Hiraeth

08

"I WANT MY SON BACK, SITARA." His dreadful words filled her ears as she kept glancing at her surroundings in agony, fearing to be heard by people.

"You can't be keeping my child away from me like that. I will rip you apart if you try to pull off more drama."

"Stop calling me, please. I promise that I'll talk you in the morning." She helplessly whispered. He had kept calling her all night, switching numbers each time. 

"Don't you fucking dare hang up on me like last night." His tone grew intense and way more louder, making Sitara shudder on the inside but she attempted to keep her calm.

"I'm not, Asad. Please listen to me for once." She was begging him at that point to put an end to the affair of his never ending threats and calls at three in the night. She feared Rehaan having an idea about the same. 

"Bastard." She growled, violently pressing the power button in an attempt to switch off her phone and shoved it inside the staff room drawer. She hated how she couldn't cut him off from their lives in the same way. It was complicated and exhausting. 

Her lower lip quivered as she settled back on her chair, closing her eyes and shifted the pile of test papers aside. 

She didn't want to plague her family's lives with his presence. He had already done her enough damage and was now vowing to ruin whatever life that she had been building for herself and her son. He wanted to take him away from Sitara just when he had come to know that she had married again. It was the fragility of his ego that was refraining him from letting some other man become a father to his son. The same one whom he had mercilessly abandoned ever since the time he had come into this world.

She didn't know what everyone would think of her when they'd come to know everything about Asad. She had only addressed very minor and generic details about her divorce to them. She didn't like opening her old wounds and being judged for the same. She wanted to become someone who was beyond her dreadful past, which wasn't the case in her maternal family because every single person she knew would address that issue and villainize her in a way or other.

She was a bad wife, a selfish one as well for wanting better for herself and not succumbing to the four walls of her husband's house. She was pathetic for demanding a divorce in her ninth month of pregnancy. She was a terrible mother for depriving her son of paternal love. 

She knew that everyone had firm opinions regarding her. They didn't matter to her anymore because with time she had grown stoic. All her gentleness and ability to remain soft had evaporated into thin air. 

Taking in a sharp breath, she picked up her handbag from the other vacant chair and began sorting the pile of books so that she could hold them better. 

"Will you resign?" Her colleague raised an eyebrow, glancing at her as she asked her what she had been anticipating for ever since she saw her this morning.

Sitara gave her a puzzled look, gazing at her way in plain irritation. She knew what she was implying.

"No, Sonia. I don't intend to do that. I know how difficult it would get if I'd leave midway." She spoke, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear as her carelessly put up bun was beginning to fall apart after a long day of work.

She was way too interested in her affairs and Sitara often caught her listening to her heated conversations with Asad over the phone. The new development if her life was way too hard for her to let go. 

"Would your husband let you? I mean, I'm sure it wouldn't fancy him." She spoke, glancing at her wedding ring that now adorned her otherwise bare finger. She was clearly implying the class difference there and Sitara couldn't help but feel insulted.