Mending Broken Hearts

13. Friends

"What could I do? She made her choice", I snapped. 

He slapped his forehead, "So give her a reason to make another choice instead of just walking away"

I walked away from your wife too, I wanted to say to him. 

The similarity between my past and present was uncanny. And so was that sinking feeling that I would never be good enough for anyone. I was the dull 28 year old who had spent so much time buried in work that I could never have the cocky, self-assured personality of Salman or the flashy finance job and attractive looks of Jawad. 

I was just me. 

Salman looked down at his phone and said, "I have to go to the NICU. I told the nurse I'd feed my daughter"

The smirk on his face had disappeared when he put a hand on my shoulder, "Look man, I don't know you well enough but I do know one thing for sure. I've never seen Madi light up the way she does when she talks about the sweet intern she works with. Maybe that doesn't mean anything, and that is just who she is, but you'll never know if you let her do a Nikah with that ridiculous finance bro"

He left, but his words stayed. Echoing in the chambers of my heart, they gave rise to a hope I had all but abandoned. 

Does Madi think of me as more than an intern? 

I kept asking myself that question all the way to the residents workroom. There I saw a burgundy stethoscope with 'M. Ahmed' written on its label. If I had ever believed in a sign from Allah, this was it.

I knew exactly what I had to do next. 

Madiha

The fogginess on the bathroom wall distorted my face. It dulled out my features and lightened my darkness. It was like a mask that hid everything society told me was wrong with me. There was comfort in that, just as there was comfort within the walls of this bathroom. 

But outside, there was an intern for whom my walls might as well have been made up of glass. Why he was here I had no idea. This wasn't the first time I had forgotten my stethoscope at work. It certainly didn't warrant an hour trip to the suburbs late in the evening after a full day of work. 

On any other day I would have dabbed on some foundation to hid my blemishes and freckles and pulled up my hair into a ponytail so it didn't look like a ghonsla on top of my head. But today I had had enough of this world and the filter I had to hide behind. If everyone saw me as nothing but a dusky skinned woman with nothing else to offer, then so be it. 

I put on my night suit pajama with a plain white t-shirt and walked out only to run into my mother in the near the front door. 

"Where do you think you're going looking like that?", she frowned, "At least put your hair up and change into a shalwar kameez"

"For God's sake Ami, I am just going to take something from the intern I work with"

"Intern ho ya senior, iss haal mai logoun ke saamne aani ki zaroorat nahi hai"

(Whether its an intern or a senior, there is no need to go in front of people looking like this)

On any other day, I would have obliged my mother. Maybe even sent my brother to collect a measly stethoscope, but that night there was a fire of defiance within me. The subdued woman who always gave in to her parents was no where to be found. And in her place was a survivor of society's hypocrisy. Cloaked in an armor of indifference, with daggers drawn I squared my shoulders in front of my mother. 

"Agar aap ko meri shakl se koi maslaa hai to Allah se shikwa karein. Meri jaan chhor dein", I told her and walked out of the house slamming the door behind me.