The setting sun was in stark contrast to the city's evening rush. Leaning on the railing, Amal's eyes swept across the montage of Gulshan. She closed her eyes, trying to stop this tranquil moment in time. A rarity in the city thrumming with chaos.

The sweet aroma of fresh tea broke her trance. She looked sideways and found a smiling Azra. She stood next to Amal, placing the tray between them.

"It's good that you're here. We were more than ready to come barging into Wadia House otherwise."

Amal chuckled as she took a sip of the tea. "I was caught up in stuff. You know me. Someone has to physically restrain me from coming over."

Azra nodded, thoughtfully. Her eyes narrowed at her. Amal saw the shift with interest.

"Was it about that journalist?"

Amal shook her head but her lips curled into a smile.

"No. Why would you think that? It's been a long while since we've talked."

"Then talk."

Azra shrugged matter-of-factly. Amal was about to say more when they were joined by Ruki, Shamim, and Chandni.

"What are you both talking about?"

Ruki asked, looking between Amal and Azra curiously.

"Nothing. Azra is not making any sense. My absence has affected her, I guess."

Azra scowled at her and turned to her housemates.

"I just told her that she needs to keep in touch with the journalist from abroad."

The instant exchange of agreement among the ladies was enough to tell Amal she was on her own.

Shamim raised her finger to send her point across.

"Azra is absolutely right. We mean it, Amal. Talk to him. You should never stop talking to him."

Amal raised her hands. "You guys have gone bonkers. You're supposed to tell me what went down around here in my absence but here you are, making a big deal out of nothing."

"Nothing, hun? Don't make us elaborate." Ruki was quick to contradict her. Amal looked sideways. Her hesitation and denial were a novelty for the women of Ghar. They watched it with interest when Amal got up with her empty cup of tea.

"How's Nomi? I haven't heard from him in so long."

Her subject change couldn't have been any more obvious but the ladies let it slide.

"Oh, the same old with him. He doesn't stop by as much as he used to but he's fine. We ran into him just last week outside Dr. Shehzad's clinic."

As soon as the words slipped Chandni's tongue, she regretted them. Ruki, Shamim, and Azra were alarmed.

Amal looked at them, perplexed. "Dr. Shehzad? What for?"

Ruki shrugged, trying to make it sound trivial. "Azra was feeling under the weather. Nothing serious."

But fooling Amal had always been hard for them.

"Let me guess. Elevated blood pressure due to tension, right?"

She regarded them with the countenance of a strict warden. It was no news that an otherwise healthy Azra didn't face tense situations head-on. Her physical health would give out first and foremost.

Ruki nodded stiffly.

"And what must've caused that worry?"

Azra tried to damage control but Amal would've none of it.

"What did they say, Azra? What was it?"

Azra's silence was prolonged. Amal was about to lose it when Chandni placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Your sister is coming on the 20th of this month. And she's going to stay here."

Amal's shock quickly morphed into rage. "Who told you that?"

"She called."

Azra whispered. Amal couldn't believe it was happening. The sheer audacity of her parents and Zahra! They knew she wouldn't budge so they chose the easy way out and informed the ladies at Ghar.

"This isn't done!" She seethed.

"It practically is."

Azra tried but Amal wouldn't have any of it.

"You don't understand, Azra."

"No, you don't understand, my child." Azra held her hand which she tried to pry away but couldn't.

"This is your father's place. Your sister has every right to come and live here for as long as she wants to. We are no one to stop her."

"Azra! Do you not realize why Zahra is coming here?"

A heavy silence followed her anguished cry.

Zahra's arrival would mean their departure. Easy as that. Amal understood it. So did the women before her. Their helpless resignation pierced her heart.

She wouldn't go without a fight. She couldn't. These women had only her. No one else would bat an eyelash if they were thrown out on the roads.

And she'd be damned if she let it come to that.

𝄞

Slow days and long nights weren't on Sila's favorite list. Her life went on a set trajectory, where if she was not in control, at least she ran with whatever it threw at her.

This was the most useless she'd ever felt. No prospect, no motivation, days merging into another. The melancholy in Murree's weather had embraced her, or she brought this cloud of gloom with her, she couldn't say.

In the beginning, she tried to put on a mask for the sake of it but it proved to be futile. What good pretenses were going to do anyway? The tale of her heartbreak was engraved on her whole being.

