*Mild trigger warning*: Towards the end there's a brief mention of the suicide attempt mentioned chapter: 17
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Salma stood by the window, staring out of it aimlessly. Her features were set into a grim line. Her mind was still reeling from the events of the day. From her confrontation with Zayn, to finding his drawings, and finding about his lies from Jason to William's chilling story of Zayn's past. It overwhelmed her. She had no idea what to think of it all. For some reason, Asim's warning earlier that morning, about a man's ego and his hideous games, kept resurfacing in Salma's mind. She kept asking herself, which one of her insults did Zayn take so much to heart that he was bent of making her life a living hell.
She felt a cold shiver run down her spine when she remembered William's words from earlier.
"He can go to any lengths, once he gets obsessed with something," Her cousin had warned after, "And by any lengths, I mean it literally, he'd do anything! Put nothing past him . . . Expect him to turn up asking you to teach him Islam, or even -"
Dean and Salma snapped their eyes at him as if struck by a lightening.
"No, I mean it!" William insisted, "Actually scratch that, expect him to turn up asking to say the shahadah. He'd be praying five times a day, waking up for tahajud, find a way to let you know he's done it, and fast alternate days even. Expect him to go that far! I'm telling you. I've seen him up close. He's mental when it comes to hitting his targets!"
"And for what?!" Dean said, incredulously, "Aren't you getting carried away?"
"Wish I were," William chuckled humorlessly, before turning to Salma, "You know he visited you in that hospital during your coma, right?"
Salma's eyes widened. She was shocked and embarrassed that William would randomly bring that up.
"Hold up!" Dean furrowed his brow. "What am I missing?"
"Yes, I told you I believed you when no one did because I saw him that day," William continued, ignoring Dean, "I saw him at the hospital."
"But --"
"Like I said, he can go to any lengths," William emphasized, "The first thing I did that day was ask to check the security cameras in your room. They delayed to give us any access. I knew they wouldn't just show it to a random bloke so I took Dr. Nadeem with me. The head of neurology department and chief of the hospital; ordered them to show the footage of the past hour in that room and they delayed. I know he got the footage wiped clean before they showed it to anyone. And I know for a fact that he was there, footage or not."
Dean whistled, not getting the full story but enough to understand the point William was making. Zayn's connections are strong and powerful. In simpler terms, he could easily get things done and worm his way out whenever he wanted.
Salma swallowed, the numbness preventing her from saying anything in reply. She knew Alex must have wiped the footage and she was sure Zayn had visited her during her coma. He admitted it to her himself not too long ago. Although, Zayn had told her he was only trying to get her up and Salma had always been skeptical of that claim, but she could never have entertained the idea that he would actually be this sick and twisted back then. Salma had thought he was just a disrespectful jerk who did not agree with her religious views so he was intruding her physical space to spite her.
"I wish he weren't, but Harris isn't all brawn," William added solemnly, snapping her out of her thoughts "He's got the brains, not to mention the money. It's a powerful combination for one man to have, but mostly dangerous," He looked up at her, almost wearily, "I hate to say this, but you've caught his interests. I mean, I know this sounds terribly indecent, but -"
William stopped abruptly, noticing how distressed Salma looked. It was like he was confirming her suspicions. If William had come to this conclusion, then that would mean she was simply in denial; like an ostrich burying it's head in the sand, or a pigeon closing it's eyes. She stared at her cousin, dreading his next words, her chest getting uncomfortably tight.
Realizing she was panicking, Dean thought it best to not slap the reality into her face and let her at least entertain the idea of accepting it first.
"Come on, man! You can't just -"
"People don't stand up to him, or challenge him and she did . . ." He sighed, cutting Dean, before turning to Salma, "It was a given you would do this, considering how he is. I'm not blaming you or anything, but he takes things personally. Takes it as a challenge - and before he loses control and starts beating me," He pointed at Dean, who quickly got rid of the glare and gave Salma a sheepish smile, "I'll just say be careful,"
Salma knew William regretted scaring her like that, but he wanted her to not underestimate the evil ways of the dark haired boy.
"I think we should leave," Dean announced, getting worried over how pale Salma looked. "Thanks for meeting up, William."
After her meeting with William, Salma refused to go home with Dean. Partially, because she did not want to spike Asim's suspicion on leaving early and partly because she wanted time to let everything sink in. Dean was hesitant but she managed to send him away.
Salma was only slightly aware of the fact that she managed to go through the hour without crying. She hated crying, but she had to admit, it eased her pent up emotions a lot quickly. And at that moment, nothing was helping. She had visited Sarah to clear her head, but her friend was asking her - what sounded like - irrelevant questions, and it was riling her up more.
