6th August, 2018

To my dear readers who have been generously extending your support to this book, and its characters, I love you all for the sake of Allah, and I hope Allah rewards you for your positivity and good intentions.

I put a disclaimer in my earlier chapter, but it's important to do that again especially now – This book is not for everyone, and Anabya is only a human, I refuse to make her a flawless, perfect Muslim. Part III is going to be an emotional roller coaster, but for those who stay till the end, I hope you enjoy the ride. <3

"Women of purity are for men of purity, and men of purity are for women of purity."

Surah an-Nur

Chapter 51:

I'm Breaking

There are some times in life, when you have no choice but to be strong. If you fall, you aren't going to shatter your world alone, but you'll take down everyone's life that's associated with you. And you can't risk the emotional trauma, for you'll never know what's worse; to break entirely and crumble, or to see those close to you suffer because you didn't find the courage to remain standing.

And so, Anabya looked on as Mariam released her husband and Shamaaz glanced her way, her eyes clearly delivering what her lips sealed.

So long, Anabya couldn't stomach the fact that he was perfectly alright being close with other girls in the name of his career, from where exactly was she supposed to find the patience to deal with this when it came to his ex?"

Nonetheless, she swallowed every emotion of hers, waiting for him to say something.

"Excuse us, Mariam, my wife and I were heading towards the dining room," he declared curtly, before grabbing Anabya's arm and heading towards the right, not even waiting for her reply.

The urgency of his actions was bizarre but Anabya decided to remain quiet, doing her best to not the sudden storm take her with it.

She willed herself to have sabr though, no matter how much she wanted to leave the venue and run away, she asked herself to take it easy. She tried to focus her thoughts towards their date tomorrow, and while she was on the verge of giving up on that idea altogether, and slap some sense into him instead, she bit her lip and pushed her heart to not give up just yet.

She was awfully silent as she sat down to eat, and her thoughts were being so brutal that although she had been starving earlier, she had no appetite left.

"You've hardly taken any food, Bya," Shaamaaz commented looking at her plate, and she just stared down, not replying to his statement, before trying to stomach the food.

She had just about taken two morsels when she started feeling uneasy, and she covered her mouth with her palm when she felt the food regurgitate from her stomach.

"You okay?" Shamaaz inquired, slightly worried.

"I need to go to the washroom," she replied forcefully, before she hurriedly stood up and followed the sign that led her to it.

Her fear for new and empty places vanished before her need to be alone as she stood before the sink, gazing at herself in the mirror, trying to get rid of this nauseous feeling but to no avail.

It's okay, it's okay, it's going to be okay she chanted in her head, refusing to let this spoil everything she had planned. Closing her eyes while she stabilized herself, she gulped back her worries and pushed herself to focus on the brighter side of things, no matter how dejected she felt at the moment.

Shamaaz is like this because of his lifestyle, he can't be like you she tried to reason in her mind, because if she'd let her thoughts take any other route, she would be doomed.

Just as she felt a little better and was about to leave, she heard the door click open and in came the woman she despised.

"Hey, Anabya, we meet again," she said, pretending to look surprised.

Anabya could only manage a tight lipped smile before she took a step ahead to walk out but she was interrupted again.

Please, Mariam, what do you want? Just go away.

"That's a lovely ring, I see Shamaaz has improved his standards," Mariam commented sweetly, glancing at Anabya's ring finger before she fetched the lipstick from her clutch, and focusing her attention on her reflection, she tinged her lips a darker shade.

She wanted to say something smart, grace her with a brainy comeback for her statement, but honestly, Anabya was absolutely clueless. Shamaaz had never spoken about his relationship with Mariam, and whatever that she was talking now, made no sense to her.

When she read the look of obliviousness on Anabya's face, Mariam was pleased to elaborate.

"Oh, come on, married for so many months now, I'm sure Shamaaz must have spilled all his secrets to you. Didn't he speak of the time when he was madly in love with me, and offered me the only promise ring he could afford? It was a diamond ring, of course, and he wanted a future with me in it."

Anabya knew there were a lot of cracks in their relationship, but if Mariam thought she could deepen them by bringing in his past, then she was going to be disappointed.

Their issues and troubles and arguments were between them, and as a couple, they would solve them, in sha Allah. A third person didn't have to see it all.

Especially not Mariam.

"And you're telling me all this because..." Anabya drawled, trying to look unfazed and unimpressed by this little information even though it slightly killed her on the inside. "Shamaaz may have wanted a future with you in it, but over the course of time, he ended up marrying me. Sorry Mariam, but it's been ages since he dated you, and priorities change as we move on in life. The fact that I'm wearing his ring on my finger, and you aren't, speaks for itself. Leave the past where it belongs."

No, honey, I refuse to let you hurt me.

While Mariam was slightly surprised to witness a reaction she didn't expect, she refused to let that deter her motive.

