Ishq Kinara[Love Ashore] Complete

20. Promise

Time is a fickle thing and one of its most astonishing yet accepted aspect is, it passes. Good, bad, still, fleeting. It slips through our fingers leaving the imprints of its presence in the form of memories and scars. It's up to us what we choose. To cherish or to perish.

It's been almost a week since Bisma and Atif's Nikkah. To look back at the whole thing, the only difficult part was making Bisma agree to this idea. Whatever followed was a cakewalk. Bisma and Atif had settled down in this routine without much difficulty. The ease and camaraderie they were famous for during their youth came in handy for this new development.

Bisma had even joined the office after her not so long leave. She used to visit Nusrat Aapa and Safwa almost everyday. Nothing much had changed sans the fact that she was no longer living at Kirmani House.

And maybe in this perfect setting, this was what affected Safwa the most.

She didn't come out as a mean and selfish brat which she never was, that's why she didn't share it with anyone. She was happy for her Phupho. She was the one person who never gave up on the idea of a happy ever after for Atif and Bisma even though everyone else found it farfetched.

But she was also someone who had, almost all her life, only two people she could call immediate family, her phupho and Nusrat Aapa. She had friends, some of the most genuine ones she could get but still when the day ended, and she had to go back home, Bisma was the biggest part of the home Safwa was returning to.

And now that feeling was gone. And Safwa was feeling a void somewhere among all this. No matter how much she tried telling herself that it wasn't right to feel this way still her heart yearned for the old way of life. It was really silly, she thought. But it also made her realize something.

She really didn't have much in life. Especially when it came to people and love they had for her and she had for them.

Someone would always look at her lifestyle and call her lucky but how that someone would know that was far from the reality? This was who she was. What she had. And it was enough to sadden her.

She was proud of Hesham though. He had welcomed this change with open arms. She did too, but she didn't appreciate the emptiness that came with Bisma gone.

Everything and everyone else had shifted back to their normal lives. University was getting close to terminating another semester soon and everyone seemed so busy with the arrival of the exam dates announced. End term assignments and projects were piling up, preparing them for the professional life ahead as they were starting the last months of their degree after this. So much was going around her and Safwa, even being a part of it was detached. She was trying her best not to show it to anyone but how far trying can get you?

The only person who got a glimpse of it was Izaan. That night she had wept in his arms and then somehow slept there as well. Nusrat Aapa had told her the next morning how Izaan had specially asked her to stay with Safwa that night before he had returned back home. Safwa was thankful for it. She was also thankful that he didn't bring it up again but it wasn't like Izaan Shoaib to remind people of their weak states anyway. He himself was pretty busy lately, his third year of medical wrapping up soon. Safwa was getting used to the occasional one line texts from him asking if she was doing okay. It was evidence enough that no matter he didn't bring this up didn't mean he didn't remember it. She had always responded to those cheerfully. She was fine. Did he believe her or not, she had no idea.