~Love should not cause suffocation and death if it is truly love, Don't bundle someone into an uncomfortable cage. The bird knows where it belongs, and will never fly to a wrong nest~

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Yasmeen

I woke up to the sound of my alarm filling my ears. It is a bright spring morning, full of promise

Sadly, I was attacked once again by that same question I have been asking myself lately, have I made a mistake in bringing myself here? I have given up everything I had known and loved to start over here, only to find out that there was no new beginning here

For hours I lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the life Ahmad and I had cultivated for ourselves over the months. Like someone who cannot vomit despite horrible nausea, I lay there unable to move, frozen with resentment of process and change.

My relationship with Ahmad is now defined by these complex emotions, this mixture of nostalgia and regret

I wanted things to remain the same as the first few days I was here, I wanted his love and care to remain the same, which never did. And so I am wounded by my own feelings and resentful Ahmad didn't seem to care. Instead, He pushed me away, after feasting on my kindness

Its evident that love left us long back, we just got better. Ahmad better at pretending and hiding, me at ignoring

Once upon a time, Ahmad had swept me off my feet, and was all charm and charisma but then the magic slowly diminished and finally died due to his secret betrayals over time. Thousands of little resentments had replaced the early warmth.

I can't reconcile who he was, the man who was so kind and loving and considerate, with who he is now. I know the truth is who I'm seeing now, but I keep hoping the former man will come back. It's like I fell in love with someone who doesn't even exist.

I was startled when Ahmad yanked the door to my room open, He approached me with face resembling a calamity, his smile looking like jagged tombstones, and soul feeling like an abstract art.

"Are you going to my cousin's birthday party today?" He asked

"Yes, I almost forgot she invited me. I want to buy a gift for her first" I replied, with a wide smile plastered on my face

"No, don't buy it" he said

"What? Why?" I asked, with alarm and confusion, making him realize what he has done

"I mean, don't buy it now. I also want to buy something for her, give me the money, I'll add mine and buy something nice for her" he replied

He almost sounded convincing, but then again I know him too well. I know he would not buy that gift, he is just fond of stopping me from doing anything nice to anyone except his immediate family.

There is enough heartache and sorrow in this life we are living without our adding to it through our own stubbornness, so I did what he wanted to avoid any problems, I didn't buy the gift

While I was getting ready, I hummed my favorite song so full of excitement.

I suddenly stopped when I realized that my current mood is offending my husband, He was looking at me with angry eyes. If anger were mileage, Im sure he would be a very frequent flyer, right up there in First Class.

"Which one of these dresses do you think I should wear to the party?" I asked, pointing at my beautiful dresses, just to ease the tension building up

"We don't even act like a married couple, why are you asking for my opinion now? I would prefer it if you would stop pretending that we are normal all of a sudden" he said, The bacteria of resentment breeding inside him. He insulted my choice of clothing, and everything else about me.

"It doesn't matter what you wear, you would never look beautiful and you will never be able to fit in because my entire family and relatives are western oriented" he added

"You might be wrong. What do you think of this gown?" I asked again, raising one of my dresses

"I hate that dress. But I won't stop you from wearing it, since you're wicked enough to make it an option knowing quite well how much I hate it. Wicked woman" he said bitterly

"I never knew how much you hated it, I just know that you once told me to wear it with high heels" I said, nonchalantly

"Even if you decide to go naked, I won't stop you" he told me

"Why" I asked, laughing hysterically

"Because you will run to your parents and lie to them about what I said. You will twist and sugarcoat my words as usual" he said, bitterly

"Oh My God! Is this about the mini skirt incident? I asked

"Yes, The last time I asked if you could wear a mini skirt and go out with me just to have a good time, you said No and then reported me to your parents. Besides, there's nothing wrong in wearing a mini skirt, my mother herself wears it" he said, waiting for a reply

"The past is in the past, let's move on please" I told him

"We can never move on from this, I will never trust you again" he said

He carried on insulting my way of thinking, he told me I would forever be an outcast with that kind of mindset

He even told me that he would never advice or talk to me about anything again, my opinion is as useless as a smelly piece of shit to him

"I'm not taking you to the party, I have changed my mind" he finally said, when he noticed I didn't give him the reaction he was looking for

"Why" I asked

"If you really want to go, you're not lying as usual, find your way there by yourself. I am not the one that said you must go" he said, knowing quite well that I do not know the way to the venue, it's as good as telling me not to go

I begged him profusely before he agreed to take me, but I suffered his continued insult and emotional abuse first

When I finished getting ready, We drove on in silence. Ahmad would look at me and shake his head in disgust every few minutes.

I stared at him, wondering how it was we got to this place. How the same man who has once said he loved me could shut me out of his life, out of his heart. How even when I reached out to him in distress, all he could do was accuse me, torment or insult me. How easily I can now look at him and feel nothing but contempt, blame and resentment, because that's all that radiated off of him for months and it had become contagious.

In my eyes, trapped tears that have spun themselves so tightly so that they can't fall onto my cheeks are visible, butter tears fell instead back into the empty hollow place inside me. I imagine a deep, dark well inside myself that is filled with all the tears I have refused to let out over the months, and I also imagined how cold and damp I must feel under my pinafore and inside my kind, innocent body.

