounds we sat on the nearest bench we found. I passed Imran the water bottle.

"Imran, you were going to tell me something today"

"I was?!"

"Don't you remember what we were talking about last night before sleep?"

He shook his head.

"The phone call! Zaid bhai!", I reminded him.

"Oh!", there was a thick silence after that as he teared away his gaze from my face and looked at the far away lined up trees. He sighed and suddenly his expressions changed. Stress lines appeared on his forehead as he furrowed his eyebrows. What was it that he had been ignoring since last night and why?

"Imran?", I shivered not knowing the consequence of me pushing him into letting it all out.

He looked over at me and his lips curved into a sad smile. I didn't like that smile. I liked his goofy smile. He slide himself on the bench moving closer to me and took my hand.

"Afaaf, you might've noticed that no one talks about Zaid as much", he sighed again.

"Yeah, that's because he doesn't live with us in the same place", I tried to reason.

"Also because, Abbu... doesn't want us to talk about him", the same thing he told me last night. He wasn't lying.

"Why?!". There wasn't any reasoning my mind to could do about Uncle Khan avoiding his son in such a bad manner.

"You might feel like everything is going fine at home and everyone is having a good time. The smiles are all fake and the happiness is just a cover. Now you are part of our family and you should know what is behind that cover", his words were making my heart beat pace up, "We are all a little broken on the inside and our past plays a very important role in that". What was their past? Was it going to sound horrible? Was it something really bad?

I had shut my mouth tight. I wanted to listen to Imran with full concentration. I needed to listen to him carefully.

"It's a long complicated story. If we find enough time someday I'll tell you everything in detail but I'll break it into short chapters for now. The five years ago Zaid wasn't the Zaid he is now. Neither am I the five years back version of myself and neither I nor Zaid want to be our old versions any soon. Zaid did some things in the past that he is not proud of. Same goes for me. But the difference in our tangled pasts is that I only had huge anger issues which weren't a big deal to Ammi and Abbu but Zaid's problems had a high magnitude of destruction and we only found out those problems when one day when Abbu got a call from the police office informing him of Zaid's arrest. The reason of his arrest were drugs and many more issues that go around the same thing. We were all typical teenagers of our time giving a hard time to our parents. Out of us three boys. Zaid was the most trouble maker and now this phone call from the police was cherry on the top of all his doings. Abbu disowned him after that and he said some nasty things. Fights went on for days until Zaid decided to leave home and never return. I know this sounds so messed and is creating a bad image of him but what he became after facing all those problems was another turn of events. He began to realise his mistakes soon and he apologised to all of us, literally. But Abbu wasn't going to forgive him so easily. I still haven't understood the reason Abbu is holding this grudge for years and not speaking to him neither liking his presence. Zaid had understood his mistakes years ago and I know and I see that he is changed into such an amazing brother and son but Abbu's behaviour is distancing him from all of us. He says that he'll only come back and live with us if Abbu is happy with him which I can't see happening anytime soon. Mum is always worried about him. Why wouldn't she be? She had to choose between her husband and her son. The worst position a person can be put into. So that's it. That's why we don't talk about Zaid before Abbu. That's whats messed up about us and I am not happy dragging you into this mess"