I didn't send.....I couldn't! Post-service was terminated in Peshawar. Instead, I got this letter that you were severely injured! Then, Pran sent me an absurd letter, asking how could I let the nikah happen when I had already stopped it! His words rang in her mind nonstop. If he hadn't mailed, then where was the letter from? Faajal lost herself in the cocoon of a thousand explanations. Not only that, Pran had also received postcards addressed to him from Yusuf.

"Get off, now or stay here forever?" Ravinder mocked, leaving the taxi. Faajal got out and followed him to home.

"Arreyy, itni jaaldi aagaye?" Gurbani stepped aside, letting them walk past.

"Pani diyoon zara," Ravinder asked, slouching on the sofa.

"Abhi layi," Gurbani hastened to the kitchen. Faajal was to enter her room when Ravinder called her. "Sun! Zara nazdeek aa!"

"Hmm, baba?"

"Uss ladke se koi jhagda hua hain kya? Kaise munh phulake bethi hain." He grimaced.

"Kon?"

"Acting kar mat! Woh chhokda, woh Yusuf!"

"Na–nahi, toh." Faajal pulled her dupatta over her shoulder and wandered to her room where Chanchal and Harleen grinded mehendi on the giant pestle and mortar Ravinder had brought from village. Chanchal glanced up at her, an unworded question glazed in her look while Harleen spared a second and reverted to grinding mehendi leaves.

Faajal forbade Chanchal to close. Such issues were better undiscussed before Harleen. She dragged out the bottom drawer of the dressing table and groped for the latest mails. She had buried them so deep beneath the pile of older letters to efface the instrument of her gaping scar. Little had she known these would lead her to the conspirer of her misery.

Finally, the postcard flared in her hand, his name scribbled on it. And on the address bar, his home's location was written in Hindi. But, wasn't it supposed to be in Urdu? Hindi was unofficially banned there. The edges of the letters bled too much when his handwriting was sleek and lean. Her eyes assessed the handwriting and other details. They replicated his style exactly except for the trifling contrasts.

Saira....Saira had been on the rooftop with pen and paper. So, was it her who sent these letters? When evidences were glazing before her eyes, her reckless side overlooked those to believe in made-up things! Her postcard crumpled in her thankless clutch.

"Where is di?" Faajal asked Chanchal, her voice dangerously low.

The younger stuttered, taken aback by the sudden lift in tension. "At the rooftop,"

Chanchal watched as Faajal stormed away to the rooftop. Things should be cleared today. It didn't matter if she was her elder sister, she should answer for every ounce of grief Faajal had borne the past week.

Saira was drying her hair when Faajal flounced in, lifting the postcard. "What's this?"

Saira turned to her, arching a brow. Her careless expression incited Faajal's fury to a greater height.

"What is this?" Faajal repeated, taughtening her jaw.

Saira's frown stretched. "Can't you see by your eyes?"

"Who has written it?"

"How would I know?" Saira neared. Her countenance was alarmingly shrill. "Didn't your lover send you this?"

"No, Yusuf didn't."

The elder's expression paled a bit despite her effort to mask. She emboldened her face. "Why are you asking me? Do you suspect me?!"

Faajal stayed quiet. Her reddened appearance was the response. "Answer me! You think I would engage in such useless matter of yours?!

"Because you never like my bliss!" The postcard slid off Faajal's clutch.

Silence thickened between them. Saira's pupils dilated with sick contempt, her limbs quivering. Her nose steeled as her earlobes were stained with crimson. "Yes! Yes!" Her chest rose and fell acutely. "I sent you that letter! And that letter to Pran, yes! I also sent that! Are you happy now?!" She yanked Faajal by the arm and thrust her onto the ground. Her ominous words reflected on the walls. Faajal scraped her elbow on the rough concrete floor, blood oozed from the cut. Thousand words wanted to unleash the wrath boiling her blood but stopped midway. Nothing came than a strangled hiss.

"You always have the advantages! Why?! Because you earn? Because you throw cash in our pockets?! Anyone could have done that in your place! Yet, you get the fairest share! Money, clothes, food, benefits, importance, EVERYTHING!" Saira roared from the depths of her lungs, inviting treads on their way.

Meher and Ravinder hustled to the entrance, questions imprinted on their faces. Faajal stared at them, watery-eyed. Locks covered half of her face.

"What the hell–" Ravinder stepped forward. Saira flinched, her throat tremored. Faajal pulled away the hair strands and dared to glare at Saira whose gaze shot venom. Raw, ugly despise turned evident in those eyes of her elder sister. Elder sisters were supposedly the nearest to mother. This is how you get treated by your closest mother figure?

"It's only your way of thinking! It's only your envy!" Faajal retorted finally. Tears rolled down now. Anger, disbelief, pain—all morphed together into a realization of Saira's true facade.

"Yes, yes! I—" A tight slap snapped her words. Saira's neck twisted aside as red fingerprints burned on her cheek. Ravinder shook with his hand still suspended. His eyes bulged out, the thin blood vessels popped up.

Not a single noise intervened the hush stretching on the rooftop. Meher stepped back, glancing anxiously.

Faajal swallowed a short breath. Only her heart's pounding was all she could hear. Her stomach knotted so tight, she could sense flushes of ice harshly stroking the walls.

Saira lastly met Ravinder's gaze. The reproach was replaced with shock. Her palm crept up the mark. The first tear plunged off her eyelid.

"Don't ever dare take her things!" Ravinder lifted his finger before her eyes. Saira didn't respond.

"Is that understood?!" He spewed, his eyes narrowed.

Saira managed a nod. Gurbani had arrived at the scene by then, followed by Chanchal. Ravinder stormed away, trampling the postcard.

None uttered anything, they weren't able to. Gurbani uneasily stared at her daughters.

"I hope you get robbed of your blessing. I pray that it costs you more than a heartbleed, a lifetime of despair!" Saira muttered, now choking back sobs. There wasn't angst anymore, but disgust, pure disgust.

"Is that how you....pray...for your...sister?" Faajal's voice fractured in a hoarse whisper. "I am your sister,"

Saira stood up and walked before her. "You were,"

As she strode out, Gurbani was to hug her, but she shirked off and passed. "Di, wait!" Meher drifted behind. "Saira di!"

"Only could she see things from a good perspective, things wouldn't have gone wrong." Chanchal sighed. She picked up the trampled postcard and flicked dust off. "Her plans almost worked though," She perched beside Faajal. "If she just perceived that none of us are free of this man's torment,"

Faajal kept quiet. She could pretty much cope with Ravinder, but Saira, her own sister had wronged her! The young heart still wasn't prepared to absorb the fact. 

A/N: A good news to share! Our book has secured the 1st position in the Visions of Grandeur Awards! Woohoo! We have made it, pretty people! It's literally a dream!