Murtasim had found Meerab at Rohail's flat. When he had called Rohail from Saba's phone, he could decipher from the conversation that Meerab had been at that leech's house for a good quarter of an hour.
It burnt him on the inside, fueled his core with desire to pummel Rohail Hadi alive, bury him in the depths of the Earth where he wouldn't even breathe the same air his wife did.
Did all that he do really have no meaning for Meerab? Was she blind to not see that he was pining for her and crushed in his unrequited love, living in the soul crushing mortification that the woman he had grown to love might not consider him worthy of her affections.
He treasured every touch, every glance, every interaction that they had - like it was these moments that he was stealing and cementing into memories to keep his Meerab - starved soul alive.
And with every indiscretion of hers, his heart broke a little. In her indifference, she left him cold.
Loving Meerab felt like his own personal hell sometimes, burnt by the touch of the flames and only desiring more.
When he saw that the bastard was holding his wife's hand, it was like someone had poured acid down his throat and he was choking on it.
He had beaten him till he was satisfied, till Meerab had held him back, pleading with him for Rohail's safety.
It was easy for her, wasn't it, to condemn her husband to hell by dismissing his feelings and then plead for another man's life in the same breath. Didn't he deserve a tiny smidgen of affection from her, didn't he deserve for her treacherous lips to only call out his name, in love, in affection, in anger; in all the emotions Meerab would be kind enough to bestow on him?
Couldn't she see that she was killing him?
Even after all this had happened, she had stubbornly refused to apologize, claiming that Rohail was a classmate and she had a right to meet him.
Did she believe the lies she told him with so much conviction, without so much as an ounce of regret? How easy it had been for her to invalidate his feelings!
Well, two people could play the damn game. He had enough. The thought of him never being enough for her, her never reciprocating even an iota of the love he wanted to shower on her drained him mentally.
He needed a break and he made this amply clear to her - that he was going to the gaon, he did not know when he would return and hoped that this would give her some much needed sukoon. The word sukoon came out in a mix of spite and exhaustion, as if he wouldn't get to know sukoon till Meerab Murtasim Khan loved him.
Not even once did he mention Rohail, that speck of useless loser didn't matter, what mattered was that she was running far and fast away from him and he was getting tired of chasing her down. It was either find her and pin her down or give up. In an utter defeatist attitude, he chose the latter for the first time it came to his stubborn wife. What mattered to him was that his own expectations from her were proving to be his ruin, Rohail the pest had just acted as a bloody catalyst.
He was going away.
It would be good for them to have some time apart!
ღ
He had gone.
It wasn't good for her.
It had been a week of no contact.
His memories lingered over the room. When she woke up in the morning, she looked over to the sofa just to check if Murtasim had come back. A glimpse of him stretched lazily on that sofa would have been a sight for sore eyes. On the days she woke up before him, she had taken her time to commit details of his face to memory. The worry lines on his forehead, all disappeared to give way to a childlike innocence. Once, when she was tempted, she had stolen a caress, moving a stray lock of hair away from his forehead. He looked at peace when he slept, no angry contortions, no wild nightmares touched him.
When he woke up, the first thing he did was go to the gym. By the time Meerab came out of the shower, all freshened up to start her day, he came back from the gym, a hot sweaty mess. They would then go down to have breakfast and from then on, till late evening, while Murtasim engaged himself in ministrations of the gaon, Meerab was called in by Maa Begum to deal with the matters of arbitration for the women. At night, while she scrolled on her phone, he teased her curiosity by always having a book in his hand before he went to sleep. She remembered with a pang the time he had fallen asleep sprawled on the sofa with the book lying open on his chest. He had looked too adorable and she took an innocuous photo, the only one she had of him on her phone.
She had picked up her phone to contact him, but had thrown it on the bed the very next moment, a sad mix of craving and ache plaguing her heart.
Why hadn't Murtasim called her? Was he okay? When was he going to come back?
Maa Begum was in blissful ignorance, unaware that something was wrong with the kids. Always so watchful, she had been distracted by the upcoming carnival in the gaon which required her to be fully immersed in preparations.
It had been two weeks of no contact.
It was as if the couple had an unsaid bet of who breaks first?
The prize? A chance to hear the other person's voice.
The cost? Admittance of feelings.
She missed everything, every bittersweet memory with him gnawing away at her heart.
The banter.
The laugh that followed.
The smile he let sit on his face, washing away all his worries.
On the third day of the second week, the yearning so intense that she had started to physically feel it, she tried sleeping on the sofa, curled up with a book of his she had taken out of his collection.
An old soul, he annotated his books, it was as if he was holding a personal conversation with the author. Reading it felt like she was robbing him of his privacy yet she had an in to a sanctum in which only Murtasim and his love for art existed. She had woken up with a very sore back, having spent the night tossing and turning.
Damn that ridiculous piece of paper, he's sleeping on the bed when he comes back.
By the end of the second week and still refusing to give in, she had sat in the garden with his shawl wrapped around her. It felt like a hug from him; the scent musky, deep and masculine. The instant she had wrapped his shawl around her, it had preyed upon her longing for Murtasim existence and lulled her into calm. It felt like home, Murtasim Khan had begun to feel like home. Memories of him giving her hand when her parents left her at the Khan Haveli, him hugging her when he found her after she had been kidnapped, goddamn sacrificing himself for her caused guilt to wrack her body. The tears came slow at first and soon, she was choking on her sobs.
She missed him. How easily had she abandoned the concerns he held for her!
She was sitting with a book of his that perhaps she wasn't supposed to touch. It was his to give to her. It had a pressed rose in it, full of annotations written as love notes and below the declaration, in his beautiful handwriting, he had written
Meerab
Meri Ghalibi, meri Hayati, meri Rouhi
Meri Meerab
She carefully went through the book and the annotations and cried. It was like he had shared parts of his soul with her, surrendering them to her, hopeful that she would be gentle in her love as he had been in opening up his soul.
She had lost, lost in the bet and hoping to still win the affections of her husband, she picked up her phone and pressed dial on his number with trembling fingers.
He picked up in one ring.
"Murtasim" a shaky whisper of his name left her lips and as if the past two weeks hadn't happened, he asked immediately "Meerab, kya hua? Tum thik ho?"
"I miss you, I miss you Murtasim. I am sorry for everything. Please-
"I miss you too." She might have missed that wretched whisper of his beautiful voice if she hadn't paid careful attention.
"Please ghar vaapis aajao."
"I am coming."
Hellu, can you guys please be brutally honest with your comments? I need loads of constructive criticism. Leave comments, inline ones too as to what you liked, what you hated and if this angsty plot resonated with you. As always, I appreciate your comments and love reading them.
Also, do check out the song above, I feel it goes well with this one shot.
Ghalibi - One who has conquered your heart
Hayati - Life
Rouhi - Soul