She had left Karachi. Murree had lost her years back. She had shut herself out to the whole world. Only her friends had access to her. His friends too. And her in-laws. They were cautious, treading around her carefully. And she was withdrawn. The thread that linked her to them had severed or was hanging by its last bit.

And him. After that phone call, he had, finally, listened and didn't try to contact her. She should've been relieved. But all it did was make her want to curl herself into a ball and cry. She needed the distance, she had told him loud and clear but at the same time, the distance was making her lose herself some more, if that was possible.

She was supposed to get over the hurt, go out there, and immerse herself into the life she had painstakingly put together. She had to come to a decision. She needed to talk to him. They couldn't live their whole lives this way. One day, they'd have to come to an agreement about the future of their relationship.

But she felt as unprepared for it as the day she left their ...his place. Even through the haze, she could say one thing with conviction. She was not ready to face the repercussions of their fall. Not yet. She was barely surviving every day. That would break her completely.

Maybe, it was breaking him too. He had asked her to wait for him. Could she be naively optimistic and believe he was working on the needed?

She shook her head. A derisive chuckle left her lips. She was being a fool once again. If he had an ounce of self-reflection in him, they wouldn't be where they were today.

He didn't bloody care, after all.

Closing the cupboard with more force than necessary, she was about to make her way outside when a bundle tumbled to the ground from the top shelf. It fell close to her feet. She sighed and bent down to pick it up.

The yellow cover caught her interest immediately. Someone was obsessed with yellow in her childhood and when she flipped to the first picture, the girl in yellow jumper proved it to her.

A teary-eyed smile reached her lips. Probably after days.

Picture after picture. Her fond childhood memories stared back at her. Times that felt detached from reality. An alternate universe. This house being the home of it.

So lost was she in the walk down memory lane that she didn't even realize she had company. Naheed traced the picture she was staring at for a while and chuckled softly. "That's you and Muaz after rubbing my kitchen with the Kheer."

"In my defense, it was his idea," Sila mumbled.

"Not one intelligent thought in his mind since childhood. God bless."

There were more pictures. She was a toddler and then a newborn. In the arms of her grandfather but mostly, it was Abu who had her in most of the pictures.

"First girl in two generations of just boys. They were over the moon." Naheed reminisced, caressing her hair. Sila leaned into her side. Growing up, she had heard that a lot. But did it make any difference? When at the end of the day, she was abandoned when she needed her family the most. This house and its inhabitants were never just relatives to her. They were her family but she was, as usual, naively optimistic to think that way.

It was probably her fate. Otherwise, why would it happen time and again?

Her childhood pictures on the picture wall in a stranger's house back in Karachi vouched for it. So did this forgotten album.

Naheed was quick to pick up on the shift in her mood. She cradled her head and looked at her face anxiously.

"Sila, bachay, what is it? I know you said you would tell us when you're ready but I'm worried about you. Your state is—"

"Pathetic. I know." She completed it with a nonchalance that chilled Naheed. Sila gnawed on her lip, a conscious attempt to stifle her sobs.

"I...think...I expected too much."

She nodded and heaved a sigh, composing herself. "Which was plain stupidity. The other person doesn't owe you anything. Your idea of you both can't possibly be his idea of you two as well."

"It was."

Naheed blurted out. Sila gave her a questioning look.

"Puttar, did you ever see him looking at you? Because I did. Like you're his whole world."

Sila chuckled. When it turned into a sob she had no idea.

"Such a wonderful way of letting someone know they're your whole world." She remarked hotly. Her frustration was palpable and so was her hurt.

"You don't understand, Ammi. How dehumanizing it is. The person you love and about whom you're somewhat sure that he loves you back. You're begging him to let you in. Shouting right before him but he's unable to hear you and blind to your suffering. Nothing is as painful. You feel like your whole world has crashed down but it does nothing to him."

"After coming here...did you two talk?"

Sila wiped her tears harshly and nodded. "We did. He asked me to wait for him and I told him I didn't want him to contact me for a while. We both need time to figure this mess out."

Naheed wanted to ask more but Sila shook her head. "Please, don't ask me about my decision, Ammi. I don't know. I have no idea. I'm stuck. I just...God!"