"You're actually right, no use bringing up the past. But hey, Anabya, why didn't you accompany him for the World Cup, you missed out on so much of fun."

Having delivered the statement, Mariam's face morphed into a wicked grin upon seeing Anabya respond in a way she had expected. She looked alarmed, and startled.

"Wait, I should probably show you our pictures," she said, coming to stand beside her as she opened her phone's gallery.

Anabya wanted to get out of there, escape and save her heart from the trauma, and yet her legs refused to move as she stayed rooted in her spot, her eyes finding proof of what she had just heard.

So while Shamaaz hadn't felt guilty at all for sacrificing her plans, and left her back to take care of his mum, times when he wasn't playing matches, he was busy enjoying with his ex? It seemed untrue, but the pictures spoke another story as Mariam scanned through snaps of them having dinner together.

Anabya found her mouth go dry but Mariam's dreadfully victorious expression pushed her to not lose the already lost battle. "We're married, and you can't change the fact, what's your point in showing me all this, Mariam?"

I'm honestly tired, what do you want? Just because you see this intact smile that holds together my pieces, you wish to go ahead and break me entirely, so my pain seeps through as tracks of agony?

"Nope, Bya," she mocked, using the name that Shamaaz had reserved for her. "Just keeping you informed, a wife must be aware of her man's intentions, and we all know Shamaaz has quite a colorful reputation when it comes to all this."

Don't, please, don't. Don't sow these seeds in my mind, just when I've begun to trust him, don't go ahead and ruin it.

But the damage was already done, and without uttering a word, Anabya stepped out of the washroom, the world spinning in front of her blurred vision.

Ya Rabb, I'm about to collapse, and I don't think I'll ever be able to stand up again.

She faltered in her steps and quickly held the pillar for support, and as she struggled to regain balance, she found Shamaaz walk up to her.

"Bya, you okay? I've been waiting for you, what took you so long?" He asked, holding her by the shoulder upon realizing her unsteady state, but Anabya backed away from his touch.

"I want to go home," she whispered.

"You haven't had any food," he reminded, scowling at her behavior.

"I'm not hungry."

"You were starving."

"I'm not hungry," she repeated, a bit more harshly this time.

"What kind of an attitude is this, Anabya? It's rude to simply walk away from the party before bidding goodbye to the hosts."

"I'm sorry for ruining your plans, Shamaaz," she said, walking ahead to sit on a plush couch because her legs felt wobbly and she was just about to fall unconscious. "I'll take the cab if you want," she said, absolutely done with him.

He looked at her for a minute, and frowning, he said, "What's happening to you, do you want to visit the doctor?"

She shook her head and replied, "I want to go home."

Yet again, she backed away from his touch when he offered to hold her on the way to the car, and clenching his jaw but not saying anything, he walked close as she wobbled ahead.

The journey back was dreadful, and upon reaching home, Anabya rushed to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of cold water, chugging it down in three sips.

She stood up from the dining chair and sat on the couch, looking ahead to glance at Shamaaz who was staring right back at her, his arms crossed over his chest as he gave her a questioning look.

"What, Bya?" He asked, glaring at her.

"Shamaaz," she started, collecting her thoughts. "I know you come from a different world, and maybe I've been having too many unrealistic expectations from you, but please tell me, are you supposed to maintain a distance from your ex or does the society expect a wife to be okay when her husband warms up to her?"

When Shamaaz realized Anabya was doing all this over Mariam, he huffed.

"If this is about me hugging her back, let me tell you, it was forced, okay? I didn't do it willingly."

"Fine, okay, point taken. I met Mariam in the washroom and she brought up your past, the one I never prodded on. And when she realized I wasn't interested in it, she decided to show me some very interesting pictures of the both of you during the World Cup. Please tell me those were forced too, Shamaaz."

Shamaaz turned pale upon discovering the twist, and her heart broke a little more.

"That was not a big deal, Anabya," he jumped to defend. "Mariam can be really persistent and stubborn. I tried to deny her requests of hanging around, but she has her way. Her dad is one of the owners of the IPL team that I am a part of, and I couldn't entirely shun her off because that would affect me so much in the upcoming game. I was only tolerating her, don't blow this out of proportion."

"Tolerating her by accepting her demands to go on dates?"

"Dinner," he corrected.

"Dinner with your ex?"

"For God's sake, Bya, don't apply all your psychological theories and make it a complicated drama, okay? Don't make it seem like I was cheating on you."

