"I don't know perfect people.
I only know flawed people who are still worth loving."- John Green
Mina's POV:
I know I'm dreaming. There really can be no other explanation for the ocean under my feet. It's cold here. Too cold. Shehzer keeps giving me blankets, even though I told him they will get wet. I am worried about Areeb though, he is alone on the shore, lying bloodied up by a rock.
I tread over to him, and cry out over his bruised face.
"Why did you do it Areeb?" I sob to him
"Because of you Minnie Mouse." He smiles at me, despite the bruised lip. "What I did was horrible, and I don't deserve to live. Now you can live happily without me in your life..." He starts to close his eyes.
"NO! DON'T CLOSE THEM!" I scream at him "I can fix you! You'll be fine, you don't need to go yet." I try to touch his face, but he just keeps sliding away from my grasp. It's like the wave-sand thing at the beach; I'm moving away without actually doing anything.
Shehzer is by my side now, trying to hold me. "SShhh...It's okay Love. Everything's ok now. You're just cold." I try to escape his hold, "NO! It was because of me. Just fix it! LET ME FIX IT!!" I find myself suddenly awake by the force of my tears. Shehzer's face peers worriedly at me from above.
What on earth?
I am still shivering, and hiccuping with the cold and the tears. Seeing his tired, scruffy face beside me, made me want to cry some more. I had fallen asleep on the waiting lounge couches of the hospital, using Shehzer's leg as a pillow.
"Ali is going to kill me!!" I wailed in despair, thinking about my brother and the fact that he has no idea where I spent most of my night.
"Not today he isn't." Shehzer chuckles dryly. "He and Adiba just went to grab some coffee. I called him last night and briefed him on the situation. They arrived a little after you nodded off during your prayers."
I grimaced, thinking about my desperate pleas to the almighty.
Please save him, in good health Allah! Please guide him out of his darkness. Please just make him okay again.
Ironically, I'm not even sure I'm supposed to pray for someone who tried to take their own life. I know we aren't supposed to pay respects to them after death, but I'm unclear on the religion's policy on suicide survivors.
"Your dream upset you?" Shehzer asks hesitantly. I nod weakly, drawing my shawl nearer to my face.
"What if he did it because of me Shehzer?" I voice my fears out loud to him.
"That's a stupid thing to assume. He had plenty of time to do something rash in all the months after your breakup, why do it now?" Shehzer's jaw stiffens whenever he mentions my old relationship. "He obviously has a lot of life issues that he dealing with. Trust me, it has nothing to do with you."
I try to hold onto these reassurances of his.
Adiba and Ali are pretty shocked about Areeb's accident.
"Did the Doctor mention why his parents left him to the sharks?" Adiba demanded from me.
"Not really...I think we should ring them up, and find out." I nibble on some crackers Ali got for us.
"I already tried their phones. No response." Ali frowns at his cellphone. "This makes no sense. I mean, I know he is damn fugly to look at, but seriously, who leaves their almost dead child at a hospital surrounded by organ-stealing doctors?....No offense bro." he nods at Shehzer, who raises a brow at him.
I guess the only way to get some information, is to wait for Areeb to wake up.
Shehzer's POV:
I'm so conflicted about the whole Areeb situation, that I feel like two different persons.
A part of me is unwilling to feel anything but pity, and sorrow for the life that Areeb wasted. The vitality, the gift that he was bestowed upon, he treated with cavalier recklessness. I'm sorry for the pain, and the trauma he has gone through, and the disabilities that await him in his future. His parents' attitude is yet another cause to pity him.
But then a second part of me hates Mina's involvement in his life. Irrational jealousy, and treacherous doubts have started to make routine appearances during our vigil outside his trauma room.
She doesn't love you as much as she loves him.
But she's marrying me.
Yeah, after he let go of her...she never came to you. You're the one doing the chasing. Pathetic man.
He hurt her. I will never do the same, and she knows it.
Big deal. She obviously forgave him. Look at the worry etched on her face!
That's because they grew up together.
Exactly! You will never have that depth of history with her. You'll always be the lovesick fool hanging around her, hoping for scraps of affection.
Screw you.
