My greatest moment of intimacy, was not the evening we took off all our clothes,
But it was when you saw me at my most difficult state.
Like how you witnessed the most unlovable parts of me.
As I slowly unraveled each imperfection in front of you like a scar.
And despite all of this, you loved me harder anyway.
- Conee Berdera

_______________________________________________________________
With each passing day I could feel my ice melt, feel a little soft towards Maaz. My conscience often reprimands me for my behavior. It tells me that I am being rude to a person who has showered all possible love on me. It tells me that he doesn't warrant unkind behavior from me. I screamed at him but he never raised his voice though I know I have been wrong many times. The times when I broke down, he did nothing but be a silent pillar of strength.

And sometimes, when I allow myself to wander down that road, I get terrified at the prospect of him not being a part of my life. I dangle precariously between my past and my present. My mind and heart are a kaleidoscope of thoughts and emotions that need to be conformed with reality.

I increase my pace on the treadmill, my feet pounding with the weight of my thoughts. I had figured having a proper routine would be the way to begin unentangling my thoughts.

The gym is eerily silent once the machine beeps then slows down to stop indicating the end of my walk. I leave the gym, after grabbing my bottle of water. As I pull into the driveway I spot the same car I had seen the other day, the one Henry had said belonged to Harry. 

I park my car behind his. A towering, barrel chested young man approaches the car in front. His tanned face is covered by dark glasses, the lower half sports a French beard. He catches me looking at him.

'Harry you forgot your keys.' Ira comes rushing from the house, holding up a pair of keys.

'Weren't you the man at the mall?' I blurt out, my sharp memory bringing up the details. Ira approaches us, she gives me a small smile. Harry removes his glasses and tucks them in front of his shirt. He stares at me, until I begin to get uncomfortable.

'Yes he was at the mall. Like I said he was trying to convince me to get back.' Ira says awkwardly.

'Is this Zara?' He glances at Ira.

'By stalking?' I raise my eyes at her. Looking at Harry I say, 'Yes I am Zara. A pleasure to meet you Harry. I've heard quite a lot about you.'

He laughs at that, 'I can assure you nothing you have heard about me is true, if Maaz is the source.' Ira looks at him sharply, which sobers him up.

'I will judge for myself soon enough.' I retort.

I head into the house after handing my car key to Henry who was happy to park my car in the garage once Harry left. I put up a kettle of water and as I wait for it to boil, there is a knock on the door. The door swings open to reveal Ira.

I add another cup of water to the kettle as she slips into a seat near the kitchen counter.

'So...that was Harry.' I begin.

'Yes, what do you think?' She seems tired, her hands flit in and out of her short black hair. She rests her head on the counter.

'I am not sure, I didn't get a read on him.' I place her cup of coffee, with one sugar cube in front of her. She mumbles a response.

Then she flips her head towards me. She opens her rich, dark blue eyes, almost like her brother, and focuses on me.
'I am confused Zara. I cannot bring myself to trust Harry once again.'

'Give it a while. Maybe he will earn your trust.'

'And Maaz is still adverse to him.' She groans.

'He will get around too. Don't worry about him.' I give her a weak smile.

'It was not only the mall, it was him at the park too, you know. And many other places but those two are the ones you saw him at.' She admits.

No wonder he had looked familiar to me, of course my memory wouldn't deceive me. Another thought crosses my mind, if Harry was shadowing Ira that meant he knew Eliza as well. They had been spending the past months together. The thought makes me uncomfortable, my baby sister being shadowed.

Ira soon leaves for work, and I head to the garden to help Henry with the weeding.

Late in the evening I receive a text from Maaz, saying we should go out for dinner. I am dressed and waiting in the lawn by the time he pulls up.

I climb into the car, 'Hey.' I whisper softly.

He smiles at me as he backs out the car. We pull up in front of a tiny restaurant tucked away in a nook. I am pleasantly surprised.

'Don't judge the food by the size of the restaurant. They have amazing chicken.' He warns me with a laugh. Sure enough a delicious scent wafts outside when we open the door.

He takes up a booth at the corner of the restaurant. A petite waitress takes our orders and then leaves.

'How was your day? Did you go out?' He asks me.

'Does the gym count?'

'When it is you we are talking about it does.'

I roll my eyes at him. I fold the napkin over my lap.

'How's Arhaan?' I ask him innocently. After the affair at the Ferris wheel I know they haven't been the same. Actually Arhaan hasn't visited our house since that day.

'I'm sure he is fine.'

'Oh you still haven't let it go! It was a mistake, stop making it a big deal.'

He looks at me and replies after another minute, 'We could have suffocated or died up there.'

I scoff at him, 'Nonsense, someone would have noticed us by then.'

'Yes in time to give us a funeral.' He says coldly.

'Just talk to him.' I place my hand over his.

'You already know that I will.' He responds picking up my hand. He turns it over and runs his fingers lightly across my wrist. I hold my breath. His fingers skip over my palm to trace the ring on my finger.

I withdraw my hand from his grasp as the waitress comes with our food. I stare at the napkin on my lap, blushing furiously.

After dinner, Maaz drives down to the beach, for a stroll. We discard our shoes in the car and pad barefoot in the sand. I love the feel of the sand below me, caressing my feet as we walk. His hand brushes softly against mine, asking for permission and when I don't pull away he slips his hand into mine. His fingers find their place in the curves of my fingers.

'Tell me about you.' He says gently.

'You already know.' I say half heartedly.

