Besabriyan

19|NINETEEN

Could he stop this nikah? Would he be willing to save her from the endless pit she was pushing herself into? Would he come rushing to her to save her like he had always claimed? Would he fulfil the promises he made to her in her early ages as a doting father?

And a hundred more questions skimmed through her mind before her father could even respond to her salam. He hardly called her to check on her because she knew he had his ways to keep an eye on his daughter. Manha never kicked Kamran out of their daughter's life because well he could never stop being a father to Maheen like he stopped being a husband to her and it was unfair to keep them away from each other.

"Walaikum salam, beta." In her father's elderly and warm voice, she found herself seeking comfort although she didn't know why he was calling her out of the blue. It's not as if he never did, he did check on her at times through texts. "How are you doing?"

"Allah malik hai." She pursed her lips to stop herself from oversharing. She stopped herself so she wouldn't go around and tell almost everything about her life to a man who was mostly absent from her life. She looked down at her feet, chewing on the insides of her left cheek and praying that her father wouldn't ask any more about her life. Of all things he could ask her, she wanted her life matters to be the last thing they discussed about.

"I talked to Abul Kashem earlier today," A sharp pain almost tore the flesh of her cheek when she bit hard in shock. Her mamu jaan was the only man after her mother who resented her father to no end and he called Kamran and so she knew they weren't just talking. Her father continued when she hummed, "He told me you're getting married." Her eyes clamped shut. Nobody seemed to be getting enough of her marriage and she had had enough remainders already. She had had about a hundred remainders that she pushed away the love of her life only to be with a man- a lesser man who her mother chose for her.

"And as your father, I am invited."

So?

As insensitive as she sounded to herself, Maheen bit her words and swallowed them only to listen more from him. She was sure her mother would toss the house and everything in it if she got a glimpse of her father in her sanctuary. No resentment was greater than the one that was born from betrayal and Manha carried that in her heart- the resentment and the aftermath of betrayal. But Maheen was in no place to stop him from attending her marriage, he was her father- a fact that no one could deny.

"I would love to have your presence on my wedding."

Lies.

Lies.

Lies.

A voice in the back of her head taunted but then that was what she had become in recent days. A lie in herself. A shell of who she was and the ghost of who she wanted to be. Life, for her, had come to a place where everything she loved was being taken away. It started from him and then her writing. Layah Kamran hadn't been able to write a single word after the night she broke his heart or maybe that was the curse that was bestowed upon her. To be deprived of all that meant the world to her.

"Can we meet for lunch tomorrow? I want to see my daughter." Her throat constricted with reluctance. She had been a prey to so many things and she feared she would become one if she agreed to the lunch. Meanwhile, she couldn't use permission as an ultimatum, for her father and she knew that her mother would never stop her from meeting him no matter how far he had been pushed away from Manha's life.

"Okay, you can send me the address. We will meet somewhere near my office in the lunch hour, if it's okay with you?"

"Anything is okay with me." She could hear smile in his voice as if he was elated to meet her. The father who had barely made plans to meet his daughter, was calling out of the blue.