Elysian

The One Where She Decides

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کس سمت سے آؤ گے اتنا تو بتا دو
میں آج سے ہی رکھ دوں اس راہ پہ آنکھیں

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Everything didn't go as planned. Dua caught Jannat crying and would not stop asking until she knew what happened. However, the only thing Jannat's lips whispered were her refusal to marry Azlaan.

This unfolded chaos in the house. Dua was quick to inform her mother. Ammi was baffled. In intense worry, she herself came to talk to Jannat, but she won't speak a word. Her mother told her she was nervous and Azlaan was a good man but nothing. The only one person who got through her was Abbu. He patted her head continuously and let her cry. Seeing the anguish on her eyes killed his heart. What had he done? What had happened that had hurt his beti this much?

After an hour of consoling, she had stopped crying. With her eyelashes heavy with tears and blush-tinted eyes, she asked her father not to inquire about what had happened.

"Abbu, I don't want to marry Azlaan. Please don't ask why."
Eyes lowered, lips trembling.

Her heart screamed at her, her mind yelling at her to speak up. It was his fault. She should be vocal about what he had done and what she had to endure. She trusted her parents, Dua and once Ibraheem with all her being, however the latter had shattered that glass of trust with one cunning strike.

However, her lips didn't utter a word. Because if she did, the relationship that was held by a string between the two families, the two sisters, the cousins will whither away just like a plant kept in dark.

She knew not telling them would hurt them too, but not more than losing a part of family. She knew the consequences of breaking off the engagement, but she was a young soul. Her heart was ruined and she couldn't think rationally. What could she do except breaking off the engagement? The thoughts of marrying him scared her, even her heart had been scared the entire time they had been courting.

She looked at her father like he had solutions to all her problems, like only he could understand her.

His father tried to understand her. But the only answer he could find was the possibility of presence of someone else she was interested in. Could it be Ibraheem?

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Jannat was trembling. Dua sat beside her in her room along with their beloved old maid who tried to console Jannat as the elders talked in the drawing room.

She was eighteen and she had already faced two men who had betrayed her. Her soul was young and pure, she didn't know what was to come. Granted, there were many eighteen years old girls who were mature than her, but characters as shaped due to circumstances and upbringings. Jannat had always been sheltered, her decisions always made by others. She had never went out alone, hadn't even talked to any unknown person ever. Only twice had she ordered food herself, that too had made her nervous. She only had co-ed till eighth grade. Her high school was all girls.  It didn't feel like that before, but now it seemed that her hair, her clothes, make up was all partially chosen by others. She was indecisive, totally inexperienced and dependent on others.She was a a pearl enclosed in a shell, that waited for the right person to open it.