Another breakdown. She had lost count by now. Naheed pulled her in a motherly hug. "I won't, Bachay. I won't."

She kissed the top of her head as Sila cried silently into her embrace. As she provided Sila with the needed comfort, her eyes darted outside. Ikram's grim face came into her view.

They both shared a worried glance. The implication couldn't be any more obvious.

𝄞

Faseeh eyed the paper before him. He ran a hand on his face, his agitation mounting with every passing second. Beside him, Sabah didn't fare any better.

Faran braced himself for his father's rebuking, and so did Adan. After all, they decided to keep this information from their parents.

The report of Aahil's accident was provided to them after the initial inquiry. Faran had kept it to himself. Faseeh and Sabah didn't question the lack of concrete details. Their main concern was Aahil's surgery and the subsequent coma he was more than likely to slip into.

But now that he was on the rehabilitation journey, these ignored tidbits needed to be looked into. When Faseeh asked for the report, Faran's hesitation told him something was wrong. Looking at the file, he knew his hunch was right.

Seatbelt safety was thrown into the air. He was in an acute state of panic. If it were entirely up to him, his accident would've been more damaging and would've happened way before it did.

Unforgivable negligence. Recklessness of the highest degree. It wasn't a suicide attempt but it might as well have been.

Aahil had been completely out of it.

"If he weren't on that hospital bed..."

Faseeh seethed. Sabah looked away. The what-ifs were shaking her heart. Such disregard for his life. Oh, Aahil.

"Baba," Faran tried but that earned him a glare from his father.

"Your brother is an idiot of the highest order, Faran. Nothing can come close to the mockery he's made of his life. Nothing."

"He understands that, Baba. For the first time, he does."

The explanation had come from an unexpected source. Adan bit the inside of her cheek but looked on defiantly at her parents. Faseeh shook his head.

"Unbelievable, the whole lot of you."

His normal course of action would've been sitting Aahil down and giving him an earful. But it was not possible at the moment.

"The consolation is that he's alive. It could've gone way wrong but it didn't." Faran tried to interject. Faseeh's scowl didn't ease in the slightest.

"That's a pathetic way of consoling yourself."

Faran smiled dejectedly. "But it's the only way. Baba."

He stood up, not gracing Faran's words with a response. Adan saw him walking toward the door. She couldn't help herself.

"If you are going to his room, don't scold him!"

Faseeh raised his finger at her. "I do not like this change in the attitude, Adan."

"I'm also mad at him, Baba. So is Faran." She implored. "He did everything in his wake to destroy himself. In every possible way. But he's ready to make amends. "

Faseeh sighed. "I hope you're right but if he's at it, ask him to make amends with himself too."

Saying that he left from there, leaving behind the reverberation of his words.

He wasn't wrong. Aahil's own self deserved a sincere apology from him the most.

𝄞

Taking another spoon of the soup, he looked at Sabah intently. She refused to return the favor, completely focused on the task of feeding him his dinner. He was not fond of nourishing himself, and even if he was, he was physically unable to hold the bowl and spoon for more than five minutes. His physiotherapist said he was making a good recovery. He had to take her word for it. Because this was not adequate for him. But baby steps, now that he was practically learning some of the things as babies do.

"You're...mad at me."

He mumbled. Sabah's hand stopped. Her expressions turned grave.

"I am." She said curtly.

"And you are angry with...Sila as well."

She raised an eyebrow at him. From the couch, Faseeh, Faran, and Adan looked at the exchange with concern.

"Why? Can't I be?"

He shook his head slowly. "Completely justified in ...my case. Doesn't make...a smidge of sense when it comes...to her."

Adan and Faran didn't know whether to laugh or cry. This imbecile! He was gearing up to fight his wife's case regardless of his restrictions.

"Sense? You are the one to talk, Aahil Jahangir." Sabah tried her best to stop her tears but failed miserably. Faseeh immediately left his place and reached her side.

"You weren't wearing your seatbelt. Your panic made you lose control over your car. And she left Karachi in the dark of the night. No trace of her. Do you think we're daft not to see what must've happened there? What an irresponsible way of going about things! This is how you two are supposed to manage any bump on the road in your marriage?"

This was the strictest she had been with him. Seeing his condition, it felt impossible but the details of his accident had pushed her to the edge.

