Living Royalty

38. Was this a nightmare of some sort?

ARIF'S P.O.V

It took some time for my mind to decipher what Asif told me. First, finding out that Mr. Yan was responsible plotting against my family for the past twelve years. Now, my wife and her sister meeting an accident? Did today's events really occur or was this a nightmare of sort? I couldn't understand how everything happened.

I was beginning to like Samaah. Maybe I didn't have strong feelings for her, but I liked her. And just when I was coming to realise that I enjoyed her company, and liked being with her, this is what happened! She met an accident.

Neither Asif nor I knew the whole story behind hers and Samiha's accident but now realisation hit me on how foolish Asif and I were, thinking it was more important to report Yan to the police than to find our wives. Saamih was right! How could we be so careless about our wives? And now, this is the outcome! Their accident! Heck, even Yan was right! The two of us really were good-for-nothing and useless. If we weren't the way we were, perhaps things could have been different.

But what was the point of all those regrets now? Nothing could be changed! All that could be done was to leave everything to Allah, and after all, Allah does mention in the Qur'an: And leave thy trust in Allah, enough is Allah as the disposer of affairs [Qur'an, Surah 33, Ayah 3]. Allah knew what was happening and why it was happening. All I could do was leave everything to Him and just pray to Him to make everything go well. And that's exactly what I did.

We were on our way to the Ashrafs' house to pick Asiyah up from there. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tight that my knuckles turned white. I could hardly concentrate on the road because my mind was such a mess. I was distraught thinking about my wife.

To be honest, on several occasions, without the knowledge of Samiha and Samaah, mum had called Asif and I to talk to us. She had explained to us the way a wife has to be treated in Islam. She told us that the little we said to our wives wasn't enough. She told me that spending time with Samaah only over archery wasn't enough! These two girls had left their everything behind to come and live with us. They didn't even want to marry us, yet they had to sacrifice for their father's sake. And because of them, mum said she had seen a massive change in both Asif and I. It was true. I realised that Asif wasn't even half as lazy as what he used to be and I knew I wasn't arrogant anymore.

The two of us had been brats! We really didn't deserve girls like Samiha and Samaah. They were too good for us. And maybe we were so caught up in our pride that we couldn't realise that. The money we had was all hard-earned by our father, so why were we even proud? The looks we had which everyone praised us for were given to us by Allah, so why were we even proud? We really were some pricks! I knew I didn't have very strong feelings for Samaah, but it was for sure that I had opened up to her, even more than Asif! Because for the first time in ten years, I spoke about this fire to her and she was willing to listen, unlike everyone else who liked to pretend like it never even happened. Asif told me that he never told Samiha anything about his past, which basically meant that he never told her anything about the fire. Clearly he didn't like talking about it. So I couldn't even speak to him. But Samaah? She was ever willing to listen to anything I would say. To be honest, Samaah had fulfilled every duty she had towards me as my wife, but me? I probably didn't even fulfil a single duty towards her as her husband!

I was so deep in all these thoughts that I didn't notice when a car came right in front of me, until the last minute and I quickly swerved. Phew! Alhamdulillah! I thought. That seemed to have snapped Asif out of his own thoughts and he turned to me.