Love is Faith (An Islamic love story) *completed*

Trauma

Her face shone with innocence and happiness. He looked up to that place and saw a woman running towards them. She was in her mid forties and had slight wrinkles on the corner of her eyes and between the eye brows which creased as her eyes shed tears. She was wearing a hijab and a simple modest dress. She knelt and enveloped Naveen in a big hug smiling and crying at the same. She caressed her hair.

"Where were you...?? I looked for you everywhere..!!"
She wiped her tears and got startled for a moment when she realized there was someone else too. She stood embarrassed.

"Aunt Sara he brought me here...he's a nice person!"

She looked at him and smiled.

"I'm out of words to thank you...this little girl is the life of this orphanage...Thank you very much child!"

He looked at the girl and then her expressionlessly. His face was turning pale again as he had walked beyond his capacity. He slightly nodded and turned back to move but Naveen held his finger causing him to stop.

"Where are you going...!?!?? Please don't go...I have to tell you a lot of stories."  She said with pleading watery eyes.

"Oh dear you are in a bad shape. You really need to rest...come on inside. Let us have the honor to serve you."

He looked at the woman startled who had an aged but a very graceful smile. He started to shake his head.

"N..No..I.."

"No please it's okay we have a lot of rooms here and you really are not in a condition to walk." She said not letting him finish.

"Please...see I promise I won't steal any cookies from the jar at night and will brush my teeth before going to bed...and will not tease you!"
Aunt sara looked at Naveen who muttered all the sentences in a single breathe. Sara chuckled, then looked up at him.
He was reluctantly being dragged by little Naveen into the premises of the orphanage.

He walked through the narrow corridors. There were a lot of children and young women wearing hijabs, who looked after the kids. The rooms were small, water dripped from roofs, floors were rough.
He looked at his surroundings unconsciously, his head was going dizzy again. His gaze stilled on a young woman who was telling children to line up. She was wearing single colored simple hijab but her face was bright. His breaths became uneven. She reminded him of her. She too wore a hijab the night they came across. His eyes did not move. She had a fair complexion like her.

Please let me go..!!

He immediately lowered his gaze as his heart hammered against his chest. He could here her cries. It was suffocating there. He felt it difficult to breath in low roofed corridors. He locked his room as soon he was escorted and sat on the floor against the door burying his head in his knees and rubbing his temples.

   *****

He was lying on a small noisy bed which creaked when he switched sides. He never had felt pain. He had never tasted poverty. He had never slept in such an awful place. He remembered the nights when he was drunk and used to fell on his soft bed and now here he was in a room with a bed so hard that it hurt him.
He stared at the empty walls. Everything from the past seemed like a dream that he once had and now it was gone.
He had decided he would leave soon. He exhaled and tried to sleep but knew he wouldn't as the sparrows had already started chirping. It was morning already.

   *****

Later that day he went to Sara to inform he was leaving. He did not know where he had to go but he did not want to stay. Sara insisted him to stay and tried to convince him but he utterly refused until he felt a hand on his shoulder.