Her words were followed by an unbreakable silence. Aahil looked at his hand in his lap. The cannula had made a permanent mark on the back of it.

"If...one day...Baba told you that he bloody didn't care that...you love...him...and that your marriage was...just a choice he had...to take up....." He took a pause, to catch his breath or to brace himself for the impact of his words.

"That...it's your fault that ...the skeletons from his past ...are no longer buried...When you were just trying to ...be there...for him...Would you stay?"

Sabah didn't know what to say. Neither did anyone else in the room.

"You .....wouldn't. No one.... would. Then why should ....Sila?"

He turned to Faseeh without waiting for Sabah's reply.

"Baba, you...used to say that...my way of dealing with my past ...will cost me heftily...one day. You were....right. You can...say I told you so...I won't mind it."

He chuckled sadly. His glassy eyes shone with tears.

"I don't remember anything...of my accident. Not even a...flash. But what I said to her...it's vivid in my mind. Every word of it. Who...says all that to the person...he claims to love? No one. But...I did. My harshest words were...for the woman....I'm in love with. How cruel...is that?"

His stutter was very much there. But that didn't stop him from baring his heart to his people. He looked exhausted. Adan tried to hold him but he shook his head, effortlessly stopping her.

"I'm fine."

"You're exerting yourself."

"I'll live. If you...haven't noticed...that's the only thing I'm good at."

He reached out his shaky hand to Sabah. She held onto it, placing it close to her heart.

"Sila is alone, Mama. Alone and...broken. I did that to her. She...left when she knew there was no hope for me. When...I crushed...all of hers. There's nothing more I want ... than to...be by her side and do whatever...I can to make it alright. But I'm not able...to do even that."

He looked away. He had never broken down like this in front of his family. But it didn't ruffle him in the slightest.

"After what I did to...her, Sila doesn't...deserve the same callousness from you or...anyone for...that matter. It's not ....fair. Rich...coming from me...but you can do way better....than I did."

He rubbed the back of his hand on his cheek. The small act alone took him more time than necessary but it was better than not being able to lift his hand entirely.

His parents and siblings exchanged worried glances with each other. The more the details of Aahil's fuck up unfolded, the more anxious they got.

The road toward Sila was never going to be easy for him. Not after what he had done but they had to believe his belief in his love.

That was what they could do best.

𝄞

Naheed paced the length of the room anxiously. Ikram sat in his armchair by the fireplace.

"I still think that you should consider my suggestion."

Naheed rolled her eyes. "Ikram, we can't go and meet the Jahangirs. Sila will not appreciate that."

"Then what are we supposed to do, Naheed? Their son is entirely at fault here. Don't remind me of when we found Sila in that building."

He pursed his lips. The memory alone was enough for him to get angry all over again.

"They at least need to acknowledge what a disaster their son has been. It's crickets from their side. Do they even care for her?"

"Hold your horses!" Naheed countered. "They were ready to come here. The whole lot of them. But Sila stopped them from doing so. She wants to solve this between her and Aahil. They need time and our support, not for us to decide on their behalf."

"But..." He started but stopped abruptly, not meeting her eye. Naheed didn't need to push him to know what it was about.

She knew it all too well.

She knew it when he slipped out of their room after a while and walked to the lounge.

She knew it when he found Sila asleep there on the couch.

She knew it when he gently patted her head and ensured she was tucked in the blanket. For his satisfaction, he stoked the wood in the fireplace.

But....what about Sila's suffering now?

That's what he wanted to say.

But as always, he couldn't.

𝄞

Instructing his PA on the tasks for tomorrow, Faseeh sat down on the couch, resting his head against it. He rubbed his forehead when Sabah took her seat next to him.

"Faran will take care of everything but if there's anything that I need to know, I want to be notified immediately."

He told her, placing his phone on the table.

"She doesn't want any of us to come."

That did nothing to faze Faseeh. "I'm not going there to bring her back, Sabah. After what I've got to know today, I need to see if she's really doing okay."

Aahil's revelation had put everything in perspective for them. What they thought was salvageable, turned out to be more damaged.

"Can I come with you?"

Her uncertain request made him stop and stare at her. He smiled and pulled her into his comfortable embrace.

She melted into her safe cocoon. The guilt that gnawed at her was bearable. For now.

𝄞