Like Chalk And Cheese [Completed]

Down in the mouth

"You didn't even visit us." He complained, eyeing me with a frown on his face as he lingered by the dining table, checking out the white shakers.

I saw Nimra approach me, and then with a slight hesitation as she looked at me with apology and something akin to empathy, she pulled me into an embrace.

I broke down then, crying my eyes out on her shoulder.

---

Once enough tears were shed, we settled down in the living area, Nimra held my hand and the other two girls sat on my sides, while Rohan sauntered around the house.

"This house is nicer." He announced at one point.

"How's everything back there?" I asked, peering into Nimra's eyes.

She shrugged. "Everyone is trying to pretend you never existed."

My heart sank. "Mama Jaan."

"She's so clearly distressed, but everyone is pretending they don't see her crying every now and then. Agha Zaman doesn't say a word over dinner now. And just-Rohan has been whining since the morning after that he wanted to see you and-and well, they're really good at putting a blind eye towards certain things." Nimra explained, massaging my hands as she did.

"Couldn't you guys have come earlier?" I complained in response, not knowing how to reply to the things she'd told me. Of course, nothing was normal.

"We tried!" Aisha spoke up for the first time. "Nobody would let us. They said you were as good as dead to them."

"The only difference is," Nimra said, her voice low, "when people die, they're remembered greatly at least for the first year."

Encircling her hands around my waist from behind me, Bisma placed her head on my shoulder, and spoke. "Mohib Bhai came you know."

My eyes snapped up to Nimra.

"It was my idea." Aisha said from where she sat beside her, all four of us tucked on the same couch. "I knew Wajiha would have told him something that would definitely not be true, so I told these two to keep an eye on him when he'd come to pick her. We wanted to catch him alone. So, I guess it was the day before yesterday, Wajiha was still not ready, Bisma caught up with him, informed us so we could come down too and then we cornered him. Nimra told him everything, how you were framed and then married off to this crazy lunatic who was banned by his own family."

"Mohib said this was not what he was told, like of course," Nimra rolled her eyes as she continued, taking charge of the tale from Aisha. "So we had to tell him that it was bloody Wajiha herself who was with some guy. He-"

"How did you know?" I cut in. "You weren't there, and I never told you."

"We're not stupid, Warda. It was Wajiha who announced it to the entire house upstairs that you were down with a boy, and then she didn't come back down with the others."

"Plus," Bisma spoke up, "Mohib Bhai himself looked somewhat suspicious."

"Yeah." Nimra nodded. "I swear he looked pensive for a while, maybe he had himself once witnessed Wajiha meeting with that guy."

"But what did he say?" I asked, my heart beating irregularly.

Aisha sighed. "Said he didn't know, and that besides there really was nothing that he could do."

"He could have protested at least." I said quietly, moisture gathering once again. "That I was engaged to him, and they shouldn't have decided for me without asking or so much as informing him."

"That would have brought him nowhere." Nimra said, shaking her head once.

"But I would have known that he at least tried."