Lut Gaye || لٹ گۓ

EIGHTEEN | I Look At You And I Sigh

"lut gaye ham toh pheli mulaqat mein."

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A charcoal pencil was clamped between her sylphlike fingers―her dove-grey eyes hooked to the blank sheet sprawled on the wooden study table and her frame was settled on the chair.

But her mind was far away; wandering and wandering through the lanes of the past moments until it clashed with a pair of dark eyes.

Her mind stopped wandering.

And she started wondering about the possessor of those enigmatic eyes who was equally mysterious, deep and unfathomable like the dark abyss of his inky irises.

It had been a week and Iman still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that Zain was a law enforcer―a special investigation officer who was probably on a mission when he crashed into the room that night.

Why did he never let her know? Why didn't he tell her he wasn't a criminal even when she kept calling him that? And how could he just leave like that?

She wanted to stop him that day.

She wanted to ask him so many things; she wanted to say so many things to him―she wanted to thank him for everything he had done for her.

But she couldn't do anything other than quietly watch him leave. And now he was gone and she didn't even know if she was ever going to see him again.

The thought shouldn't have unsettled her that much but it did.

It stung her insides.

Her grip on the pencil tightened and when her eyes fluttered over the empty sheet of paper staring back at her, a surge of irritation coursed through her.

How easily her hand had glided on the paper when she had sat down to draw last time―when she had drawn him.

Iman slammed the pencil into the paper and her frame slumped into the chair, head tilted back and eyes tightly shut as frustration spurted in her veins.

A loud crack of thunder followed by the howling of clouds made her eyes fly open―startling her. After a few seconds, the pattering sound of rain hitting the soil resonated around.

She got up from the chair and ambled to the window of her room which had collected fog because of the downpour. Her hand rose up and her cold fingers trailed the trickles of raindrops cascading down the window pane when suddenly an image flashed in her mind.

Zain.

His misty eyes.

That heart-stopping look he had given her before stepping out.

It haunted her.

Her heart sulked as she sadly gazed at the murky rainy sky outside and kept thinking about him.

Zain―the man who barely knew her for few days had defended her in front of her father who had known her all her life.

Mend your relationship with Iman.

His words gleamed in her mind as lightening struck the sky and she couldn't suppress a wave of hopelessness that overcame her.

Mend... there was just too much to fix.

Her father's broken trust; her broken dreams―their relationship was shattered into so many pieces and she didn't know how to gather those pieces and glue them back together without cutting herself.