Not a great chapter, but I had to start from somewhere

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Meerab Waqas Ahmed and Meerab Murtasim Khan were two different women. Murtasim had hated the former. She was haughty, stubborn, and arrogant. At least, that's what he knew about her. He met her so many times as a kid, as a teen, then finally as an adult. They never got along. Every encounter was a disaster. The two of them had similar anger, and they would burst out and take the house by storm. She never cowered in front of him, Meerab wasn't scared of him, he realised, whenever he took a step closer to scare her into silence, she would push him back. She had a life. She had her own world, in which Murtasim waltzed in and changed its momentum. Now her existence was limited to him, her ideas, her beliefs forcefully merged with his, like her name was.

A contract, it was just a document, not a legal one. A child's play both knew it had no significance, but this paper contract gave her a better sense of safety, a contract doesn't lie, it doesn't start changing its words like her father did. It doesn't abandon a person. A contract remains the same. It could protect her from the man who was supposed to be her protector. Meerab's world was full of irony.

Her heart had broken not once but twice, the first time when she realised her parents weren't hers. And the second time when she realised Murtasim Khan wasn't hers. The latter hurt more because she had finally piece by piece put back the shattered parts of her only to realise that the glue holding her together was weak. The bond she had with Murtasim was one sided, the love and trust she had for him was all for a piece of land, a scheme, a manipulation. No wonder Maa Begum never revealed about her actual paternity. She wanted her son, her janasheen, to be the ultimate  owner. She was a woman who could be forced aside.

It hurt. It hurt a lot.

And now she was pregnant. She wanted to be selfish for once. But how could she return? Where could she return? She had no home, no place to call hers. The man who provided her with shelter, with his name, with love, was busy embracing Haya. Let's not forget Haya, the woman who hated her to an extent where she was ready to kill her unborn child.

How could she return to a home where her voice had no value? A home where her baby was in danger? Every time Haya got away... Murtasim took Haya's side over his own wife's.

He was looking for her, he almost reached her, but she hid. She couldn't return to the haveli. There was a chaos in her mind. She would have let her emotional heart make a decision if Murtasim had trusted her all this time. He claimed to love her but always believed Haya's words over her. She couldn't forget how he had made her prove her innocence by asking her to jump off the terrace. She was so tired that...

She actually wanted to jump...

A person who helped her heal broke her all over again. A person who made her fall in love made her fall out of love. A person who was supposed to protect her shattered her trust.

"Bas tum aur koi nahi"

That was a big fat lie. There was Haya. Murtasim hid things from her. He trusted Haya over her. And of course he would, he had hated her the most, she was his enemy.

But she couldn't hate him anymore. Her heart refused to hate this man, and when tried to, it hurt.

It hurt so much. It was hard to breathe. Her heart was aching, bleeding. Her eyes were tearing up as she finally grasped the phone with all her strength, dialling her father's number.

The phone rang for a while and then she heard his voice, the pain in her heart disappeared and a calm took over, it was her father. A man who had given her twenty years of freedom, given her identity and a goal.

"Ji kahiye," she took in a breath and, getting rid of all her thoughts, finally said the word,"...Baba?" Tears dropped, she finally uttered the cursed word, a word filled with lies and truth. A word that taunted her identity, a word that had warped up her reality. But she couldn't control it, she couldn't avoid it any longer. Her child needed a proper upbringing, and she was desperate.

"Meerab?" It was a breathy sound as if a sigh of relief, as if she had gone missing for years, not weeks, "Beta tum theek ho?"

"Baba, mujhe aapki zarurat hai," Meerab's voice trembled with emotion, her heart heavy with the weight of her words.

Tears streamed down Meerab's cheeks as she poured out her heart to her father, telling him of her shattered marriage, her unborn child, and her longing for a place to call home. With each word, she felt a weight lifting off her shoulders, as if finally releasing the burden she had carried for so long.

"Baba, please mujhe ghar bulaiye. Main aapke paas aana chahti hoon," she pleaded, her voice cracking with emotion.

"Meerab, beta, calm down.. pehle ye batao tum kaha ho?"

She told her father everything, from Haya's words to their fight and her pregnancy.  Waqas had only asked the address, but she was crying so hard, relieving the night.

As she poured out her heart to her father, Meerab's emotions roiled within her, a tempest of conflicting desires and shattered dreams.

"Baba," she whispered brokenly, her voice barely above a whisper, "main kaise lautu? Kaise bhool jau sab kuch?"

In that moment of vulnerability, Meerab's heart bled for the innocence she had lost, for the love she had been denied, for the shattered illusions that lay strewn at her feet.

Waqas Ahmed listened intently to his daughter's heartbreaking words as he drove towards the address, his heart aching with every word she spoke. As Meerab poured out her soul, he felt a surge of helplessness wash over him, knowing that he couldn't erase the pain she had endured or mend the wounds that marred her spirit Knowing that as a father, he had failed to protect her. He shouldn't have let the wedding take place. It destroyed her completely.

