Broken Souls ✔️

Chapter 12

Jawad's POV:

I didn't see after that. She turned and left the room. She didn't show her face to me again.

Her beautiful face. One that shed too many tears. One that has heard to many crude comments. One that has been scarred by an individual who didn't deserve to even be in her presence. 

She had left the room physically, but she had left a hole in my heart that could only be filled by her. 

Ya Allah! Help me in the quest of making her mine!' I prayed as I scampered home after many many years. Towards the embrace of my mother. 

I knocked on the door. Once, twice, three times. I was impatient. 

I would finally see her. I would kiss the hands that had healed me so many times, I would kiss the cheeks that had probably bore so many tears after my departure. I would lay on her lap and she would caress my hair whilst telling me to keep faith in Allah and His doings, for He know better and everything. 

I would massage the shoulders of my father, who would carry me on them during my entire childhood. I'll give him the news that his son has finally grown out of his immature ways and has become a man. I'll give him all my money from my monthly salary. I'll buy him all the things that he has ever wanted. 

'I'll take them both to Hajj.' That was the last thing I promised to myself and Allah before all these hopes and dreams were crashed into tiny pieces.

The door flung open to woman who wore an annoyed expression on her face but it wasn't the woman I was expecting it to be. 

"Who are you?" She asked quite arrogantly. 

"I'm Jahaan Begum and Rashid Saddique's son. Who are you?" I said, with the same tone of arrogance oozing out of my voice. 

Her face dropped, "Chottu?"

"Sadia Baji?" I echoed.

She laughed out loud. "Maa Sha Allah! Maa Sha Allah! My chotu is all grown up now! He didn't even recognise me!" She says with fake anger. 

I get onto my knees, holding my ears, "Sorry baji, maaf kardo naa!" Whilst making a puppy face, she shakes her head and starts making her way inside. 

I follow like her lost dog. 

We walk into the kitchen where she resumes her work that she had left off, silence follows. She's mad, they all are. 

As they should be.

Just as I'm about to apologise, she speaks up. "Don't apologise chotu."

How did she know? 

"I know you better than you know yourself."

I smile and nod along with her words. She's right. She raised me.

She finally turned round to face me with a sigh. 

"Chotu. You need to accept that what you did wasn't right. You left your parents in such a vulnerable state...."

She looked down wiping her tears, "Y..you left them and..and me. Why didn't you stay? You should have been there for them to lean on. You should have been there for them to have a shoulder to cry on. But you weren't....and you can't do anything because their wounds are so deep. No one can heal them." She ran out of the room sobbing.

She's right. I'm in the wrong. Why did I leave?

I'm pulled out by the resounding steps. Ones that I recognised, from hiding from these steps when I had done something naughty in my childhood to when I would hide my report filled with failing grades. These were the footsteps I would fear and now I couldn't wait to see her face. 

I turned around smiling, about to embrace my mother. When in her place, I see a lady. One that looked like her but didn't at the same time. So skinny, all her bones were showing. Her eyes sunken into their holes. Her lips in a dead straight line. Wrinkles covering every inch face. Her eyes void of any emotion, let alone happiness. 

Why didn't I stay?

A sob escapes my mouth and I run over to my mother. Collapsing before, holding onto her feet. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry Ammi. I'm a useless son. Why..why did I leave you?" 

She didn't say anything. She moved her legs out of my reach and started walking away. Without a sound. 

Wiping my tears with the back of my hand, I follow her. She drapes a dupatta around her head and a black shawl around her shoulders and steps outside. 

She walks through the busy streets of the city and I soon realise its the way to the graveyard where my sister is buried. We enter and she starts to go another way, I'm just about to stop her but I realise its better to let her go. 

I follow her at a distance. I went from the one, galloping far in front of my mother to her leading me silently. 

And then she stopped. 

She bent down, whispering to the gravestone and started de-weeding the flowers that had started to grow there. I took the chance to read the headstone, to figure who the grave belonged to and there engraved in the granite headstone read the name "Rashid Saddique".  

I stumbled back in shock. Abbu? My Abbu? I turned to look at my mom and pointed at the grave and whispered "My abbu?" SHe simply nodded and I broke. 

One tear followed by the next, and the next and the next. 

I felt her arms, holding onto my shoulder. Trying to stop me from falling apart. But it won't work, it never did. I had let my dad fall through my fingers, because of my khudgarzi. My selfishness.

I wiped my tears. No more mourning. I had one chance left to redeem myself, my mother. I won't let her suffer like I had let my sister and my father. I will help her in every aspect. 

She had already started walking away, when I was promising myself and Allah this. 

I ran to keep up and we walked home in complete silence after visiting Laila's grave. 

******

Ok, I lied here's one last update before I stop coming on Wattpad. 

Please pray that I get good grades in November so I can download it back on my phone.😩

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