Yesss I know I'm a bitch for not updating this sooner but better late than never hm?

Late night update but eh

Hope you'll like it.

Make sure to vote and comment. Tell me what you think.

Thanks for all the love. This is a much awaited conversation between Wafaa and Wajeeh so here y'all go.

Not edited.

Wafaa x Wajeeh

She had never really expected that she would blurt everything out like that. She had never really expected that she would tell him how much she loved him and how much it hurt to love him. She had never really expected that everything with start falling apart, even when she thought that it wouldn't.

She had also not expected that he would say it back because she knew how much he loved her. She also knew that no matter what she did, She would never be able to compare herself to the women he truly loved. She would never be looked at by him, the way he looked at her.

He looked at her like she was his salvation. He looked at her like she was the only one for him. He looked at her like he would die for her and not even hesitate in doing so.

He looked at her like there was no one else in her life but her.

But,

He also looked at the other her. At Wafaa. He looked at her with tenderness, with delicacy, with an almost unattainable look in his eye. He looked at her like she had something he needed in his life but he couldn't ask for it, like he had no right.

Every moment that she had spent with him in all these days, it was going round and round in her head. She didn't want to explore why she fell in love with him because truly, why did she?

What girl would fall in love with a man who was forced upon her? What girl would fall in love with a man who loved another? What girl would fall in love with a man who gave bits and pieces of himself but never himself as a whole?

She let out a sigh and bit her lip as she felt more and more conscious about it all.

Here she was, all fucking alone and she had fucked up a friendship that had taken months to build. Perfect. Fucking perfect.

"Wajeeh?"

For a second, she thought that she was dreaming. She thought that it wasn't really him, it was just her mind trying to assure her that no matter what, he would always show up.

But when he entered the room with a conflicted look on his face, she knew that it was him. It had to be him. There was no one else who would look like he was carrying the weight of the entire world on his shoulders.

"You said you weren't in the village." Wafaa said, not knowing where to start with their conversation. The last time they were in the same space, she had kissed him and he had kissed her back.

And when they talked over the phone call, it was mostly her talking and him listening. She had literally poured her heart out and now she was shit scared.

"I wasn't." He affirmed, telling her that he wasn't in the village but he had travelled all the way here, to see her?

Had he travelled to see her? To talk to her? She didn't know. She wasn't sure.

The room fell silent, the only voice being the clock that ticked every second. With every tick of the clock, his frustration grew more.

He stared at her.

"You said so much over the phone call and now? What happened now Wafaa?"

There was so much anger and angst in his voice that Wafaa felt offended almost. She had poured out every feeling in front of him and instead of being kind, instead of telling her that he respected her love, that he felt something too, that he was in conflict but he understood her love..he was just being angry.

Wajeeh often coated his hurt and complications with his anger. It was just how he was, she had realised.

"Why are you angry?" She asked instead, staring back at him.

"I am angry because you have complicated every fucking thing."

No, she hadn't.

Things were complicated enough already. They had always been complicated. She didn't want to take the blame for all this complication. She couldn't take the burden.

"Because I told you that I loved you?" She voiced out, a flicker of hurt crossing her face.

Wajeeh swallowed, but nodded nonetheless.

"Yes." He affirmed.

She crossed her arms against her chest.

"Didn't you know already? Have my actions not shown you how much I love you?"

When he didn't say anything, she kept on talking.

"Did you not feel my love in that kiss? The one that you gladly returned?" She reminded him, because she understood that she shouldn't have fallen in love with him but no one could accuse her for doing so.

He had been a part of this too, he had been involved..even if he didn't want to admit it. Did he really think it was all in the spirit of friendship when he would sit and have coffee with her? When he'd have the conversations that were too deep to not think upon? How was it that after everything that had happened between them, he was still trying to deny everything?

"Yes!" Wajeeh exclaimed out loud.

"Because you shouldn't be doing any of that. You shouldn't be kissing me and you should definitely not be loving me."

He replied, as if her loving him had become the root cause of everything bad in his life.

Wafaa shook her head at him.

"It's not right, okay? I love someone else and she loves me with all her heart and she is hurting because you love me." He insisted.

Did he not understand that there was someone else who loved him with all of her heart too?

It wasn't about Mannat and Wajeeh anymore.