"Was he calm when he said that?" Sarah asked in a lazy tone.
Salma threw her an irked side glance.
"Does it matter?" she asked bluntly, watching mist collect on the window pane as she spoke.
Sarah stayed quiet for a while, as if contemplating.
"Yes," she said a moment later. "Yes, it does."
Salma gritted her teeth.
"And why is that?" she asked in a controlled voice.
"Because that would help me evaluate if I want to give Zayn the benefit of a doubt or not," Sarah announced.
Salma's eyebrows shot up.
"Oh," she said sarcastically. "So he denies he's been intruding my personal space when I was unaware, not once, not twice but thrice. Then he goes around looking like a puppy I'd kicked in the face when I retaliate and emotionally manipulates Jason to lie to me about the whole, box dropping affair making me think I was sick, evil and judgmental, and you still want to know if you want to give him the benefit of doubt?!"
"The answer is no," Salma exclaimed. "No, you don't!"
Sarah pursed her lips, frowning at the roof for a while before sitting up.
"Listen, I'm supposed to be the neutral one here," Sarah began. "You came here asking me to help you make sense of whatever is going on but this is useless if you're not willing to take an outsider's opinion on this. I told you weeks ago that there is a possibility that he likes you --"
"He doesn't!" Salma snapped.
"See?" Sarah gestured at her interference.
Salma closed her eyes, taking in deep breaths.
"Guys like him, don't like girls, they play them like pawns on a chessboard," Salma said, "Liking someone implies you respect them; who they are, what they do? You don't impose yourself on them, you don't trick and insult them constantly. You don't try to blow up their hard work and you certainly don't lie to them. Ever!"
"But what if he likes you?" Sarah argued.
"Like that's supposed to make any of what he did alright?!"
"No, but that's totally different from someone being a predator serving his ego and his hormones in how you want to address the problem," Sarah explained making Salma turn away from her in annoyance, "I understand you have a mind filter on now that you've heard your cousin's story -"
"I --"
"Don't deny it Salma," Sarah interfered. "You're not human if you say don't view him through a special lens that displays him as brutal, stone-hearted, bag of testosterone with pretty eyes and hair thicker than mine --"
What? Salma's mouth hung open.
"-- who uses that to draw girls in and then make'em miserable till they kill themselves off," Sarah continued unfazed. "I know I made him sound like a dementor but that's how your cousin portrayed him for us."
Salma stayed quiet. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh or just jump out of the window.
"P-Pretty eyes?" she looked at her friend, freaked out, getting sidetracked for the first time that day, since when did Sarah start choosing weird nicknames for people?
Sarah sighed.
"I know." She rolled her eyes. "Zayn keptcalling me Snob so I started picking on his 'oh, so pretty eyes'. Now, I just can'tstop calling him that. It gave me immense spiritual powers when I remember hisscowl every time I called him 'Pretty eyes.'"
Salma blinked, still at a loss for words.
"Anyway, what I'm saying is, if he's a predator, it makes it simple for you," Sarah continued, pulling out of her thoughts, "If he likes you, that makes it hard. That's all I am getting at. It's not as simple as you think."
Salma's dark scowl returned, together with her temper.
"He. Doesn't. Like. Me!" Salma hissed through gritted teeth. The mere idea of having caught Zayn's interest made her want to throw up. "His hideous actions testify to that! He lied to me. I mean, who in the world would drug a person they wanted to impress? That alone is very telling of the kind of person he is!"
"Salma," Sarah muttered tiredly, pressing her fingers to her eyes. For once she had no idea how to approach her friend so as not to make her even angrier.
"Look," she tried again. "I'm not saying what he did was not vile. It is. And I would have snapped his neck already if I were you. But I don't agree with you on his motive."
Salma tried to keep her flaring temper in check but to no avail. Sarah's calm and collected responses, for once, were making her mad instead of helping her see sense.
"You want to give him the benefit of a doubt?" Salma asked.
"Like we are supposed to, yes," Sarah shrugged. Salma scoffed turning away, making Sarah hasten to try to explain her point of view once more. Salma scoffed turning away. "Salma, he saved your life. It takes more than just a simple explanation of him being a pervert to explain why he would --"
"Lie to me or drug me?" she asked, eyeing her friend coldly. "I see my word is not enough for you?"
"Come on," Sarah rolled her eyes, "That's not what I mean."
"No, it clearly sounds like you don't want to take my word for it!"
