"There comes a time in your life when you think everything is alright, like everything is falling back to their respective places. But then it hits you. One thing. A feeling of emptiness. Like a piece of a puzzle is missing and there's nothing you can do to fix it. You can't seem to make a new one and the similar ones just won't be the same. That's when you regret. The claws of your past hunts you down and wounds you down. Those wounds, my darling, are regrets."
"Sir? Sir?", a soft female voice woke Kabeer from his slumber and he squinted his eyes as the bright cabin lights blurred his vision.
"We're about to land, Sir. Please wear your seatbelt.", the flight attendant informed and Kabeer nodded as he thanked her, doing what he was instructed to do.
His head kind of felt heavy due to lack of sleep. He haven't been able to sleep since the last two days and when finally he was able to doze off, he was awaken by the flight attendant who wore a sickly sweet smile everytime his eyes locked with hers.
Kabeer wasn't dumb to not understand that she was obviously trying to hit on him. If it was some other time, Kabeer would've flirted back with the pretty flight attendant, yes, beautiful women were his weakness. Every girl seemed to have his attention but none had been successful enough to break into the walls of the cage his heart was into. The cage made by the smiles and memories of just one person.... Aria.
Funny how he let her go but while she slipped away from his soul, the more tightly her memories held him. He might've set her free but his own heart was put into a pit of regrets and anger where there was nothing but suffering.
Kabeer would be lying if he said that he never thought of going to Aria and apologize for everything, every single thing except for one. The one lie which he told her. The lie which can make Aria lose all the respect and sympathy she had for him. No, Kabeer wasn't brave enough to admit what he did and explain why he lied. He didn't have the courage to tell her the truth.
Right now the only motive he had was to get back Aria but again he didn't care about his moral compass.
Little did he know that he's about to make a bigger mistake than he did a year ago....
.......................................
His eyes started to sting as his head started to pound because of the frown he had been holding for the past fifteen minutes .
"You're still not ready to listen to me, Rizzi?", he heard his Dadijaan say in a cooing manner and he sighed.
"You know I hate that nickname. Makes me feel like a ten year old girl who loves BTS and the colour pink.", Rizz whined like a child.
"No hate towards BTS though.", he quickly added when he felt Zainab shooting daggers at him through her eyes.
"You're all a bunch of ten year olds to me, son.", Wajida said with a smile.
Rizz and all of his family exchanged looks with each other, finally giving in.
Well, Wajida is Awez, Rahila and Tahrina's maternal aunt but is very close to their children as well. She has her own family in Kuwait but she makes sure to visit her sister's children and their children. Rizz and his cousins have a really strong bond with Wajida and they treat her like their own grandmother as their real one passed away before they were even born.
"Alright, fine! Start with your explanation gramma.", Naila spoke up first and Wajida nodded.
"As I said I wanted to surprise you all, my child. Its just that I didn't know that cab driver would be such a rascal."
"Can't believe our hurricane became a breeze.", Rizz joked which earned him some snickers from his cousins and a slap on the head from Wajida.
"I just forgot to take my blood pressure pills and this city's heat just made it worse. Otherwise I could've beaten the hell out of that cab driver.", Wajida said in her regular, thunderous voice which assured everyone that the eldest member in the room was finally back to normal.
Wajida was again about to say something when Awez entered the room and cleared his throat to get everyone's attention.
"Khalajaan, your sons are very angry with you and so are your grandchildren."
At this, Wajida rolled her eyes and then narrowed them, trying to intimidate Awez but the old, plump woman looked rather cute than scary.
"Who told Tabrez and Taufiq about this?", Wajida asked the question she already knew the answer to.
"We were scared, WajiMaa.", Tahrina came over and sat beside her aunt, resting her head on her shoulder.
"Well, even I was. I didn't know what to do, my heartbeat kept on pacing in a weirdly fast way, it felt my heart's going to explode. My vision was blurred and I couldn't even hear properly. May Allah bless those kids who helped me.", Wajida said as she silently added a small prayer in the end for Aria and Ziyadh.
Tahrina and Awez had big smiles lighting up their faces as Naila proceeded to inform Wajida who those kids were.
"Waah! What a small world! I was actually wishing to meet the girl and her friend because I never actually got the chance to thank them but look how the girl... Aria, is now a part of my family and the boy, Ziyadh is Naila's old classmate. By the way, is Aria fixed for Ziyadh?", the sudden question by Wajida caused different reactions on different people.
Yahya almost choked on the fruit he was eating, Tahrina and Awez gave a negative response to the question, Zainab too joined Awez and Tahrina, infact her voice was the loudest in the denial, Rizz took a sharp breath as if asking himself how many more competition he got to deal with and Naila who was just intrigued by the question.
"Why?", everyone turned towards Naila.
"I mean why do you think Aria and Ziyadh are together?", Naila further added to her question.
"Oh because Aria called that boy and he was there in no time. And I might be on the verge of fainting but I can read eyes of people when they're in love.", Wajida said with a wide smile which turned into a smirk but her eyes were now fixated on Rizz.
Before anyone could notice, Naila questioned again.
"So you saw love in Aria's eyes?"
"No. Someone else's.", Wajida answered and then proceeded to her room ruffling Rizz's hair, leaving everyone a bit confused.
Surely, the old eyes caught something the others failed to notice.
.................
A/n: Surprise Surprise! A short chapter but a quick update yay!
Soooo Kabeer is onto something, Wajida urf Dadijaan also noticed stuff.
Yall ship Aria and Rizz or Aria and Zee?
Also, a big big Big shoutout to TheLearningSpirit for making a new cover and book aesthetics.
Yall can too send in your covers and aesthetics if you like!
I might do a voting thing and select one. For now, we are going with the one TheLearningSpirit made!
Stay safe, take care!
YOU ARE READING
Tangled Up
Romance"I was holding onto him thinking the pain was worth it, my hands and heart ached trying to keep something which killed me not so softly. But as I started to let go of him, my soul felt lighter. And my heart? It'll take it's own time.", she gave a so...