It was about Mannat, Wajeeh and Wafaa.

"You told her?" She asked, because how did Mannat even know of Wafaa's feelings? Was she really that good at reading people?

"She heard." Wajeeh answered stiffly.

"How did she hear Wajeeh?"

She asked, hoping that he hadn't made her hear anything. It was the first time she had confessed her feelings so openly and Mannat had been the one to hear them too. It was tearing.

"She's the one who made me call you."

She let out a gasp. She was the one who made him call her? She was the one who had asked him to call the other wife and ask how she felt about it all?

"And you did? You called me and made her hear my most vulnerable words? For what?!" She exclaimed, embarassed, afraid and feeling like he had made a joke out of her emotions, her feelings.

"you wanted to show her that you feel nothing for me and I am the one? I am the bitch who keeps on running after you?"

He hadn't seen Wafaa yell this way before. He had seen her express her bitterness, had yelled before but not this way.

He remained quiet and listened to what she had to say, every word sounded like it was coming from a place of bitterness and hurt. It wasn't something new to him.

Mannat had already said too much, had told him how hurtful he was being and how much he was breaking everyone's heart around him. Maybe, it wasn't intentional but it was still happening because of him and because of the circumstances. He could have controlled the situation and handled it in a better way but he didn't. He let his own heart deceive him and now things were ugly because of that.

"Because oh my God, when has a man like you admitted that he might be feeling something for someone other than Mannat!"

She said out loud, hands raising up in exasperation and frustration was evident on her face. This was the second time that she had sounded jealous of a relationship that had been in his life before her. The first time she had sounded jealous was when he had yelled at her but spoken in a very gentle manner with Mannat. He hadn't really called her out for her jealousy at the time but now he could.

"You sound jealous of her." He stated, because everything was out in the open now.

"I am!" She affirmed, not even caring that jealousy was a bitter and petty feeling.

"I am insanely jealous because she get everything good and I get nothing." She snapped her fingers with an angry gaze, he swallowed.

"You love her. You fight for her. You kiss her and you don't feel guilty. What do I get? I get tender looks and words of care, I get the softness in your eyes ann the gentleness that you hold when you are talking to me, and then it's gone like magic." She snapped her fingers again, continuing even when her voice started to turn shaky and her ears brimmed with tears.

"I get scrapes of your love and care. Is it so wrong of me to want more?" She asked, a lone tear fell out of her eye.

Was it so wrong to ask for love?

She understood that he was Mannat's love, she was his. She understood that she was the other woman even when she wasn't. But how could she make her heart understand all of that? How could she calm down her heart that had started to hurt because of a man?

"Yes, it is." Wajeeh replied, controlling every fibre of his being which told him to hold her and tell her that it wasn't wrong.

"it's wrong because you and I both knew what our marriage meant. We both knew that it was only on paper and nothing else." He tried, she shook her head because she didn't believe it. Not anymore.

Honestly, she had stopped believing that moment he told her that she wouldn't be sad forever.

"But it's not like that anymore. I love you and there is something within you that is asking you to feel more and I know it." Wafaa insisted, because she could see the conflict and the love in his eyes.

She could see the care. Why was it so wrong to express it? Why was it so wrong to tell her that she was not crazy for feeling all of it?

"Do you know how guilty I feel for that thought? I feel guilty and ashamed every single minute of every day." Wajeeh replied, taking a step back because all he wanted to do was take a step forward.

It was Wafaa who took a step in his direction. She was the one who held his hand and made him look at her. She was always the one to take a step forward

"You are stopping yourself to feel something for me because you don't want to hurt her. Don't you think it will hurt her even more when she sees that you are forcing yourself to remain committed like that?"

She asked.

Yes, she felt like a bitch for thinking like that. Mannat didn't deserve any of it but was it really so ugly to think about one's own survival? She loved Wajeeh. She wanted to be with him. Was it so bad to love him? No, she didn't think so.

"Don't you think she deserves your undying love and devotion, not a forced companionship?"

She asked again, squeezing his hand. He let out a huge gulp, removing her hand from the hold.

"And who said that it's a forced companionship? This is forced." He pointed towards him and her, she didn't believe it one bit.

She didn't think any of it was forced between them. It was real. It was honest. It was true.