'There is a lot that I don't know.' He insists. 'Tonight, I want to listen.'

I stop at the edge of the sea. My feet dig deeper into the sand, burrowing in the wet valleys. I raise my head to find his head titled to one side patiently waiting. His earnest eyes, compel me to trust him. Here, with only the sea as my witness I decide to open my heart to Maaz.

I take a deep breath, he senses the change in my posture and his grip on my hand tightens, giving me the strength that I need to go back to the painful past and find the words to talk.

'It's not only him that I lost.' I begin, my voice is low, heavy with the weight of what is to come.

The waves crash against the shore with a thunder. Water sprinkles on my face. I close my eyes and relish it.

'A month after he...he...passed away I came to know I was pregnant.'

'Dina.' His voice is soft, a contrast to the thrashing waves. I feel him move closer to me.

'I was four months pregnant when I found out. All those changes in me I had put down to stress and anxiety of us being separated. Every minute he was on my mind and I was unfocused on every other thing.' I take a minute to collect my thoughts.

'Three months of separation, three months where I tried all possible means to find him, to talk to him. He evaded all. I don't know how he could, I hated him for his ability to forget me so easily while I pined each moment for him.' Maaz is a silent rock beside me. But now that I have started this story I know I have to go on.

'He had changed his number, our house contract had ended, he no longer lived there, none of his friends had details about his whereabouts, he had disappeared without a trace.' Maaz  sandwiches my hand in both of his, he lifts our hands to lightly touch my face.

'Then came the call from Selah, his brother...to inform me.' I shut my eyes trying very hard to make the pictures in my head disappear. Though I didn't attend the funeral, my imagination had drawn the most gruesome images for me. I knew it must have been a horrible accident which took the life out of him on the spot.

'I could not bring myself to attend his funeral. Dad and Ziyan attended it but they never told me about it and I didn't ask. For me he was still alive and healthy in my mind, seeing him lying lifeless... I did not want that. It would make the incident true. I began to live in denial. Like Selah never called me, like the funeral never happened.' I shudder.

'My psychologist was the one who suggested I get a pregnancy test.' No matter how hard I try, the images don't stop. The barricade I had put up with these memories comes crumbling down, taking me down along with it. My knees feel weak.

'I thought I found my sliver of hope after him. His last gift to me. Our baby.' My voice quavers, Maaz's hands wind around my waist from behind me.

'I imagined the baby being a copy of him, a beautiful reminder of what I once had. Numair's baby. My little ray of hope.' A tear slips out of my eye. Maaz tightens his grip on me. Gently he lays his cheek on top of my head.

'The doctors had to operate in the seventh month. They said it was necessary to save him. But...' I shudder as pictures of my baby float in my head. I recall the soft pink lips, Numair's almond eyes, tiny hands curled into fists as the nurse had laid him beside me.

'He was so so small and incredibly tiny. He was beautiful.' I pause to let my tears now fall freely. 'He couldn't make it. He left me. He chose to be with his dad. They both left me behind.'

Fragments of me shatter, I lose control of myself as grief overwhelms me. Grief so strong that it had been threatening to overpower me, break me, destroy me.

And I had let it.

His hold on me remains strong. His arms form a protective cage. He lowers his head, his lips brush my neck as he gently murmurs, 'I've got you.'

I don't push him away. I don't try to be strong. Instead, I lean on him, letting him share my burden, shuddering in his arms as he feels my pain.

'I lost him. I lost my baby. How could I be so careless? Why can't I hold onto anything? Why am I so incapable to do anything right?' My voice is frantic through the tears.

The ocean continues to pound ahead of us. A continuous cycle of rising and falling.

His grip on me tightens even more as if he wants to mould me into him. Make us one. Make my pain his.

In the circle of his arms, he turns me around and pulls me in. My cheek lies on his shoulder as I sob. He stays silent, his hand traveling the length of my hair.

'I always wondered if I had found out before, if he knew, then would he have come back if not for me then perhaps for our child?' I let the wind carry my question to the sea.

'That day outside the hospital... in the car park... the back seat of your car.' He whispers softly.

'That was a week after I lost my baby.' Hazy memories rise, a man asking me to move my car. In my daze, I had driven off leaving mama at the hospital who had accompanied me to the doctor.

'Everything from those days is a blur, I remember nothing except that feeling. I was... like a rainbow drained of colour, like the night sky barren of stars, like the sea that can't find its shore.'

'They believed they could heal me not understanding that some scars are engraved onto your soul.' I let the words flow.

'No doctor could replace my baby or Numair. And they were the only medicine that could heal me.' He listens to me in silence. In his silence I find my solace.

'Nothing's lasts forever. It is the biggest misconception this world existed under. There's no concept of forever.' I state, after a prolonged silence.

He looks at me quizzically, 'There is a forever in each one of us. I believe our souls last forever. Our souls remember those forever promises breathed into the other and they find a way to re unite and fulfill those.'

My eyebrows rise at this, 'Ma.' He answers in a low voice. I realize we share similar grief. He lost his mother when he was a child yet he found a way to be strong and grow into this amazing man. And when he could be strong so could I.

He puts his head on my shoulder, his arms around my waist holding me in place, 'And when I become a soul I will meet her. She has moved ahead but she's waiting for me. I will meet ma the day I move on. So will you Zara. You will meet him, I'm sure Numair awaits you.'

Maaz looks into my eyes, I don't blink, awestruck by this man who had found ways to overcome his grief plus bring happiness to those around him unlike me who let it ruin me.

***