As Meerab's voice echoed through the hallway, Saad found, to his dismay, everyone's eyes trained on him. Maa Begum, Murtasim, his parents- everyone's.

Saad was suddenly the centre of all the attention. Expectent and distressed looks caused him to momentarily loose his ability to construct a sentence out of his jumbled feelings. He mental cursed himself, for the thousandth time, for being himself.

Oh! How he hated being here!

Ever since he could remember, Saad had hated attention. It made his stomach feel weird. He was content being the background character and let others shine in the spotlight. Fortunately for him, he was never a subject of it either.

All the attention in their family was reserved for the lovable Maheer and the witty Neelu.

Not Saad. Never Saad.

"Go on!" Meerab urged as she slowly walked down the stairs towards the crowd. "Tell them how you feel about all this." Her voice held anger as her hardened eyes bore into him with expectations.

"Tell them your wish!" She now stood next to her silent husband whose eyes were downcast.

"What are you doing?!" Maa Begum's enraged scream filled the silence. "He is my son and he will stay here!" Her words held an entitled assurance, as if- as if Saad's words will not have any effect on them!

"And I am asking the same son what he wants!" Meerab, again spoke with conviction as she held her own against her mother in law. "I thought your children were precious to you. So why don't we listen to them for once?" The taunting tone didn't go unnoticed by Saad.

"And Mr and Mrs Hussain? Saad is legally your child. Why aren't you saying anything?" Her sharp words caused his spectator-like parents to reel back in shock. Meerab's eyes, he could tell, held an abundance of untold accusations towards his parents.

"We just want our son!" His Maa finally spoke up after what felt like an era. "We just want our Saadi to come back home with us!"

Her distress was visible in her voice. Saad wanted to give her a hug and assure her. But his legs felt frozen still.

The overwhelming urge to throw up arrested him in his spot. Saad hated attention.

He just wanted to go home!

"See, he wishes to go back and his parents even want him!" Meerab's voice, this time, came out broken with something akin to longing as she stared at his mother with teary eyes, "Unlike the people in Karachi, they will not just let him go!"

Meerab visibly tried to compose herself by taking deep breaths as her voice wavered with emotions. Saad pitied the young girl.

No girl should hold that much pain in their eyes.

"Children are not toys without feelings, Maa Begum. You can't just expect us to switch off our emotions according to your whims. We are human!" Meerab's eyes, red with unshed tears, glistened as she uttered those words through a chocked sob.

"You can't just expect us to let go off our love, our dreams, our lives whenever you want! We deserve better than that. We deserve to be treated as human with a will of our own!" Meerab was screaming now, her chest heaving with every word she shouted.

"You think Saad will be happy if you keep him against his will like some kind of exotic pet?" She let out a mirthless chuckle. Maa Begum flinched back at her mockery.

"No, he won't be! He will live everyday with the painful memories of what was taken away from him!" Her voice sprouted venom as she almost spit those words out.

Allah, grant this poor girl relief from all the hurt she was keeping in her heart.

"Everytime he takes one step towards his future, his past will come for him. He will always live in it."

Meerab now looked directly at Maa Begum as she pronounced every word clearly, " The past, Maa Begum, never goes away. It stays like a ghost. It haunts people until it, slowly but surely, kills them off."

He couldn't stop the tears streaming down his face as he listened to this unknown girl's words. He marveled at how eloquently she worded every emotion he was feeling as if she, herself, went through the same.

She took the floor and fought fearlessly whereas Saad, as usual, hid himself in the shadows of his own self doubt.

No one has ever fought for Saad. Not even Saad himself.

Maa Begum looked like she wanted to say something but stopped herself midway. Instead she looked at Murtasim who has yet to say a word.

Saad looked at the suspiciously quiet Murtasim too. But Murtasim didn't look at any of them.

Instead Murtasim's eyes were glued to the painting hanging on the left wall of the hall.

A black and white painting. Of a pair of hands. The hands were holding a broken camera.