"Mannat and I are soulmates. We are made for each other." He further insisted, Wafaa nodded.

"Then what am I?" She asked, her voice breaking once again.

Who was she in between all of this?

Why was it always Mannat and Wajeeh? When was it going to be Wafaa and Wajeeh?

Would she never be enough?

"Wafaa." He didn't want to say anything, didn't want to pour his heart out but seeing the way she stared at him, he didn't know what he would do.

His life was complicated. It was fucked up. It was sad.

"For once, be honest with me." She pleaded, because she couldn't take it all anymore.

It was traumatizing for her. This constant feeling of loving someone and not knowing what she would get in return, it was just saddening and hurtful.

"I don't want to hear mean words and lies, I don't want hardness in your gaze because you are afraid to say what you feel. I want the truth and then I will not say anything."

She promised, tears pouring out of her eyes but she managed to hold her ground.

"If she deserves your undying love and devotion, then I deserve your honesty." She whispered, and saw him sit down on the couch.

For a few moments, Wajeeh was silent.

Then, he nodded and gestured her to sit by his side.

"Now you stay quiet and listen, don't even look at me because I won't know what to say then."

He looked at her, and she looked at him. She looked away after holding his gaze for a few seconds, nodding and waiting for him to speak up.

After a while, he did.

"I think that since the day I met you, all three of us have been bonded together in an unexplainable way. I don't want you to feel like I'm professing some crazy love for you but you are the only girl that made me feel something when we slept together, the only one other than Mannat."

She didn't remember a single time where both of them even discussed sleeping together, after their marriage. It was a subject that he usually avoided, but now..she was hearing him talk about it.

He had told her to stay quiet or else she would have told him that he was the only man who made her feel happy and special, other than Iskander in that single night.

"Do you remember when you woke up and I made you breakfast, I asked you if I could kiss you?"

Wajeeh asked, only hearing her murmur a quiet yes with her head looking at the floor as she only listened to him.

"I never asked that to any other woman I was involved with. I only asked you. There was something about your smile and the shy confidence that you had, it made me restless."

He admitted.

She remembered how she had laughed when he had asked if he could kiss her. It was such a tender and delicate moment, it was always kept safe in her mind as a special memory.

"When I dropped you off at the airport, a part of me wanted to genuinely help you. I wanted you to stay and I wanted to be there for you, as a friend even but I wanted you there."

He told her next, she realised that she was important to him even when they weren't like this. It felt good, it felt wanted.

"When we got married, I was so angry and so devastated that I was betraying the woman I love that I wanted to take it out on you."

She understood that. The night after their marriage was a different Wajeeh than she had remembered. He was cautious and dangerous, he was scary and intimidating.

"When I hurt you that night, your smile haunted me when I slept. I dreamt about you, I dreamt that you were coming down the stairs and I was making breakfast and I asked if I could kiss you."

Even saying it out loud, he felt guilty. He felt like everything that he was telling her, it was an act of betrayal to Mannat. But he had to say it, he had to make the wrongs right. He had to decide and make it easy for all of them.

"I hated that I had a dream like that. You were a Malik. You were the enemy and I wasn't supposed to think about you in any way." He continued, taking a deep breath.

"But you kept insisting that you weren't my enemy and I did understand that you had been ruined at the hands of your family too."

"Everything that happened after that, every decision that I made when it came to you and everything I said, it was extremely organic."

She sniffed, because the way he was talking about her..it meant something now. It meant that a part of him always thought of her. It meant that she wasn't crazy in thinking that there existed something between them.

"When I was angry, I was really angry and when I was good and nice to you, it was because I wanted to be that way with you."

Wajeeh took another deep breath because he didn't want to tell her about Iskander, but he knew that he had to. He had to do it, he had to say it.

"I wanted to build a life where you both wouldn't go against each other. I wanted to build a life where I could give you both the happiness that you deserve."

This was the reason why he gave them separate portions to stay, he gave them whatever they needed just so it wouldn't be toxic or disheartening. He wanted Mannat to remain happy and he wanted Wafaa to be satisfied. He never thought things would take a toll like this..

"I wanted her for myself," He said, taking a look at Wafaa.

She looked like life and death. She looked strong and vulnerable all at the same time. She looked like she could handle it all but she also looked like she would break down.