I glance towards Mina surreptitiously. She is speaking to Adiba in low tones. I see her rub her eyes tiredly, before heading over to the restroom. Adiba and Ali leave to catch some air in the hospital garden. It's nearly dawn, and they'll be back after offering Fajr prayers. I decide to find a praying room myself, but Mina's handbag is still lying beside me, and I can't leave it unattended. I can go after she returns.
I yawn a few times, as I blearily try counting the window panes in the waiting area. 25, 26, 27...
A steady ringing is emanating from Mina's bag. I ignore it, hoping it will shut up. If this is her parents, I have no wish to be the one explaining this particular turn of events. 28, 29, 30...
It just won't stop. Hmm...Maybe it's urgent. I crane my neck towards glass doors at the entrance, hoping to catch sight of Mina. Nothing.
I sigh as I tug open her leather tote. Her cell phone is glowing in the dark recesses, and I sigh with relief as I spot a Fajr Alarm icon blinking. While I am turning off the incessant ringing, I catch sight of something horribly familiar in her bag.
A single pearl threaded on a gold chain.
A vision of it lying against her pale neck, all those months ago, stuns me.
A toy Minnie Mouse figurine is lying next to a note that is signed by Areeb. I don't even bother to read anymore before I tug the bag shut, and throw it none too gently across the seat from me.
Why would she ever carry around his gifts; unless she still felt something for him? She barely had time to grab her keys before I came to pick her up; which means she usually carried this around with her.
Disappointment, hurt and rage are coursing through me like a river unleashed. 'Didn't I do everything right? Wasn't she happy with me? Will I never measure up to her first love?' I yank at my hair in frustration.
My Mom's words come crashing at me, "Can you possibly love someone who is hung up on another man?"
She had warned me about this; the possibility of our relationship being too premature for Mina's emotional health. I had blindly believed in my own ability to make her fall for me. Stupid arrogant idiot that I am.
Now we both might be doomed for a relationship that will make us miserable. I won't be able to tolerate the thought of sharing my wife's affection with another man; while She won't share her misgivings with me, and will end up hating me for being too weak to let her go.
Because I still won't let her go. I clench my jaw decisively. She has had very little time to let go of Areeb's shadow; so I'll give her the space and time she needs. Even if it kills me.
"Shehzer." her soft voice breaks into my bleak thoughts. My heart stutters at the sight of her, like it usually does. Her face is freshly scrubbed, and pink with all the crying she has been doing. Her slender frame is swathed in a red wool shawl, and her Winnie the Pooh PJ's are nearly hidden by it. Her hair is in its usual wavy rebellion; mahagony wisps framing her huge eyes, and classic cheekbones. Even without a good night's sleep, she looks beautiful to me.
She always will be my one and only.
If only I were hers.
"Yes?" I ask tonelessly, trying not to let it show on my face that I knew.
"Dr. Minwalla says Areeb is awake now. This is our last chance to speak to him before his surgeries." She bites her trembling lip in worry.
I have to swallow a whole lot of anger and desperation when I reply back, "I think you should be the one to go in."
.................
Mina's POV:
I try not to scrunch my nose at the anti-septic smell that surrounds Areeb's bed. I hesitantly approach his bed, and nearly break down at the close-up view of his injuries. His neck is being supported by a number of braces, and belts. Any violent neck movements can kill him instantly. Frailty, thy name is spinal cord victims.
"You jerk. You just had to go ahead and ruin my Eid day, now didn't you?" I croak to him.
His eyes snap open at my voice.
"Minnie?" he rasps. "Why are you here?"
"Because your surgeon called me. Because your parents aren't here. And because you nearly killed yourself." I retort angrily to him, "You should have thought out the plan more thoroughly before you jumped from a flying machine. Only losers fail at suicide attempts."
"Then I must be the King Of Losers." he jokes miserably.
"Areeb. What happened to you? you owe me an explanation, you know, I have been camping outside your room for the past 8 hours! you drove me out of my bloody mind!" I whisper-shout at him. "Where are your parents? What made you do it, you idiot? didn't you even consider the hell they would have gone through, if you had died."
"The hell they are going through right now, is far much worse Mina, trust me." His lips twitch with a rueful smirk, "They finally know."
I'm speechless by this revelation.
"They finally know what?"
