Puppets of Control

She shifted in her sleep. The small space on the sofa was enough for her petite body, but it was not as comfortable as she would prefer, and Rafan could see it. She turned around, and her eyes flickered under her eyelids. The beauty that he once had fallen for was pale and tired. The freshness it held once was no more, and it was not due to her illness but due to the pain of yearning and guilt.

Her eyes blinked open, but slowly, adjusting to the illumination of the light. As soon as her eye accommodates the blurry image in front of her, they went wide. Although the color of the skin was anemic, those sharp features and those dark brown eyes seemed almost amber in the bright light that graced them.

She observed that he was just sitting there, not moving, staring at her with an unread expression, but he still held a form of coldness in his icy browns. He sat there with his two fingers covering his lips but not completely. His dark brown hair was tied back in an informal ponytail. His one feet overlapped the other as he wore what seemed like casual yet work clothes, that is if he was considered. In a white loose shirt and black jeans with a pair of brown combat boots, he just sat there and stared at her, not speaking a word.

Swallowing roughly, she sat back up from her lying position. Not meeting his eyes again, she looked around, trying to find her brother and niece, but did not even hear a single noise. She glanced back at his face to only find him in the same state as before. Not even an inch had changed.

"Where is everyone?" She asked with normalcy, without wavelength of disturbance in her tone, to which he only blinked as if mentioning that he did hear her.

"Why weren't you in our room?" Rafan asked instead and her mouth shut into a tight line. Not only did that reaction disapproves of his counter-question, but it also did not recommend an answer for him.

"I do not think that is important. I will look for them on my own." She stood up and walked around the house calling the rest of the families' names, but there was no answer, nor had she found someone. It only caused her to panic.

"What if my stupid left me alone with him and went to his in-laws?"

"Where are they?" She demanded, a bit concerned and with a lot of frustration, but Rafan only stared back at her, not even deflected by her anger that was starting to surface on her face.

"Hospital. Zeynep has an appointment." As if on cue, the anger got replaced by embarrassment for her oblivious nature. Every Sunday, Zeynep goes to her therapist for special sessions.

"I apologize." She said as her eyes flickered at the floor. Radan stood up; as he slipped one hand into his jeans, he placed the other's finger under her chin and leveled her face to his. It was a soft gesture as he searched her eyes before speaking.

"Next time, don't make me repeat what I expect from you. I am fulfilling my responsibilities. So, from now on, you do not have any other choice but to let me. That automatically means you will follow every action that is required by you as a wife. Do not come in between what I promised once again." All it took was for his words to settle, but she did not speak. His eyes, in a way, decreed her to a status that she could not revoke.

When she did not speak, Rafan increased the distance that he once had closed in before and picked up his leather jacket as he moved towards the door, but as if her mind finally comprehended what was happening in the longer run. Instantly that caused her to snap at him.

"I am no puppet of yours. I won't take orders, Rafan. I am an independent person who makes her own choices." Despite the extensive change in Jeena's personality, her relentless and individualistic autonomy still remained intact. Rafan stopped on her words but never turned towards her.

"No one is treating you as a puppet, but you lost the chance to be heard and be taken into consideration when you made a choice that hunts us both." She understood what he meant, but as a human with her own opinions and lifelong battles, it was not easy for her to give in despite being at fault.

Mostly.

"I have already said sorry for what I did, but I thought about you, and yet you think I was wrong because it hurts you." She spoke defeated as if trying to convince him that she was also suffering, that it just was not him. This caused him to turn around with a cruel smirk over his face as his eyes went dead cold.

"That's the problem. You thought about me when I thought about us. You knew I would never let you suffer all this alone, yet you left me. I promised, yet you did not believe me because all your life, you had been alone. Fighting the things you fought on your own. You thought they will probably happen again, so it was better to leave me instead of waiting for me to leave you because everyone leaves you in the end, right?" His words were bitter, but they held nothing but the truth in them. Jeena knew it. She loved him, but feared heartbreaks more. She thought she could not afford them, so Jeena made him the hero and the victim in their story because she was scared to see him as a selfish man in the end.

"And I won't let you do what you did back then. You are my responsibility, and you will remain that way, only that." There was a scar of fear. Horrified, if one must analyze her face, it seemed. It appeared someone had slipped the ground from below her feet.

"What do you mean by only that?" Jeena questioned, blinking in a state of confusion.

"You lost the trust I had given you without you asking or earning it. You lost respect for individualism when you decided to push me away. You lost your honesty when you lied about your life which meant everything to me. You lost my love when you took away the chance of us having an us. You lost forgiveness when you took away the mercy upon me to grieve beside you." The abhorrence was genuine. The coldness was not just a display to torture her, but instead, it was a mirror image of her doings.

"If you do not love me, why take my responsibility?" She asked as she saw him leaving again, as her tears resurfaced in her eyes. Her pragmatic mind could not understand why would you put up with someone you did not even love just because you are attached to them legally.