"And you?" She looked up at him, only to find him turning his gaze away.

"I had every plan to give you away to the man who loved you, just so you would be happy." She frowned, not expecting it.

"When I told you that you will not be sad forever, I was thinking about how you don't know anything."

"I have been in contact with Iskander, ever since we came back from America. We came to a truce, he had to help me and I had to make sure that you are safe here."

Her eyes widened, the new piece of information was shocking. Didn't he hate Iskander? Why hadn't he told her before?

"But now? The thought of giving you away to him is hurting my heart. That is all the truth that I can give you."

This time when Wafaa stared at him, Wajeeh managed to hold her gaze too. His eyes contained a storm. She couldn't imagine that a man so strong would be torn between two women, not like this.

Wafaa didn't know what to even say.

He was in contact with Iskander. Why didn't he ask her to talk to him then? She was always intimidated that he would simply take away her phone or something if she talked to him. She only talked to him in her most vulnerable moments and then deleted the messages out of fear. She thought he hated him. What the hell?

"You have made everything more complicated than before and how the fuck are we going to move on from here?" Wafaa cursed, Wajeeh shrugged.

"I have no idea." He replied, shaking his head at her.

"Can I ask you one more thing?"

He motioned her to go on.

"If she didn't exist, if you didn't feel the way you feel for her, would you love me then?" The way she asked him, the way she looked at him with hopeful gaze and love in her eyes, he couldn't help but accept what he needed to.

"In a heartbeat." He replied, nodding.

She stiffened.

Fuck.

"Your answer should have been that you can't imagine a world where she didn't exist, where you wouldn't love her."

She stood up, too restless to sit now..

If Mannat didn't exist, he would love her without any fear, without any stress. He would love her in a world where Mannat wasn't there. What could she even make out of this?

"If you had it all planned out, why did you not tell me? Why did you hide the truth about Iskander?" She enquired.

"Because I didn't trust you." He answered.

She didn't believe that.

"You once told me that you trusted me enough not to kill you in your sleep. You also told me that I was your friend and you did trust me," she pointed out, continuing.

"If you trusted me then, if you trusted me with your life, how could you not trust me with this?"

Lately, he had been feeling like his entire life was all about interrogation. His two wives asked him everything. They observed too much and they had started to read him too well.

"You are lying." Wafaa stated, he felt helpless.

He clicked his tongue in frustration because what more did she want him to say? He couldn't. Did she not understand that he couldn't live in a world without Mannat. It would be too empty.

But a world without Wafaa? It wouldn't be good either.

Why was he so stuck? What would he do? Where would he go?

"For the first time, I have seen your vulnerable eyes and understood what they hold within them." Wafaa murmured, ready to cry in any moment.

"If there is such a storm within you, why can't you tell me how you feel about me? Why can't you say that when you look at me, something within you changes." She added, finding him try his best not to get affected.

She came close to him.

"Why can't you say that you might be falling in love with me as well and you are just scared? Why cant you say that you can't leave her but you cannot also think of leaving me? Is it really that hard to admit?"

He looked at his feet, she put her arms around his neck.

"Am I really so hard to love?" He looked up, finding her too close.

Wajeeh shook his head.

"Yesterday, Mannat made my heart ache when she said that she felt like she was never enough." He admitted, remembering the heartbreaking moment.

"And today, you are making it ache by questioning if you're hard to love." He said, his breath fanning her face.

"It feels right to love her but it doesn't feel right to love you. I don't mean that you are hard to love because, you are making me question everything that I have stood for in my life."

He told her, the truth too painful but necessary to say.

"You are actually very easy to love. You make it easy to care for you, you make it easy to protect you, you listen and you don't really fight back too much. If you were not easy to love, there would not be a man risking his life to save you."

He reminded her, she gulped. When she tried to remove her hands from around his neck, he made them stay there by holding her arms.

"I know that it's ironic to talk about honour in our world but, if there's anything I feel guilty for other than hurting two beautiful women.. it's the fact that Iskander doesn't deserve any of this."

Iskander.

He had been the most beautiful aspect of her life. He was there when no one else was and she wouldn't ever forget him.

Iskander had taught her what love meant, it was easy and comfortable with him. It was the support and care, the tenderness.