Deep down, Salma knew she was being unreasonable because she was the one who asked Sarah for her opinion, but at that moment, she wanted clear answers. If there was no clear answer, Salma felt the need to put her guard up.
Sarah sighed. She realized Salma was at a point, where she just wanted to hear Sarah agree with her and she could not do that. No matter how bitter, Sarah prefered stating the truth. And the truth to her was Salma was dealing with the whole mess as if two negatives make a one positive. They don't. Real life is not math. The answers are not simple.
"Give me a few minutes, please," she started calmly. "Let me explain, what I have in my head."
Salma stayed quiet.
"Please," Sarah added again, receiving a stiff nod from her friend.
"If you go with my assessment of his crazed up behavior," Sarah began, avoiding saying the words 'he likes you' to keep Salma calm, "Then that explains why he's been following you around, why he offered to assist you in your project and why he was willing to jump in, despite the obvious danger to his own life the other night.
"If you take into consideration his horrible personality, then that also explains that he's getting impatient. He wants you to accept him around you and you've got your guard up for obvious reasons. This has worked oppositely for the both of you."
"He, being afraid of rejection, is getting panicked and weary of making a mistake. You, despite your continual denials of him not having an interest in you, have always, always dreaded it. You feared it would happen. You knew when it was happening, but you chose to deny it. You developed a habit of finding faults with him. Like, you were always waiting for him to put a toe out of the line. And even if he kept reminding himself not to, he'd do it. Even before you'd known if he'd lied to you about the box, you believed he did. Frustrated at his failure, he manhandled you later."
Salma opened her mouth to argue that she was right in the end, but Sarah cut her off.
"Following what happened after you were attacked, even before you knew if he did something when you were drugged, you're certain he has violated you. What I am saying is, if the cycle continues, you'd be at a point where he'd actually just go for any chance he can get, to get something out of catching you off guard. He wouldn't really care. You not giving him the benefit of doubt is making him hyper sensitive to not offend you, only to end up offending you."
Salma stared at her uncertainly, her blood boiling over. She knew Sarah was only telling her all of this to help her strategize how she should react to Zayn's misbehavior but for now, it was not working. Sarah giving him excuses, and telling her she had part to play in him going demon on her, was only feeding her anger.
"I see." Salma smiled, a sour grimace that never reached her eyes. "So I enjoy picking fights with him? Conjuring stuff up in my mind because --"
"What I am saying is," Sarah interrupted, "Baseless blame game will only encourage his sick behavior around you. You don't have -"
"I have every reason to not trust his word!" Salma raised her voice.
"Salma." Sarah got up from her seat.
"That innocent until proven guilty nonsense would have made sense only if he had not violated me before," Salma continued hotly, "There are only so many chances you can give a person before you look like a fool. Forgiveness has a limit! Giving someone the benefit of a doubt has a limit! Kindness and being fooled are two different things!"
"I know, I know!"
"He's a bloody creep! He gets some mad satisfaction out of - out of . . ."
Salma closed her eyes, getting overwhelmed. What did he do when she was drugged? How far did he go?
Her insides churned with anxiety and disgust. She felt so freaking dirty that it sickened her. She felt pressure around her arms, making pain shoot through her injured bicep.
"Salma," Sarah held her by the arms, shaking her slightly. "Salma, listen to me. I know where you are coming from, okay," she said gently. "I understand --"
"I know where you are coming from, okay," She said gently, "I understand -"
She cut off abruptly when Salma wiggled out of her hold, pulling her injured arm out of her grasp.
"You sided with him," she said bluntly, eyeing Sarah with distrust.
"Salma --"
"How long has it been going on?" She demanded, the feeling of betrayal creeping into the pit of her stomach.
"What're you talking about?" Sarah questioned.
"You," Salma said, "And Zayn - oh wait, Pretty eyes, was it? How long has it been going on?"
"What?!"
Sarah's face contorted into an expression of disbelief, but Salma was not convinced. No one can resist her, she knew. A person so pure and sincere, it only takes one meeting to trust her and a minute to spill your heart out. There is no way Zayn was not frequenting her with his worries, after having crossed paths with her.
"Salma, do you even hear yourself," Sarah fumed, "Zayn and I? Are you crazy! I'd rather go out with -"
"I cannot pour my heart out to a person who is his shoulder to cry upon too," Salma said, her voice bland, completely devoid of any emotions.
Salma knew she was not being fair. Sarah was her own person and Salma had no right choosing for her the people she could interact with and those she could not, but some things cannot co exist. She and Zayn sharing a listener was one of those things. She did not want to take consul from the same head and heart, that was busy giving consul to the boy she had problems with.