Murtasim continued to stare at the painting whilst Saad and Maa Begum stared at him in anticipation. He was scared to break the trance his twin was in. He felt like an intruder in something awfully fragile.

"Murtasim, will you not say anything?" It was, again, Meerab who had dared to question her husband. Her words jolted him awake like magic.

His twin finally averted his eyes as his eyes met him. Saad could see the deep cut in his lips. It was still bleeding.

Saad wanted to apologise.

He wanted to say a lot of things.

"Do you wish to stay, brother?" Murtasim's question came out as strong and assured as always. Unlike Saad, Murtasim knew what to do.

Saad wanted to laugh at his fate.

Cruel cruel fate that took him from riches to rags. And then again from rags to riches.

As if his life was an elaborate joke and his tears were the ultimate punchline.

He was nothing but a spineless coward who looked like a caricature of his confident, self assured and charming twin.

He didn't wish to be this anymore.

He wanted to be more.

More than a gloomy shadow that gets lost under Maheer's light.

More than a man who lost to love.

More than an obedient son.

Somewhere in between loving and loosing Maheer, Saad had forgotten to love himself.

Somewhere in between the Saad- the husband and Saad- the son, he had lost little Saadi.

He wanted to be what he was before his heart was broken.

He wished to be something more, atleast to honour Meerab who thought he was worth fighting for.

If he wanted people to fight for him, he will first have to fight for himself.

So for the first time, he took out every bit of confidence inside him and met his twin's eyes and said what he wanted to say. "I wish to leave, brother."

Murtasim looked taken back by his booming voice. A look of surprise passed his face only to be replaced by a hopeless smile. He shook his head with an exasperated sigh.

"Then as you wish, brother." Murtasim smiled at him, a genuine smile, not those annoying smirks. He ignored his mother's outraged cry and the surprised look Meerab threw at him which slowly turned into a small smile.

For some reason, Saad wished Murtasim could see the admiration that coloured Meerab's face for a split second. Saad had a feeling his twin would have loved it.

In gratitude, Saad mirrored Murtasim's smile with one of his own.

And for the first time, Saad felt like he was indeed Murtasim's twin.

He felt a great burden lift itself from his heart.

After ages, Saad felt light.

A soft hand on his biceps shifted his attention away from his twin who was now busy consoling his weeping mother.

Maheer's pretty eyes looked at him with something unreadable in them. Saad had never seen that expression on her face before.

"Do you really wish to leave?" She asked in the quietest voice. "Please, tell me truthfully. If you wish to stay, then I'll stay too!" Her voice sounded determined.

She will stay with him?

"Maheer, I told you I wish to leave. Our old life is all I want!" He really couldn't understand his best friend anymore.

"But-" She sounded frantic now. "But it's so hard on you! Everything is so hard on you!" She started to sob quietly on his chest.

What?

"If this makes you happy, then we will move here. I will come with you, I promise! I will learn how to behave and dress properly from Meerab and, and-" Maheer looked like she would break down any moment now.

"I will try my best to impress Maa Begum too. I will-" Saad put his hand on her mouth to stop her nonsensical rambling.

What is she even on about?

"Maheer! What is wrong with you?" Saad didn't even know what to say to her now!

"You are my Maheer. My perfect Maheer. I would never ever want you to change yourself for me! I cherish you too much to disrespect you like this!"

Maheer jolted back as he almost shouted the last bit. She looked at him with eyes full of wonder and something else. Something he couldn't quite read yet.

Since when was his Maheer so unfamiliar to him?

Or was it him who was becoming unfamiliar?

And was it really a bad thing?

☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆

Taadaa! I'm back with a new chapter and some character development for our cutest victim, Saad and some wordless bonding with his twin!

So how did you like Meerab? And Maheer?

How do you think Maheer and Saad's relationship will progress from this point onwards?

Please tell me how you liked this chapter in the comments and leave a like if you enjoyed yourself.