But with Wajeeh? There was passion and intensity. There was heart ache. There was so much heart ache.

"He is a good man, he loves you and even if it doesn't make me feel good, you should be with him." He told her, because he felt like he had decided what to do.

"We should all right our wrongs. Once everything goes away, I will build a life with the woman that I love, not the one that I might be falling in love with." He let his hands release the hold on her arm and she let them slide away from around his neck.

"And you? You should be with him, because he will always choose you. He will always love you and he will never question anything when it comes to you."

He was right.

Iskander was the right choice. He was the better man. He would die for her. But he wasn't Wajeeh and that was where her heart belonged.

"And what about us?" Wafaa asked, he cracked a sad smile.

"There's an us?"

"There's always been an us, Wajeeh."

She said, as a matter of fact.

"I told you that I love you and you told me that you are falling in love with me, yet you wont choose me and you don't want me to choose you."

She wanted to cry.

"Mannat doesn't deserve this. She doesn't deserve to become a choice. Neither do you." Wajeeh responded, she felt helpless and she didn't want to give up on him.

She couldn't.

"If I have to coexist with her to be with you, I will do it in a heartbeat."

She would rather have a little love from him than none at all.

"You are crazy when you are in love." He stated, she knew she was being quite mad. 

"I am." She affirmed.

"I'll never do that to her, I can't do that to you either." He reminded, she shrugged.

"It's been done before."

"Yes, but that doesn't make it right in my eyes."

"Can you imagine how it would feel if you see her carrying my children? Can you imagine how she would feel if she saw me kiss you? It would break you both and it would break me too."

He explained, she let out a sob.

"So that's it then? Are you here to tell me that we can't ever be together?" She cried, and he held her hand..pulling her close again.

He removed her tears, cupping the side of her face.

"Wafaa, you're beautiful and you have a light in your eyes that I've not seen in someone who has gone through so much pain. You've survived everything that's been thrown your way and I love you for it," He swallowed, feeling the ache within him too.

"But, there's someone that I've dreamed about being with, someone I've protected with all I had in my heart, someone I can't imagine putting through more shit, someone who is my soul mate, someone who has still told me that she's ready to fight for me."

Mannat. Mannat. Mannat. It was always going to be Mannat. It would not ever be Wafaa. She hated that.

"I can't let go of someone like that,"

When tears left her eyes again, Wajeeh felt pained too.

"I can't. She gave me two days to figure myself out and if I can't, she'll come back here and she'll be there for me. I have to get my shit together in two days because I don't want her to stand here and show me how she's better than you."

He couldn't do that, he couldn't bear any of it.

"I don't want you both to stand against each other, for my sake."

"Two days?" Wafaa asked.

Could they atleast pretend to be just a husband and wife till then? Could he atleast give her that? Could he love her for two days then?

"Yes. She left with our friends to visit the northern areas and I'm here to sort my shit out."

"Two days, Wafaa."

"Then give me two days, Wajeeh." She pleaded, he raised his eyes in confusion.

"What?"

"Give me two days of love, of bliss, of everything good that we could have had in our lives but we can't." She pleaded, he didn't know what to say.

Two days of Wafaa and Wajeeh and a lifetime of nothing between them? What was this?

"Wafaa." He took her name, she wanted to sob in his arms.

"Don't say no."

"I am asking you to give me two days and then you can spend an eternity with her. I'll walk away once it's over and never look back."

She didn't know if she would even have the power to do so but right now, she needed him to say yes.

"I promise. I just need two days of being loved by you."

She prayed that she would be strong enough to uphold that promise, she knew she wasn't.

"Please." She begged, he shook his head and took her in his embrace.

"Okay. Two days."

"Two days."

Day one.

"So what do you do when you are in Lahore?" She questioned, as they roamed around the streets of Lahore and she felt like nothing had really happened in her life.

It all seemed too normal. Being with Wajeeh felt normal, happy. It felt like they were a normal happy couple and she felt so fucking glad about it.

"Nothing actually. We really do nothing but get dinner somewhere nice and rest, chill in the room."

He was talking about Mannat, but she didn't feel awkward or sad for now. If felt like she was in a happy bubble and she liked that.

"I can't imagine being stuck in a hotel room. When it comes to me, I want to see everything." She gushed, holding his hand as they entered the mall.