Sarah watched her wide- eyed, as Salma backed away. The feeling of betrayal and pain clear in her dark brown eyes, even if she attempted to feign nonchalance.
"Don't try to contact me again," Salma muttered, pulling her niqaab up. "Salamo'alaykum,"
Coming out of the room, Salma walked away, with one less friend and an even heavier heart.
***
Zayn, who was standing outside Snob's door, had heard everything after Salma accused her of siding with him. He watched in a stunned silence as Salma came out of Snob's room and rushed past him. She was so wrecked after breaking ties with her best friend that she did not even notice him standing in the hallway.
Zayn doubted Sarah would have defended him because she could barely stand him herself, but he was shocked that Salma had guessed he was now seeing Sarah for his problems. Zayn turned around to see Sarah's eyes looking dead and blank. A shawl was hapazardly wrapped around her head and face, giving Zayn the idea that she had just hastily herself with it. Sarah's gaze flitted to him standing outside her door. Zayn backed away awkwardly, feeling guilty.
"I'm sorry," he apologized, looking over his shoulder to Salma's receding figure. "I-I really didn't . . ."
Zayn trailed off not knowing what to say. Looking away, Sarah tried to play it cool and shrugged a shoulder.
"'S alright, I guess," Sarah whispered, her voice thick with tears, "I knew she would not like it if she found out . . ."
Looking over his shoulder again, Zayn watched Salma's receding back disappear around the corner, her head hung low as she stormed out of the building. She was probably crying.
No, Zayn thought silently,it's not okay.
Feeling personally responsible for having messed up their friendship, Zayn attacked his hair in frustration. Cursing, he turned around to follow Salma out of the building, ignoring Sarah's calls to let her be.
***
"It's not what you think it is," Zayn pleaded.
Salma turned away from him, hiding her tear streaked face as she wiped her eyes dry with her sleeve.
"Leave me alone," Salma muttered stiffly, sniffing as she did so.
"Please," Zayn tried again, crouching by bench she was sitting on, "I swear, I'm not lying to you this time. She was only helping me with --"
"I don't care whatever you two were doing," she cut in harshly, acting disinterested. "I really don't. What she does is none of my concern. It's her business."
Salma got up to leave. Zayn moved to block her path.
"Please, Bee, just listen to me this once."
"Don't waste your breath!" Salma dismissed him. Swallowing the lump in her throat, she avoided his gaze as she reached for her bag.
"But you --"
"Move, Zayn!" Salma said forcefully, losing her patience with him.
"Bee, please."
Salma shouldered her bag and pushed past him. Zayn persisted, refusing to budge. That made Salma snap as her annoyance level crossed its limits.
"What more do you want from me?!" She yelled, making a few heads turn towards them, but Salma did not care anymore. She had had enough, "Tell me what do you want!"
Zayn's stared at her, his lips parted in surprise. Before he could come up with a response, she exploded in his face.
You ruined my project! Harassed me in classes, invaded my privacy and then lied to me! You insulted and threatened me! You drugged me and kept me in your house against my will! You tried to turn my family against me! And now you took away my best friend!" Salma cried, breaking down completely, "What more do you want from me?!"
Zayn just stared at her, an equal mix of guilt and pain swimming in his eyes.
"Tell me?!" Salma beckoned, her voice raising even more.
He said nothing, while the people watched between the two, their features showing the shock and curiosity.
"Tell me, Zayn! What else do you -"
"I want you!" He burst out, shutting her off effectively, and making a few students jump, "You're the one I want! I want a chance to have you! All of you!"
Salma felt numb under his intense gaze, holding raw emotions. She back away from him, her tear-filled eyes swimming with horror. She felt weak at her knees as all the feeling in her legs left her. Reaching out behind her, she blindly held onto the back of the bench for support.
No! She back away, eyes wide, lips parted, No he-
"That's all I ever wanted from you, Bee," Zayn's voice cracked, "Can you give me that?"
Author's Note:
There! Now she's been told! Sad chapter I know :( . . . And yes, Salma knew all along but she was a being a pigeon. The idea scared her so much that she decided it never existed. Thing is, closing your eyes doesn't mean the cat is gone. It means you're dinner. And again, yes, even someone like Salma can do stupid stuff. Despite all her 'taking care' and 'being cautious', she still ended up in a mess. Don't close your eyes and ignore small signs. Be vigilant.
Fun story: The initial draft of this chapter had 2500+ words. The final 4000 *sigh* I'm a lost cause :P
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J.