"You are making a mistake if you think the great Jeena not receiving love means I do not love you. I still love you, but you won't receive it. A proud woman like you would only receive the treatment of nothing but just a responsibility. I am pretty sure you can deal with that. Be ready after Zohar's prayer, we are going to the registration department and the American consulate to register our marriage and change your name to your married name." And just like that, he finally left.

We humans have to break in order to repair the marred parts in us that have a pattern to be a fault of our own. Being religious and moving toward Allah is not enough when we are corrupt from the inside, even after asking for forgiveness for our sins. They are not just a habit, but a part of us. Jeena had a long way to go before she could actually see the consequences of her own actions.

Jeena had a pure heart. Her heart was filled with kindness and affection, yet the belief of being self-sufficient for herself when she had crippled her identity. Being self-sufficient, does not only stand for food and finance, but it concerns one's emotions as well. She was proud of how she could take care of herself and how she does not require any human for that, but she was wrong. We are not perfect, and we need our balance in this world due to that very imperfection. That balance is our home. Rafan was home.

If Allah did not want us to be dependent on the emotional support of someone else, He, Allah would have never made the concept we call marriage. A man and woman's coupling was a religious deed that not only honors humanity, but also gives a sense of future families that are formed in love, respect and mutual understanding to make a better society that humans now are simply destroying because of the holier-than-thou attitude against that very concept.

------------------------------------------------------------

There is a huge difference between doing something for someone you love and putting yourself first, thinking I am doing this for someone else. What Jeena did, according to her, the majority of it was done out of love, but there was a motive behind it, that underlined most of her decision, and Rafan could see that. We, humans, are selfish in such a sense that despite we claim to love someone, we vow to protect our hearts more than anything in the end.

"Kabir, this better be good," Rafan articulated as soon as he entered Kabir's hotel room.

"Trust me, it is. See this, we can finally crack the firewall." Kabir quickly turned the laptop screen in Rafan's direction as Rafan took the seat on the armchair by the table.

"This... this is good! How did you crack it again?" Rafan asked as he read through the codes on the screen.

"I used my university book," Kabir declared with a grin, and Rafan looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

"Should I be asking about this in detail?" Rafan asked with a light chuckle seeing Kabir's grin not wavering.

"Okay, so I was working at this the whole night, and you know the patterns of the codes are very unusual. So, I was about to give up when I saw a very familiar code. That is when it hit me, you know, like a brain explosion. The codes are school graded. I mean, they are not high-tech at all. They are just like in a loop forming a constant web that causes an illusion of them being unbreakable or something out of the ordinary. Whoever did this was actually having fun by pranking people. The answer was so simple, which is why I took the book out of my bag and went through it once and magic." Kabir said, gesturing with his hand towards the laptop as if saying ta-da. He dug his teeth into his lower lips like a kid who failed to contain his joy.

Shaking his head at Kabir's antics, Rafan smiled as he focused on the screen again. After an hour or so, they finally finished re-hacking HBL bank's security system that was hacked a few days ago, to find the IP address of the person who took nothing but blocked the bank from using their system.

"Good job Kabir. Your first single assignment was a success. I am proud of you." Rafan patted his back and gave him an encouraging smile that only Kabir could blink at.

"You are smiling?" It was a question that caused Rafan to chuckle, causing Kabir to smile back at him.

"Now stop grinning like a fool, and believe me when I say that you will have more sleepless nights like these. I am thinking of hiring you for good and not a temporary intern anymore." Just like that, Kabir jumped in for a hug, taking Rafan by surprise, but he recovered from it and patted his back with one hand. They went back to discussing their work again.

"Can I ask you something?" Kabir asked as he passed Rafan a cup of green tea while Rafan went through some papers.

"Sure," Rafan answered absent-mindedly as he went through the papers making corrections here and there with a pencil.

"Why are you... so normal today?" Rafan was writing something when he heard him and stopped midway.

"I thought I was normal," Rafan said with a smirk as he continued his work.

"I mean... you cannot possibly be smiling like that because I did good, can you now?" Kabir asked, shrugging as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

"I should not smile at you, is that what you are saying?" Rafan asked and looked over at Kabir's standing form from his shoulder.

"You can but..." Kabir trailed off not knowing what can offend him and what cannot.

"Jeena does not have cancer, not anymore, as of now," Rafan said as he left the pencil on the table and leaned back on the sofa as he sighed.

"Alhamdulillah! That's actually good. So everything okay between you two?" This was the first time Rafan told him something personal on his own and Kabir thought it was a good chance to ask further.

"I do not know. She loves me, and I love her, but..." Rafan lingered it off.

"It will be fine. Things take time." Kabir said hopefully with a small smile.

"I have to go. I have some changes. Add them to the contract and print out the final draft and send an email to the IT department of HBL." Rafan said, taking his jacket from the sofa as he stood up.

"Sure. Allah Hafiz." Kabir says as he picks up the paper and goes through them once.

------------------------------------------------------------

Rafan knocked at the door after ringing the bell, and soon after, Zeynep opened the door. Scrunching down to her level, he noticed her usual smile to be missing.

"What happened?" Rafan asked. Despite Zeynep was not able to speak due to her PTSD, she still knew and understood Turkish and English, exactly why she understood what Rafan had asked. Zeynep just moved forward and took him into a hug.