Wajeeh didn't shrug off her hand, and when she looked at all the shops and the people..he was only looking at her.

"It's because you've never left the village in the past few months. As far as I know, you were quite the party girl in LA." He reminded, she let out a happy squeal.

"I was the best. We would spend our weekends getting hammered at some club and just dancing throughout the night."

It was such a happy time in her life. One night she would be drunk off her ass in vegas and in the next, she would be dancing on a bar table somewhere. It was an easier time.

"I don't even remember the last time I wore a nice dress."

She hardly even repeated a dress back in L.A. She was known as the rich brown girl in the university because of her outfits. In Pakistan, there was no one to flaunt or show off her dresses to. She was always stuck in the house. But now? She could wear whatever she wanted. It was Lahore, for fucks sake.

"We can get a dress for you then." Wajeeh murmured, eyes already looking at the store in front of them.

"Really? We can?"

Her eyes glimmered, he nodded with a smug smile.

"Of course. Shohar hoon main aapka (I am your husband), remember? You get to shop till you drop."

He dragged her towards the big store and she laughed, entering along with him.

"You better have your card ready." She murmured, as she looked around and found everything a little too beautiful.

"Everytime I would want to buy a new dress from a big designer, I'd call up my father and tell him that they are asking for more semester fee. You won't believe it but I had him pay three times for single semester."

She told him, laughing as she remembered how she managed to scam the man. She was quite smart, but also quite the stupid girl.

"He probably knew, but he still paid anyway." She added, Wajeeh raised an eye.

"Or maybe he was just an illiterate fuck." He pointed out.

When Wafaa didn't say anything and touched the fabric of the dress in front of her, he shot her an amused look.

"What? Not going to say 'he's my father?"

"He stopped being my father when his son killed my friend and he didn't even call to check up on me." She replied, he hummed.

"So he pushed you around, beat the hell out of you, forced you into a marriage and manipulated you throughout your life but you draw the line when his son kills a maid?"

"She wasn't a maid. She cared about me, she was a friend." Wafaa answered, he sighed but nodded.

"I know. I wish she hadn't died."

"Me too." She quietly said, her mood falling as she realised how it hadn't even been a week since Nasreen death. It felt surreal even now.

"Come on now, smile." He nudged her, finding the deflated mood.

She looked at him and smiled. He picked out a dress from the rack and put it against her.

"Do you like this one?" He enquired, she looked at the mirror and found the sight too beautiful.

Her husband held a dress against her, he was smiling at her and she was smiling because of it. The dress wasn't even special looking but it was the most beautiful fucking dress she had ever seen, only because he had chosen it for her.

"I love it." She murmured, biting her lip as they stared at each other through the mirror.

Wajeeh nodded, pulling the dress away.

"And I also like the jacket over there." She said, because she loved fur and her eyes had caught a glance of it.

"Do you want to try?"

"No. I want to buy."

She pointed out, he hummed and waited as she bought three more dresses and he only paid for it with a smile.

"Okay, ma'am..where to next?" When she dragged him to the shoe store a few shops away, he knew that they'd be spending a lot of time here.

"Heels, please." She murmured, entering the store.

"You're not gonna try?" He asked when he saw her pick out a nude colored heel and tell her size to the sales man.

When he brought it to her, she told him to just put it at the counter instead.

"I know my legs look good in heels and I know my size so what's the point of trying?"

She picked out four more pair of heels, all in different colors and patterns. By the end, she managed to try one of them and looked at herself in the mirror. They looked sexy. She liked sexy.

"Just five pairs?" He teased when he handed his card over to the cashier.

"Hey! That's very less. This one time, Iskander literally paid for my twelve pair of heels and didn't even complain."

She rambled in happiness, only to stop when she realised how she had compared.

"I'm sorry." She apologized, because she didn't know what else to say.

He shook his head, asking the salesman to put all the stuff in the car that was parked outside.

"Don't be." He murmured, giving her a gentle smile.

"Where to next?" Wajeeh asked, she pondered for a minute.

"I mean, I am a fan of jewellery too." He fake sighed, motioning her to walk towards the jewelery shop.

In reality, this was the most normal he had felt in a long time.

___

Thoughts?

This is gonna be continued btw