Angry. I don't remember the last time I was this angry at someone. I couldn't stand to look at him. I knew he was trying to hide his smile, and if we were not sitting in the airport surrounded by people, I would have pushed him to the ground right now. It was five in the evening. I was waiting for my flight to Karachi because someone turned off my phone and I woke up and missed my train. On top of that, instead of apologizing to me, Shahzaib told me he was coming with me to Karachi. I had always been the one in control; I made all of my decisions in my life, and now he was trying to change that.
'You're not as nervous now' I heard him speaking to me, but I ignored him. I put on my headphone and closed my eyes.
'Why are you following me there?' I took off my headphone and turned my head to look at him.
'What else can I do when you don't talk to me about last night' He raised his eyebrows at me, asking me the same question as before. After we kissed, I didn't trust myself to stay close to him, so I left the room and slept in Aunty's room. She didn't ask me anything I was grateful for, but she told me one thing that stuck with me. I couldn't sleep easily, so we stayed awake and chatted for a while. She said to me we all have different experiences, said although she loves her grandchildren, if Shahzaib ever hurts me, I can always come to her, and she will put him in place. She probably saw me as a soft girl, so she thought I had come to her room because we had a fight. Last night, I saw a glimpse of a strong woman in Shahzaib's grandmother. She reminded me of my Ma. I smiled, seeing her being concerned for me, but I told her everything was fine between us. Then she said that even though Shahzaib is old enough to live alone, seeing him how I complete his life puts me at ease. She said now is not worried about leaving them because now he had me. She slept quickly after telling me everything, but I couldn't help myself from crying.
'Seher' Shahzaib covered my hand with his and looked into my eyes.
'I don't have anything to say about last night, your turn...why are you following me?' I shifted the attention back to him. I thought he would not say anything or say something else, but instead, the hold of his on mine became more firm, and he leaned forward and said.
'You know why' His eyes shifted from my lips to my eyes and back to my lips, and my hands started to sweat in nervousness.
'I have to persuade you to do my film' He held my gaze and slowly smiled as he leaned back to his seat, knowing he had won.
'Don't look at me like that,' I told him when I caught him peeking at me from time to time when I tried to watch a movie on the plane.
'Is it bad to look at your wife' He had the nerve to say?
'You forgot to add fake in front of it,' I replied without giving too much thought to it.
'I think our marriage certificate would disagree,' He responded quickly. I kept my eyes on the screen even when I felt his hand moving towards me, and he slowly brushed the hair from the side of my face, pushing them back behind my ear. I gasped when his finger traced my earlobe and moved down to my jaw and my collarbone, making me shiver and my stomach drop in a weird way.
'Coffee or tea, sir?' The flight attendant came to us, and I pushed his hand away immediately. I noticed the woman when she passed me a very particular glance with a grin before asking.
'Can we get a light snack too?' I asked the lady, and she gave us a pack of fruit cake and crackers with our tea. Shahzaib gave me his snacks without asking and started drinking tea. I opened the pack of fruit cake and handed it to him.
'Don't say anything, just take it,' I told him before he could say something absurd. My mind was trained at a very early age, when I was young, probably around eleven or twelve years of age, I remember I came home, and Ma gave me an envelope of money to give to our landlord to pay the rent. From a very early on, I had to learn to take care of myself and be my own person so even if I am alone, I can take care of myself. I felt like with Shahzaib, I was pretending, this was not me. I only watched out for myself, saved myself first and Ma before anyone else because we did what we had to do to survive, but with Shahzaib, I was becoming someone else. I was trying to win the approval of his family, I was trying to learn how to cook, I was trying to be friends with Saif. I never wanted to try with anyone before I met him.
I sighed in relief when I sat in the taxi to finally go home. There was so much traffic, and the area I lived in was loud and filled with people. This was my life. People like us don't get time to reflect and think in this life. We work, earn, pay our bills and go to work again. Shahzaib had a taste of this life too, but now it was out of it. I wasn't. I used it hate it, I hated being in a condition where if we didn't work for a week, it would make a difference in our bank account, but I also realized that I wasn't the only one living such a life and people in mansions are often just as miserable as us too.
'What are you doing tomorrow?' Shahzaib scooted closer and asked while we were stuck in traffic. I smiled because even though I told him I wouldn't talk to him, probably unless he apologized to me for turning off my phone and making me miss my train, he still went ahead and continued talking to me.
'Anything but seeing or talking to you,' I said with a smile, and he lightly laughed at my comment.
'You will come and talk to me tomorrow,' He said like a challenge, and this confidence in his voice made me turn to look at him. I gave him a questioning look, and he shrugged.
'Ugh, I hate when you do this' I rolled my eyes and looked out the window, away from him. In a quick instant, he held my arm and pulled me towards him. I rested my hand on his shoulder before falling on top of him.
'Shahzaib,' I squealed, glaring at him to let me go. The taxi finally started moving, but everything slowed down when in the dark in the middle of all the noises, he caressed the side of my face, looked into my eyes, and said.
'I can't stay away from you, Seher, and you can't stay away from me either.' I thought I'd see some hesitation in his eyes or something, but he said this to me like a fact. Like he knew this for the fact that I wouldn't be able to stay away from him. I didn't know why, but I grabbed his ear and pulled it tightly, and he grunted as a reaction, making me laugh. I never thought a big man like him could make such a sound. I was laughing hysterically and continued to giggle the entire way whenever I looked at me. Now he'll think twice before being so smug.
'Stop here,' I told the driver when we reached out.
'Bye' I looked at him to say bye but instead of answering he offered to carry my bags to my house. I didn't have spying neighbors, and people in my neighborhood were so busy in their own lives that they didn't care about who was coming in and out, and even if they did, I didn't feel wrong about him coming along with me.
We lived in the second-story apartment, so he carried the bags to the floor. There was hardly any space for two people to stand together in the area in front of our apartment, so he dropped my bags in front of the door, and I awkwardly waited on the stairs below so he could come down.
'You like collecting stickers?' He stepped down the stairs and stood in front of me as we approached our good-bye moment. He probably saw all the stickers I had put on our door.
I shook my head to nod and looked at everything else but him. I could hear the guys who worked at the restaurant below our house yelling and making orders for their customers, rickshaws passing by the road, and women chatting on the floor upstairs.
I was thinking of so many things at once that I was observing and interpreting that when he pulled me in his arms for a hug and then kissed the top of the head, all of that stopped, and I was brought in the present, and in this present, it was just us.
'You are my favorite person Seher' He didn't have to say, but he did. After seeing this part of my life, him saying this now made me wonder if I loved him.
'You are making it very hard for me for other people to catch up to what you are starting to mean to me, and it's making me very scared,' I said weakly when I opened my eyes, and he moved back slightly to look at me, still holding me in his arms like he was trying to imprint this moment in his body and mind.
'I don't plan on leaving in this lifetime unless you really don't want me and if catching feelings for me is scary to you, then you shouldn't be scared, I am not here to hold you back; I am here to make you spread your wings and fly' He whispered and I told him to should go. Fortunately, he didn't say anything to argue with that.
I stood still and watched him go. Right before making me turn and disappear out of my sight, he looked back at waved at me with a sweet smile, a smile of reassurance like he was telling me I could trust him with my heart. I waved back to him with a smile before he left.
'You are my favorite person too,' I said to myself. These words sounded so foreign coming out my mouth. I repeated it then I laughed at my own silliness. I took a deep breath and went upstairs and rang the bell.
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:)