Fasaana

SIXTEEN

My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue
All's well that ends well to end up with you.

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Kian stared at Zoya. She was playing with the coffee mug kept in front of her for a few minutes now.

He moved his hand forward to stop her. She looked up at him. "You don't have to tell me if you don’t want to." He told her.

She took a sip of her coffee before clearing her throat. "I come from a very lower middle class background. I have lived in Jaipur all my life. My family is what you call a typical muslim conservative one. So when I graduated, my mom wasted no time in getting me married."

Kian was listening to her intently.

"The married life was not bad in the beginning. My husband, Rizwan, worked in a corporate company. I wanted to study further, but he didn’t agree. So unwillingly, I became a housewife. It was after a few months when things started to worsen. Daily taunts about everything, him manhandling me became normal."

Zoya didn’t miss the way Kian's jaw hardened.

"He even slapped me a couple of times as well. I told my mother about it, hoping she'd ask me to leave everything behind and come back home. But she didn't do that. Instead she me understand that these things are common between a married couple, and I should learn to adjust. She also said that if I had a problem with him hitting me, then I shouldn't do anything that would make me angry." Zoya chuckled lightly, but there were tears in her eyes.

"More than a year later, I got pregnant. I hoped that this would change him, but I was wrong. Men like him never change. Then one day I caught him with another woman. Just imagine, while I was at home, trying my best to be the perfect wife for him, he was out there enjoying his life with his girlfriend."

Zoya could feel tears falling down her eyes. Kian gave her a tissue, and held her hand to let her know that he was there.

"So did you leave him then?" He asked.

"No," She laughed humorlessly, "How could I? Where would I have gone? My mom wasn't ready to take me back, even after knowing about the affair. How was I going to take care of my unborn child? So I stayed. He knew that I knew about his girlfriend, so he didn't bother hiding her after that. He would talk to her openly in front of me, I would take it all. But my patience ran out after my daughter was born. Neither my in-laws were happy, nor my husband because it was a girl. That's when I decided that I would not raise my girl in a family with such a sick mentality. And so I walked out of that marriage and came to Delhi. Aarti, my best friend, lived here with her husband. They were kind enough to let me stay with them."

Zoya finished talking and wiped her tears.

Kian took some minutes to process everything told to him. And at the end of it, he only had two emotions. Immense rage and respect. Rage for her husband and her family, and respect for the strong woman sitting in front of him.

"So, are you guys separated or..?"

"I divorced him." She quickly said.

"And do you still live with your friend?"

She nodded.

He squeezed her hand one last time before letting it go. He cleared his throat, "Okay, let's order some food? I'm starving."

Zoya smiled and picked up the menu. She just ordered a plate of chicken tikka biryani, but he went all out. He called for kebabs with rumali roti first, followed by hyderabadi biryani and a couple of other side dishes. She was not surprised.

When the food came, she tore off a small piece of chicken and put it near Sehrish's mouth.

"Is she allowed to have solid food yet?" He asked.

"Of course, she is a year and half old. We can feed her everything, but she still needs to be breastfed."

He nodded understandingly, and then looked at the adorable kid chewing the food cutely.

"Zoya, can I?" He hesitantly asked.

She passed her to him. He took her in his arms carefully. Her expression said that she wasn't very comfortable being in a stranger's arms, but it disappeared as soon as he fed her a bite of kebab. She was giggling throughout the meal as he kept making funny faces at her while feeding her.

They came out of the restaurant and went towards Kian's car. He insisted on dropping them.

"Can I ask you something?" He asked while driving.

She looked at him amused. "There is still something left?"

He smiled. "This one is last. I  promise."

"Fine." She chuckled.

"Why did you hide all this from me?"

And her smile vanished and a serious expression came on. She went silent. He thought that maybe she wouldn't answer.

But to his surprise, she spoke after a while, "Because I was scared."

He frowned.

"I was scared that maybe you won't want to be my friend after I revealed my past. Or maybe you'll judge me for being weak and suffering so much in silence. Or you'll feel that I'm too messed up." She rambled. "After that incident, I am scared to trust people. And it was also hard for me to speak about all those memories. All these were the reasons for not telling you."

"I am glad you opened up to me. Really. And never think that I think of you as a weak person." He told her, "You walked out of an abusive marriage with an infant. It takes guts to do that and I'm proud of you for that."

She gave him a broken smile. He could see that she was getting emotional again, so he changed the topic. "So, you trust me, huh?"

She rolled her eyes and hit his shoulder lightly.

They reached her home and she invited him up. Rohit was home as well so Zoya properly introduced him to her family. They spent the evening together, getting to know each other.

Finally when Kian started to leave, Zoya walked him till the door.

"So I'll see you later." He said, "Take care of yourself and Sehrish too."

She nodded with a small smile.

He turned his back and started walking away when Zoya called him from behind. "Kian?"

He looked over his shoulder and raised his eyebrow.

"I trust you." She told him.

Their lips curled up at the same time while looking at each other.

She closed the door after him and thanked God for blessing her with such an amazing friend and prayed for their friendship to last a lifetime, if not more.

On the other hand, while driving back home with a silly smile on his face, he realized that he had fallen irrevocably in love with her.

Oh, were they screwed!

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I am so excited about this story, I can't tell you!