He stopped at a safe distance when we arrived, telling me to get out of his car.

"When are you picking me up?" I asked, before stepping out

"I don't know, I'm not even going to be the one picking you up. Follow my sisters whenever they are done, I'll be at my mothers" He said, before leaving

I entered the house with my heart in my throat, all of Ahmad's insults kept coming back to me. I feel as if I were about to explode, The thought was so heavy with despair that I almost began to cry. I know crying would help, but I didn't want to cry

Ahmad's cousin gave me a warm welcoming hug as soon as she saw me. Then she asked "Where is Ahmad?"

When I heard his name, I lost it, The tears finally came.

I lifted my arm, tried to say something, then I held my head, covered my mouth and humiliation of humiliations, I began to cry even harder. Right there in public

"Oh no, What is wrong?" Ahmad's cousin asked, with concern

"I'm fine" I said, but it came out as a great honking wail.

"Come here, dear" She said

She put her arms around me, patted my back, before she led me to her room where I sat in her chair, and for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to just cry.

She kept asking if I was alright, but I couldn't find my words. I didn't even know where to begin. So I just nod, meaning I was fine, while I am far from it. Ahmad is the root of all my problems, he is the cause of it all, the cause of my pain and distress

I cried,

I cried because everything was wrong, because love, care, and comfort has become alien to me, because safety and reason seemed to have left the world. Because loneliness is a reality, and in this situation depression was also remotely a possibility.

I cried because I felt this rising frustration and resentment. I was frustrated because I felt stuck, and I was resentful because I was stuck in an industry that was chipping away at so many things I cared about.

I cried because It felt like I was holding onto something that is long gone, and because I felt like I was existing inside a void of emptiness that could have been an entire universe by now.

But I kept repeating the same lie to everyone that asks, "that I was okey"

I knew I would face the wrath of Ahmad's family afterwards, But I still couldn't bring myself to stop. The tears were streaming down my face, I made no effort to brush them away. I just let everything gush forth.

I suddenly saw Ahmad telling his cousin he is here to pick me up.

"I heard Yasmeen has been crying, what happened to her?" He asked

"I don't know" his cousin replied

I was a bit calmer when he turned and looked at me with concern, pretending to be the worlds trophy husband. He acted really nice to everyone and pretended we are that perfect happy couple

Then he asked "why are you crying Yasmeen?"

The only thing I could say was "You know perfectly why" and the tears became fresh again, They fell like rivers down my cheeks.

I did not want to cry, I wanted to be strong, but they fell all the same. I tried to hold them back, but that only made it difficult to breathe.

"She is crying because I forced her to come to this party, she didn't want to come but I forced her to. That's only because I wanted her to get to know my family and spend time with them, I did it with pure intentions" Ahmad told everyone before we left

Ahmad headed to ummy's house as soon as we reached home, It wasn't hard to guess that Ahmad's family are mad at me for crying in public and he is going there so that they will device a plan to make me pay for what I had done

I was seating quietly in the living room when I heard footsteps, I looked up to see a furious Ahmad standing right in front of me

"What the hell was that, Yasmeen? This is pathetic. Are you insane?" He shouted

"I..." My breath comes in a hiccup. "I didn't-" but he cut me off

"What point are you trying to prove? That I am a monster? That I am wicked? I treat you badly? I make you cry? What would everyone think of me? What would my own cousins think of me?" He shouted again

"No, I wasn't trying to prove anything. They were innocent tears, the result of my bottled up emotions" I replied absentmindedly

"What have I done to deserve this? I am certainly sure that nobody in this world hates me more than you do. You hate me to the extent of embarrassing me, harassing me, shaming me, painting me as the monster I am not in the eyes of the world. What sensible wife would do such horrible to her husband? None" he shouted again

Unfortunately, I am not scared of his scolding and shouting anymore, I am immune to it

Something within me snaps, My tears stop. Heat races through my body, driving the weakness out of me. But I didn't say anything

"I know what to tell all those people you cried in front of, I'll give each and everyone of them a call, just to tell them what a horrible person you are and why they shouldn't believe any of your pretense" He said, picking up his phone. He dialed his cousin's number and began to talk as soon as she picked up

"You know, Yasmeen was frustrated because she has been struggling to fit in, she cried because all her efforts were in vein" I heard him say to his cousin, who is on the other side of the phone

"She hates being around other people, especially my family. All my efforts to get her to like them, and bring her closer to them is fruitless. Then I made the mistake of forcing her to go to a party she didn't want to go" he told her

I didn't care what he tells his cousins or anyone else, they are his cousins after all. I am but the picture he paints of me to them

Finally, Ahmad and his sisters managed to convince their cousins and everyone that I am a horrible person, and the reason that I cried was because I didn't like their reception towards me, and that I am insecure, and I have a horrible mindset

I kind of figured out that they never wanted me to go to that party in the first place, That's why Ahmad tormented me, insulted me, frustrated my life. He just told me I could go, so that he would be able to tell his cousin that I was the one that refused to go if she asks. I decided to go anyway and it was a disaster

Looking on the bright side, every tear I have shed purified my soul. It is refreshed

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