Pasoori

Chapter 17

"Asalam un alaikum", he announced like she had but this time everybody got up to greet him. "Shahryar", she heard Zarina say and this forced her to do a once over of Shahryar. He had changed and become much more of a mature man with masculinity oozing out of him. He was always this quite, serious boy and Indefinitely had grown to become a man of the same nature. He embraced his family lovingly before his eyes caught her. "Serina? Salam", he addressed her midst of all family members and she quietly responded. Feeling slightly uneasy under the gazes of everyone she quickly hid behind Nasrin not wanting to be in the eyes of everybody any longer.

"Aao, nashta karlo. Ham bhi karne hi waale the", although Serina did think he might of wanted to freshen up first but he willingly sat at the table and began eating. They all talked to him, asked him questions, wanted to know more of him, and how he was doing yet one question was very evidently being avoided. The notion of his wife. Why? Serina direly wanted to know why they were avoiding talking about his wife when in fact she should have been here with the family. Is she not part of the family? Or maybe responsibility took hold of her and she was too busy. But then the face of Nasrin entered her mind when Serina had said the exact same thing to her.

Was their relationship strained? Or was it in some saas bahu Thing. She was beyond curious to know. Not remembering Shahryar's wife's name she none the less went on with her question

"Bhabi Nahin aai?",

And the whole table when silent. All eyes zoomed on her and she could swear she saw a look of shock on Haleh's face. What? She didn't know she didn't have to ask. In fact nobody even told her anything. All she knew that there was a wife which wasn't present. The room continued to go into an awkward silence. Nobody resumed their conversation, all just flabbergasted at the audacity the stranger girl had sitting at their table.

"Nahin umm actually", Shahryar cleared his throat before beginning. He looked straight at her which did make her slightly queasy but she wanted to know. "Me and Samira have separated and are filing for a divorce now", he told her, deliberately avoiding eye contact with the rest of his family and Serina could swear she heard a few silent sighs. Everyone knew about this except for her. So it was good that she asked. If she was part of this family then she should be aware of everything as well. Good that they had to face the awkwardness. She felt relieved. But the main thing was that she didn't have a response to his words so she merely stared at him with grief. Well a melancholic mask. It's not like this would affect her in any way. Neither did she have any feelings regarding it. She hasn't ever met Samira before and honestly speaking, neither did she wish too or well she couldn't all together. That wasn't something she minded though.

"Okay let's just have breakfast yeah?", Zarina enthusiastically interrupted the silence, trying to make the atmosphere light. "Let's not talk about personal matters on the table", she muttered, looking straight at Serina, giving her a twisted glare. This was the first time Zarina had show any kind of mistreatment towards her and Serina's heart broke at the outrage of the situation. She didn't understand why everywhere she went, people automatically despised her, and in turn treated her poorly. She didn't know what her fault was and the place Serina thought would be her safe haven, eventually was turning into a hell hole.

Great.

After silently nourishing themselves of plenty food, they all excused them selves. How awkward, Serina initially had thought that they were one big happy family but now that she was looking closer the façade was dropping and she was able to see beyond whom they portrayed themselves as.

Isolated people living together.

All of them had lives of their own, and had the least interest in each other. She hadn't seen one family trip as of yet, neither did they ever have family nights where they'd sit together and watch a film or play Board games. They only met at the dinner table and even then some people wouldn't be able to make it due to certain reasons. In comparison to the Daudzai haveli, where every night something or another would be happening, every night they'd have games night, movie night or go on trips like the one where they all went to swat. Without her Ofcourse. But that was a different story. The sole reason why she hated being there was because of their mistreatment of her and leaving her out on special family occasions.