I couldn't wrap my head around the injustice that I had been put through. It was all I thought about night and day as I was now trapped with Sara in Khizer's apartment. Khira had locked me out of my own home…not unlike how my mother threw her out. She wouldn't hear me out at all; neither of my texts, calls or voicemails….just like how I ignored her when she tried to unknowingly tell me that she was pregnant. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw her at work the very next day! She didn't even look upset or anything! She should have been angry at me, or upset that her husband was caught into a trap. She should have understood already that it was Sara who made that move on me…but when she asked me why I bothered to look for Sara despite everything she put us through…I couldn't answer her. I cornered her to ask her exactly what she did when she ran off with Khizar she actually had the nerve to laugh at me before telling me that Khizer had left to see his family in Saudi Arabia that was why he left the apartment to Sara who still had no money, no work and nothing to rely on. As disastrous as her deeds were, I couldn't just leave her alone defenceless either…and despite her obsessive nonsense, she was still the only ceros who was willing to have a decent conversation with me for almost a year now.
I shouted, I screamed, I cried at the injustice I was facing but noisy cared at all, nobody gave me any sympathy and now I had my deranged cousin making moves on me whenever she could. She didn't even seem fazed by her latest move at all. She seemed to be living in some sort of dream land where she started acting like my wife again; cooking inedible food for me, getting Khizer's clothes ready for me which she had no idea how to do, waiting for me to come home from work…I tried to leave the apartment whenever I could just to try to clear my head and get some space…but Sara followed me everywhere like a damned leech! All she did was cause scenes now whoerver I went; restaurants, hotels, to the gym…she constantly accused me of trying to sneak off to meet with Khirad! As if she had let me get within 20ft of her. She treated me like the plague, but thankfully she let me see Hareem whenever I wanted after her schooling…but I was beginning to shut down now. I had lost everything once again thanks to my delusional cousin who hadn't learnt anything at all whatsoever. She isolated me from everybody and made me feel like more of a fool than I was already made out to be. But what broke me the most was that Khirad, the first love of my life, my life partner, didn't even give me a chance to explain things, nor give our marriage a third chance. I knew she was angry at me for the past but I really had no idea that I…disgusted her on this level that she almost prepared the divorce straight away. I had a meltdown of my own when I saw that…but I had to admit that after 2 months of living in this nightmare, that I was indeed experiencing my own karma. Staking Khirad on validated that point to me even more; seeing how she lived her life whist I lived in miserly, social isolation…and injustice showed me exactly what she had been through…alone, aggrieved and pregnant. As a woman, I was very surprised at the strength she possessed to have survived this ordeal, and for 5 years at that. Every negative look my way left me feeling humiliated, every whisper behind my back made me paranoid, overtime a stranger approached me in the streets they still asked me questions about the incident that took place at Sara's 'almost' wedding, put me in a bad mood. And these interactions were so repetitive that not only did I constantly loose my temper, but my pride a a few times as well, fighting random people in the streets and constantly having to prove my innocence over and over again to a bunch of strangers…when the one person who should have heard it didn't even want to know.
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I tended to Ashar far better than his dowdy wife ever could; I cooked him foods that I knew he loved, I started doing laundry for the first time only for him, I shopped for men's toiletries even though Khizer had more than enough…I guess I was just exited to have him to myself again. Finally, he would look at me again, talk to me again, I knew that he would even help me get back to word; he was the heir of his father's business after all. And Khizer had stopped paying the bills on his place so it was up to us…well…him to make sure we both had roofs over our heads. And it was going well, even when Khirad finally served him the divorce papers I felt like the world was finally right again. I was so happy I literally planned a party in the apartment just for the two of us. But I guess he was still under that cow's spell.
He had a meltdown, the first one I had ever seen before from him. He tore down the balloons I took hours to blow up, he flipped over the table where I had spent the last of his money on good food, and he basically tore up Khizer's apartment in a rage that surpassed my own. I was in such shock that I had even dropped the cake I had taken all day to make just for him! I asked him what was wrong over and over again, I even tried to go to his side and comfort him…but he pushed me away again onto the floor.
I completely snapped at this point; I asked him what the hell his problem was when he should be happy that he was finally free at this point, but he…he continued with the same rant he did at my wedding! I was in total disbelief; why wasn't he happy yet that he had gotten rick of that poor life-sucking leech! It was only the two of us again, just like it had always been for all of these years…and he still hand't fallen for me? No…I didn't believe it, I couldn't. I…i was everything had ever known and vice versa…nobody else had come between us and nobody couldn't…they couldn't.
So admist my anger and my shock, I finally had the courage to ask him properly, if he had finally fallen for me or not…and the answer he gave me was one that I could not accept, so much so that I also flew into a rage that matched his. In between his repetitive monologue of 'how dirty I was by the deeds I had committed', 'I was nowhere near pure and innocent like Khirad was'…bet when I heard him admit that 'he was always looking for someone different from his social circle anyways', that completely broke me. I had never heard him say that before in all of my life…if only I had known, then I would have changed myself for him a long time ago…I could have been his wife before Khirad even came to this city with her mother…our lives would have been completely different…
That train of thought alone made me angry, very angry. My heart felt like it was about to burst open and I was starting to feel nauseous. I was so conflicted with overwhelming emotions that I…I just tried to make the pain stop…so I just remember grabbing the nearest thing I could and I wanted to just make the pain go away, even if it mean t slicing my own wrists. So I had no why Ashar would stop that…he shouldn't have tried to stop me. He told me he wanted nothing to do with me, so why would he stop me? I tried with all my might just to take the knife from him and back into my hands. I didn't mean for him to…fatally injure himself. One minute the knife was in my hands, and the next he was pressing onto his neck to keep the blood from spurting all over the place. I picked, I screamed, I apologised over and over again. I tired to find the home phone in the mess that he made, intending to call for the ambulance…but when I heard him call for Khiarad again…I had truly lost all hope. I laughed a good laugh…before I placed myself next to him and I took the already bloody knife to my neck…and I took his hand into mine, thinking of what could have been if he just gave me a chance….