"No, Shamaaz, don't worry, I'm not doing that," she replied, her maddening state coming off as somber words. "This is about you throwing a fit when Fadil is around me and he so much as genuinely complements me, and this is about how in the name of your career, you get to hang around with your ex and take her for dinners, while your wife is back home, taking care of your mother. No, I'm not saying you may have something going on with her, who am I to judge, right? My problem is the fact that while I'm trying to get to understand you, you refuse to do so in my case. My problem is not Mariam, my problem is all the girls you hug and blame it on your profession, my problem is the one sided compromises I'm asked to make in this relationship, my problem is the fact that you think our life is going perfect without so much as considering my opinions. My problem is the heartbreak you put me through in the name of love."

And here, the day she had been dreading was here. All those humongous red flags that they had been conveniently disregarding emerged from the ashes, and she found herself burn in their flame.

"This is not right, Bya," Shamaaz said, shuddering under the intensity of her words. "You're blowing this way out of proportion."

This, this is what made her so mad.

"I'm always going to be too dramatic, too much of a disaster for you, Shamaaz. Will you ever stop to think that okay, maybe this is affecting her? Nope, never. You've been like this from the start, and I give up. I give up this battle, you are not going to change."

"What do you expect from me?"

"All I expected from you was a little understanding; I wished you could take responsibility of your actions. But that's asking for too much. We've been conveniently burying all our problems beneath us, and now, as they surface, we don't know how to deal with all of it. Actually, I don't want to deal with all of it, I'm absolutely done."

"You don't think so much into these little things, please grow up, Bya," he retorted, infuriated.

"My life is all about little things," she snapped, her eyes going wide with fury. "But for you, it's all about the big picture. How blind are you to see that if the roots are not strong, everything big and small will eventually collapse?"

"Let's get this straight, okay?" Shamaaz fumed, her outburst maddening him. "You know I love you, you know that. And you also know that my lifestyle is such that I attend parties, socialize, and all of that stuff. Why is one affecting the other?"

She buried her face in her hands, feeling absolutely helpless, her emotions spinning a storm in the pit of the stomach while Shamaaz tried to tame it with the pretence of his obliviousness.

"What kind of love is this, Shamaaz?" She whimpered. "Love is not supposed to hurt so much."

He didn't know she was roaring, and his behavior was leading to a thunderstorm that would wreck havoc in their life.

"Have you ever stopped to consider that my lifestyle is different from yours as well?" She asked, exhausted. "I'm expected to accept you the way you are, that's what you are saying, right? Then why can't you spare a thought that probably you should also accept me the way I am and not expect me to compromise. You don't even realize the efforts it's taking me to get this relationship going, you are living in the façade of a happy married life. I tell you something is bothering, and you say I'm being too dramatic, I'm too emotional, you ask me to get over it. And when you or your family tells me something is affecting them, I am supposed to be the perfect wife and daughter in law, sacrifice all my happiness and dreams for their sake."

She paused for a while and took in a shaky breath before elaborating, "Alright, probably if you see it from your way then as a wife, I am expected to do this. Fine. Point taken. But as a husband, isn't it your duty to contribute too?" She accused.

Shamaaz recoiled under the intensity of her words, absolutely staggered to decipher what was happening, let alone find something appropriate to say.

Anabya shook her head, tears flowing freely from her eyes. "I am feeling suffocated in this relationship, it's killing me."

"Bya," Shamaaz whispered, coming near her. "Don't let Mariam break us."

"If there's anyone to blame, it's you," she replied, feeling absolutely miserable and she found herself crumble even more when she thought about this baby and their uncertain relationship.

Wiping away the tears with the back of her hand, she realized she couldn't stay here any longer.

"I can't do this anymore," she said, shooting up from the couch as she blinked back tears and marched to the bedroom.

"Bya, don't," Shamaaz warned, realizing her train of thoughts as he followed her inside.

He looked on as she retrieved a suitcase from the bed storage and placing it on the floor in front the open wardrobe, she hurried to put her clothes in it.

"Anabya, you're not going anywhere," Shamaaz interrupted, holding her arm but she snatched it away from his grasp.

"I'm not listening to you," she shot back, as he stood near the bed and she turned around, proceeding to the wardrobe to get more of her stuff.

She had just loaded arms full of clothes when she broke down once more, yet again thinking of the baby on the way and their current state.

"You know what, Shamaaz," she started, tears kissing her cheeks again. This is not the way she had planned to break this news to him, it was not supposed to be like this.

"You don't realize that while you are running away living a life on your terms, I'm-"

She didn't get to finish her sentence because when she turned around, she momentarily forgot the suitcase that lay by her feet, and as she moved forward, her toe hit the wheel and she tripped over the bag. The move caused her to lose her footing, and her eyes widened, her heart leaping out of her chest but nothing could stop her as she collapsed on the ground, her body aching in defeat while Shamaaz lunged forward to hold her but he was too late.

Last night, when Shamaaz had carried Anabya, it had felt like he was holding all his dreams in his arms. But now, as he rushed her to the hospital, holding her the same way, it was a futile attempt to gather the pieces of a world that would never be whole again.