"Meerab," he said softly, his voice breaking, "I wish I could take away your pain, beta. I wish I could shield you from the cruelty of this world. But... your father was weak and failed..."

Tears welled up in Meerab's eyes as she listened to her father's words, "Baba," she whispered brokenly, "aap mere liye sab kuch ho. Agar aap nahi hote toh shayad main... shayad main tut chuki hoti."

Waqas felt a lump form in his throat at his daughter's words, the weight of her suffering pressing down on him like a leaden weight.

"Baba," she murmured, her voice trembling with uncertainty, "main... main kaise bhool jau sab kuch? Kaise lautu aisi zindagi mein jahan har kona mujhe uska yaad dilaye?"

Waqas felt a pang of anguish shoot through his heart at his daughter's anguish, his own helplessness mirrored in her tear-streaked face. "Meerab," he said softly, reaching out to comfort her across the miles that separated them, "Tumhaara baap zinda hai abhi, puri dunya se ladlunga apni beti k liye iss baar, jo tumhe face karna padha woh tumhare bacchey nahi face karenge."

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Murtasim Khan stood at the end of the sea, looking at the waves. The horizon was a blur, the colors of the sunset bleeding into each other like the tears he held back. It's been months, and Meerab was gone. She disappeared from the face of Earth as if she never existed, leaving behind nothing but the hollow echo of her laughter in his heart.

"Meerab... how do I whisper your name to the wind and hope it reaches wherever you are? How do I hold back the tears that long to fall?" Murtasim's voice broke, a soft murmur lost amidst the roar of the waves. "How do I pretend that I am not crumbling inside whenever I think of you with him..."

The words 'I love him, Murtasim...' haunted him, a specter that refused to be exorcised. Her words echoed in his brain a thousand times, each repetition a lash against his already scarred soul. They were the source of his nightmares, the refrain of his darkest moments. He would wake up in the middle of the night to find her missing, and his heart would stop beating, as if it too, refused to go on without her presence.

He would close his eyes and imagine her, her smile that could light up the darkest corners of his world. How could he live without her? When he couldn't survive a moment without thinking about her? The thought was a weight, a physical pain that pressed against his chest, making it hard to breathe.

"Meerab, how do I paint a smile on my face when all I feel is your weight of absence?" Murtasim's hands clenched into fists, the sand slipping through his fingers like the time they had lost. "How do I mend the broken pieces of my shattered heart? And pretend it's not breaking without you?"

The silence without Meerab was deafening. The world moved on, relentless and uncaring, while he stood there, a statue to a past that couldn't be revisited. The sunsets they shared, the laughter that filled their air, now they were just echoes, distortions in a life that felt so barren without her light.

"You said you never said to me words filled with love, but when you talked, I wanted to listen forever." Murtasim's gaze drifted to the sea, watching the waves crash and retreat, a never-ending cycle that mirrored the turmoil inside him. "Because your words were honest, you spoke your mind, and you listened to your heart. Your every word made me realize how uptight I was before I met you, you made me realize how alone I was... Meerab, I miss your constant chatter, I miss your anger."

He missed her silence...

Murtasim wandered through their memories, a ghost haunting his own life, touching moments that were as intangible as the breeze. Her scent lingered like a cruel joke, a trace of perfume in the closet, a whisper of her in the sheets they once shared before she left. It was a torment, knowing she was out there, somewhere, living a chapter that no longer included him. Living her life with him, while Murtasim suffered here, without her.

"How do I breathe when every breath is a reminder of what's been lost?" The question hung in the air, unanswered. "How do I step forward when my soul is anchored to the spot where you left me?" They said time healed all wounds, but this wound... it festered, Meerab. It was a living thing, feeding on the remnants of a love that was supposed to be timeless.

Maa Begum told him to move on. He was told to let go, to move on, as if his love for Meerab was a switch that could be flipped off at will. But how did he explain that she was more than love? She was the very fabric of his being, and without her, he was just threads, unraveling in the wind.

So he stood there, at the end of the sea, looking at the waves, wondering... did they carry messages to lost loves? If he whispered 'I miss you' into their frothy embrace, would she feel it? Would she know that no matter where she was, no matter who she was with, she was irreplaceable? And that a part of him would always be standing there, waiting for a tide that brought her back to him.

If he could, he would weave his emotions into the fabric of the universe, so that she might feel them wrap around her, despite the distance, despite the silence.

"Meerab, how do I tell you, I miss you in a way that makes your heart ache like mine does?" The question lingered, a plea to the universe, as Murtasim Khan stood at the end of the sea, looking at the waves, his heart echoing with the name 'Meerab'.