Confused by her sudden reaction, Rafan picked her up in his arms and moved inside, still asking her if she was okay, but Murat came into his view with a smile.

"What's going on?" Rafan asked as Zeynep tightened her hold around his neck, causing him to put a hand over her head, which was on his shoulder as if trying to calm her down.

"Nothing, one of our local police officers is here, and Zeynep is scared of police officers in general because of that incident," Murat said, hinting at his wife's accident. Nodding in understanding, Rafan further walked in when he heard Jeena chuckling along with the police officer.

Rafan observed him. He was tall, well built, but not too wide or giant by size, and had a long face and subtle stubble on his face. He had amber brown eyes, and his hair was made retrograde in style as he wore all black with a long coat with a high neck.

"Why wasn't he dressed in his uniform?"

"Hey, Mehmet. Meet Rafan Ghamza." The man stood up as he looked over at Rafan from Murat.

"Salam Alaikum." He said as he forwarded his hand towards him for a shake.

"Walikum Ass Salam," Rafan said, but never took his hand.

"Sorry, occupied." Rafan further said, pointing towards the child in his hands when Mehmet's hand was still in the air. Mehmet just nodded at him, but he could feel that Rafan did not approve of him on the exact spot either.

"Rafan, this is Mehmet, one of our locals. He has been a huge help and sincere friend since the incident." Despite Murat's composed exterior, anyone could see in his eyes that losing his wife had caused him to bleed every single day. He was just trying to put a front for his family, especially Zeynep, so they do not go through worry and depression. Rafan patted his back.

"Right. I am sorry to cut the chitchat, but we have to go. Jeena, if you are ready, come on." Rafan glanced at Jeena as he casually told her to get up and leave the damn house because he could see how that man was ogling her.

"Oh, yeah, right. Jeena told me about that. You guys have to leave for the registration department. You can give Zeynep to me." Murat came forward to take his daughter, but she refused to let go of Rafan.

"If you do not mind me asking, why do you need to go there?" Rafan was nodding at Murat to let Zeynep be. He can take her with them, when at the same time Mehmet spoke.

"To change my last name and to register our marriage as well." It was Jeena, who articulated with a pointed but equally provoking way as if she was trying to tell Rafan, 'am I being a good wife?' Rafan's eyes darted at her with a straight face while Murat just shrugged with wide eyes as if thinking, 'this would be one long ride back home.'

"You guys are getting married?" The man spoke surprised as he looked between them all, which only made Rafan arch his eyebrow at him.

"We already have been married for four years. We are just registering it now, internationally." Rafan answered with a straight face. Mehmet nodded with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

"Let me get my bag," Jeena said as she moved twardsn the stairs to go to her room.

"Do not forget your passport and other stuff!" Rafan voiced, from behind her, causing her to stop and glare at the step in front of her.

"Alright." She gritted her teeth and went up quickly.

"I am in the car. We'll eat out. If you want, you can meet us there when you get free." Rafan stated as he turned towards Murat, completely ignoring the guy on his left.

"I am not sure about that. I have to be at the hospital. I have the night shift today." Murat said, slapping Rafan's back in a brotherly gesture.

"I should leave now," Mehmet said with a formal smile.

"You su..."

"As-Salam Alaikum." Rafan cut Murat, causing both the men to snap at him, surprised, but Rafan gave Mehmet, a sneer instead. Awkwardly nodding at them both, Mehmet left.

"What was that?" Murat asked with an amused but narrowed stare.

"I do not like that man. I think he likes Jeena. The surprised expression he had was not an accident but in fact, an objection. " Murat thought he would lie or will just plainly say 'what,' but no, he directly said what he felt.

"Wow. If we are being this truthful, why not we talk about you and my sister." Murat said, folding his hands over his chest while Rafan smiled down at Zeynep, who finally showed her face and looked at him with her big beautiful eyes.

"What about us?" Rafan spoke as he canceled the idea of going into his car to wait because the drooling man had left.

"She was crying with hiccups when I came back. And she does not cry. She told me what happened between you two. Cannot you really not forgive her? I mean, Jeena suffered enough. It was not just you, you know." Murat was right, and Rafan knew that, but it was more complex than what they were all seeing.

"Did you love your wife?" Rafan asked out of the blue, causing Murat to glance over at his daughter with a sad smile.

"I still love her," Murat said with a smile as his eyes went wet.

"I love your sister too, yet she broke my heart. She claims to love me, but how can you love someone when you only think about yourself? It's impossible to forget the torture I went through, especially when I am still going through it. Just because she thought I won't be there... that I would leave her. She left me without even a chance so I could try." Rafan said as he shifted Zeynep to the opposite hand to not meet Murat's eyes.

"And when you cannot forget, you cannot forgive," Rafan concluded as he looked straight at the wall in front of him as his Adam's apple bobbled over his discomfort.

Chapter 21

So, I am here...

And it's been a while, I apologize,

But I hope you enjoy it while I am still here. Fun fact my mother thinks I walk like this😭

I will see you next time!

Allah Hafiz.