A short story defining the stages of love.
Inara Khan was petulant: stubborn, short-tempered, blunt, and a middle child. She had her life planned until she stumbled on a betrayal by one she had never considered a possibility from.
Life threw a cur...
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Inara has had a long list of visitors in the two weeks that she sat confined to her bed. Her husband being a constant was an exogenous variable she decided to ignore at this count. A day after her accident, Rahil had somehow informed Aqmar without her knowledge, that was a lot to say when the man had hovered around her for all the waking hours, counting on his chair for two straight days to be considered.
Her brother had come barrelling, literally and figuratively the very evening. Her parents are in tow. He had demanded her the tale and had paced the length until her neck ached. Inara had complained and the man had calmed to sit back, still brooding. She didn't realize Rahil had a competition in her own family.
Jamila, her mother had wept again. Apologizing and explaining her reasons. She was heartbroken, much more than Inara had thought her to feel. She had cried in her father's arms as Inara's injuries were narrated again.
"Can you forgive your mother, mera Baccha?" She had caressed her face, looking 10 years aged in the past hour.
With her good arm, she squeezed her hand and smiled in reassurance. Her mother was being a mother to her daughter the same way Inara was being a daughter. They hadn't lived a life before; they were experiencing the ups and downs together. She had come to acknowledge the fact after facing death so close. Each of them lived the first life they got, they hadn't this before. Her parents were parenting for the first time, with no experience, no past lives, and no daughter dilemma before.
"I am sorry, Ammi." She placed her head against the bosom of her mother, letting the familiar warmth caress her with the comfort she had associated with her. The gravitational force that kept her down and moving.
"I was being biased to Iram." She had confessed. "Trying to keep her happy knowing her condition, I sacrificed yours."
That was the truth. In order to keep her other daughter's happiness, somewhere Inara had backpaddled.
"She is pregnant." Her mother had repeated what Inara had known for a while. She may not run in the same circle as her once-twin sister but she never missed on entail. That was too much of a goody-two-shoes act that didn't suit her.
She liked keeping tabs, especially on people who were in her grudge radar.
Inara's eyes met Rahil at the other side of her room, the man stood in the same place he had once when she had stepped into his sanctuary for the first time. His eyes told her to stay relaxed and let go. Somehow, she didn't know the words but she had read right through his facial expressions.
Blinking back, she shot her family a big smile and changed the subject like the expert she was, a good student of Rahil Sohail – the Master of Arts in switching subjects.
When she had repeated her thoughts to Rahil the same night, laughing at the new degree she had awarded her husband, he had shaken his head with a barely concealed smile as he fed her medicines and told her to sit back as he read her book for her.