"Why I broke up with you. Why I turned Godless. Why I tried multiple times to take my own life, and why It should have been better for the world if I had managed not to screw it up." His halting speech makes it difficult to catch onto most words, and his pain is physically painful to witness.
"Will you ever tell me about it?" I prod him gently.
He stays silent for so long, I'm worried that he has died on me, but then he starts speaking.
"Promise to hate me for it?" He asks hoarsely.
"I'll promise no such thing."
"You'll do it anyways, so I suppose it doesn't matter. I'm a base degenerate who deserves grisly, painful death. Hate is just a preamble for it." He breathing has turned shallow with emotion, and I find myself without words.
"I'm not normal Mina. I'm not a-a-real man." he stutters, "I'm gay."
There are rare moments in your life, when you can actually feel your brains functions give up on you. Mind, and body refuse to cooperate, and you're left with a vegetable collection of limbs that stay frozen in time and space.
This was one of those moments for me.
"Why on earth would you ever propose to me then?" I ask mechanically, refusing to accept his ideas. He's lying. He has to be lying...
"Do you think I accepted it easily?" He asks bitterly, and goes on to shatter my sheltered ideals, and juvenile sensibilities. "I battled against my own nature Mina. I was convinced it was all in my head, and I refused to accept my own...abnormality. Proposing to you was a last effort on my part to fix myself. I knew if I could ever grow to love a woman, it would have been you...I raged against God, for making me this way. It just didn't seem fair, that he created me, but also forbids me to be myself."
I am speechless at his reference to our religion's stance against homosexuality, but even more so at his confession regarding me. He used me. He knew what he was, yet he was willing to ruin my life for selfish reasons.
"Why do you think I got into extreme sports? I knew my recklessness will eventually help me end my wretched life." He snorts weakly, "Not that I ever had the courage to actually succeed, as you can see...When I told you about my dilemma during our engagement, you told me to seek a religious authority Minnie, do you recall?"
I don't even respond, yet he continues.
"Well, I found a fucking religious quack, with my luck. He used to lecture at my old university, imagine that!" He gasps raggedly to struggle with his speech. "He told me that I could cure myself. I wanted to be "cured" Mina... as if there's such a thing for people like me. I wanted to be a-a-husband for you, so I did as he told me to do."
I want to run screaming from this horrible room now, because I can almost sense what is coming next.
"He told me to screw a woman; any woman , and that would cure me of my queerness. As if I could break a magical curse with this sin. Surely, no evil is as big, and as diabolical as my mere existence. Surely, one sin can stop me from committing a thousand more...." His eyes leak moisture that gets absorbed by the bed's white linen. His sarcasm is caustic.
"I believed him Minnie. World-class idiot that I am. He was so charismatic, so learned, so knowledgeable that I conceded my lack of religious belief in favor of his authority. The irony will kill you though..." He rasps out a bitter laugh. "After I forced myself to do the evil deed, do you know what I felt?"
I find myself shaking my head numbly through all this information.
"Nothing." Areeb whispers brokenly. "Nothing changed for me. I am still the same aberration that my society spits at. I am still the deviant who hates his own body. I am still the man who could never be enough for you."
I thought Areeb had destroyed me before.
I was wrong.
A/N:
Hi there,
My smooth-running story has turned into choppy waters. I'm aware of the unprecedented topic, and taboo plot that has emerged. I would like to reiterate a point very clearly here, that Areeb's ideals and thoughts about homosexuality is not what I believe in, my beliefs are something I'd prefer not to impose on my audience (you can learn about them by researching on Islam's view on this, which is basically what I did, prior to writing this novel).
The reason for choosing such a sensitive topic is the fact that this is a reality which few in our society are willing to deal with. My focus is on two aspects of Areeb's story,
a) Religious quacks that misguide people.
b) Innocent women who find themselves married to struggling homosexuals. (Based on a true story)
Just because it doesn't happen often, doesn't mean it is any less devastating. Blindly believing someone else's interpretation of your religion is toxic for our society. We're all humans, and humans can make mistakes, but Allah doesn't make any mistakes. I urge everyone facing spiritual dilemmas to seek out the Holy Quran yourself, and find the answers you're searching for.
May Allah bless you, and guide you to a better life, and after-life. (Ameen)
Do Vote and Comment, and let me know your thoughts about these developments.