Broken Souls ✔️

Chapter 10

"I-I'm so sorry you had to go through all of this. I simply can't imagine the pain, trauma and suffering you've been through. I can't do anything to help you except pray for you. I promise I'll pray for you everyday until I die." He says with a genuine smile on his face.

He was beating around the bush. He's trying to get something out of me but what?

The glint in his eyes says something to confirm my rising suspicions.

"What do you want?" He seems taken aback.

"What do you want from me? What was the reason for calling this meeting? Tell me." I demand whilst raising an eyebrow.

He sighs. "If you really wondering I didn't get what i wanted."

"Tell me properly," I command.

He looks to the floor and then straight into my eyes as if reading my soul.

"I was here for.....revenge." He drops his eyes to the floor whilst rubbing the back of his neck, nervous of my reaction.

After a while of awkward silence, he looked up confused. I prompted him with my eyes to carry on.

"You said he died 5 years ago?" He says whilst pulling an extremely funny thinking face.

I nod slowly no ideas where this conversation is heading. And clearly not wanting it progress further. I had told this story that includes him but I don't ever want to repeat it. Ever again.

Why?

Because he was engraved in my soul.

I kept saying it but I don't think anyone understood. I'm unable to get that man out of my head.

With every step I take, every breath I breathe, even work I speak. He's there. He haunts me like an unwanted shadow.

Peter Pan wanted his shadow to stay with him, I want the shadow of him to leave.

Leave me forever.

But I don't think that that's going to happen.

I heard a clearing of a throat and saw Jawad sahab getting up.

"I think it's time for me to go."

"No"I interrupted. "Absolutely not, YOU need to tell me, whatever it was you were going to tell me." I demand standing up.

He sighed looking at the ground. He dragged his hand over his face, internally groaning at my stubbornness.

"Ok.ok"

He sat back down and started talking again.

"3 years ago, my younger sister, Laila, started having feelings for a man. She told me about it and I brushed it off thinking it was some stupid celebrity crush again. Then one day, a man came to ask her hand in marriage. An old man, well older than me that is.

He came and claimed he loved my sister and that he would love to pursue her as his wife. After a little questioning, my parents agreed happily. But I had a bad feeling in my gut. I had told my parents to dig a little deeper but they refused saying they were happy with the man and so was Laila so there was no need."

A single tear rolled down his cheek, as he carried in retelling his story.

"They eventually got married. Simply, that is. It wasn't the typical desi wedding you could say. That's where I should have started to think. This man, he wasn't religious. He talked to my sister for a full year before the mention of marriage, he didn't have any noor on his face like other Muslims have. He lacked the manners and etiquettes of a Muslim. Soon enough my suspicions were proved right, my sister would often phone home, complaining to my mother about him. But I didn't know, as I had been offered a job in Qatar a few weeks after her wedding, which I happily took up."

Another tear, another hurt, another regret.

"I found out 4 months later about these phone calls....at her janazah." Another tear slipped.

"Her killer was her husband. Post mortem reports said that she had been hit in the head hard which resulted in brain bleeding and her eventual death." He breathed out as if the words were too heavy. They were weighing him down because he thinks it was his fault.

"The report also said that she had been beaten consistently everyday for what seems like 5 months... the duration of her marriage."

The gates had broken down and the river of tears had started to fall. Rapidly that is.

Sat in front of me was a real man, a man who let his emotions out. Who didn't live up to the stereotypes but instead broke them.

Through his sobs he cried, "I wish I had. Listened to my thoughts. I wished I had thought to check his history, his background out. Maybe, just maybe she would have been alive. She would have been living in my house, under my protection. And she wouldn't be 8 feet underground, never to be seen again."

His tears refusing to stop. He had lost his sister, the girl he would have protected with every breath in his body. This was the girl that would make him smile on his darkest of days. She would have been the first one there, after his mother to congratulate him on his achievements no matter how small.

And he was never going to get her back.

No matter how much he wanted her back.

"I came here today because..."

"You thought he was still with me ans everybody if her wasn't you wanted some sort of revenge do wiukd have, using me and my children." I complete for him.

He looks at me stubbed.

"H....how does....H...h..how did you know?" He just about gets the words out of his mouth.

"I'm a writer, Jawad Sahab of course I would be able to read you. I could tell from the way you proved me to tell my story.

I could tell from the way your eyes flashed in anger when I said his name.

I could tell because of the way you hung onto my every word, picking up on every detail, like a detective trying to solve his case."

He nodded his head along as I said the words, and then sheepishly rubbed your neck.

"But after meeting you. I've realised that he ruined you too. He didn't leave any of women from his life, unscarred not unscathed.

He burnt them all."

"W...women? There were more after your sister.

"There were many before my sister and after my sister. There were many before you and after you. But one thing I can't wrap my head around is, why didn't he kill you too?"

"W...what?"

******

That's all for today!

Next updates probably going to be next week!