The running vehicle finally pulled up in front of a huge building in Karachi. The banner on the top read Khan-Raza NGO. It was one of the many extended branches of this NGO for helping women and children. Ameen Hashmi had given him this address which was the one he gave to Safa to meet Waliya - where she lived.

Azlan was sure about her coming here to meet her sister. A heartfelt smile reached his face as he looked at the building. This could lead him to her. He was finally getting somewhere. He was going to find her, eventually. He was sure of it. A steely determination shone in his eyes, reflecting the silver chaos of moon looking down at him.

Azlan Shehryar was finally going to meet Safa Hayat.

The thought brought him immense joy only to be overshadowed by fright later. He was scared. What if she refused to see him? Which he was pretty sure she would. But he had to talk to her. He needed to tell her everything. She needed to know the truth. Not that he expected a warm welcome from her after knowing everything. No, he didn't even think on those lines. She had all the rights to hate him, to never even want to see his face again. Whatever decision she'd make, he already respected it.

All he wanted was to apologize to her, to tell her how sorry he was. He didn't even seek her forgiveness. He didn't deserve it. He didn't want her to forgive him because the day she did that, it meant he was dead to her, and only God knows how much, just a mere thought of it, rattled him. He just wanted to say sorry for being a demon of her past.

"Hey, can I help you?" A male voice pulled him out of his haze, making him jerk his head. The guy with woody hair strode towards him. "I'm Ahid Khan, the owner of this NGO." He extended his hands towards Azlan with a polite smile.

"Azlan...Azlan Shehryar." He introduced himself, shaking his head. It had started drizzling again.

"How can I help you, Azlan Shehryar?" The owner inquired as he gaped too keenly at the crestfallen expressions embedded on his face. "If you need a place to stay, you are more than welcome here."

"No, no. I'm not here to stay. I needed some information."

A frown made its presence known on Ahid's forehead as he questioned. "What kind of information?"

"I'm searching for this girl named Safa Hayat. Has she, by any chance, dropped by?" He started at him with such helplessness and hope that it made Ahid's heart sink.

"Why are you asking, may I ask?" His tone was still polite, but the smile had vanished now.

Azlan gawked at him, not knowing what to say.

"I...uh..." he stuttered. "There's something she really needs to know. Can you please tell me where she is?" He pleaded like a kid.

"Here."

"What?"

"She's here."

Somehow the guy had gotten the idea why he was asking. Eyes are the windows to soul. And he had seen it through his eyes. He himself had been there, too, once. So he was very well acquainted with this agonizingly empty feeling. He wanted to help him. If he was lucky enough to get a chance at love, who was he to stop someone else from having what he has now?

The hope that flickered on Azlan's face was too inexplicable to be described in mere words. It was nothing short of Eureka moment for him. He wanted to scream at the sky.

"Come." Ahid gestured him towards the building leading him inside. "I'll go inform her."

"No." Azlan countered in haste. "Please, no. I'm pretty sure she doesn't wanna see my face and rightly so. If you could, can you please just lead me to where she is?"

Even though, Ahid was a bit reluctant, he nodded, nonetheless.

Strolling through the lobby - followed by Azlan - Ahid finally came to a halt at the door situated in the end.

"This is it." He said as he craned his head towards a feverish Azlan. Beads of sweat had decorated themselves on his cold-as-ice forehead, his heart palpitating with paroxysms of emotions, it might as well just stopped beating.

He took two steps back. All the strength he thought he had flushing from his body. He felt weak on his knees.

He couldn't face her.

Ahid put a hand on his shoulder with reassurance. He could understand him and somehow Azlan understood him, too. Like an untold tale only they could understand.

Ahid knocked the door.

"Come in." The voice of his wife reached them.

Dragging the door open, he stepped aside to give Azlan the space to enter. It took everything in him to just raise his step let alone moving inside.

As he trudged inside, his gaze instantly settled on her who had her back towards him as she was sprawled on one of the chairs at the table.

"AsSalamuAlaikum!" Ayat Raza, stood up from her chair as she greeted him politely, the white hijab on her head discreetly set. "Can I help you?"

But his eyes were completely focused on the figure immersed entirely on the papers strewn on the ebony table with her elbows atop the surface, hands supporting her head.

His Safa.

Ayat Raza frowned as she cleared her throat. "Can you please tell me what you want?"

Her tone made Safa hoist her head up. With expressions scrunched into a scowl, she turned her head around only to shoot up in her feet as if electrocuted. He could see her gnashing her teeth as her jaws clenched. With dark circles lined underneath her agitated eyes, she looked older beyond her age.

Oh, what had he done to her!

His eyes pricked with a sheen of precipitation at her condition.

"Hayat."

He drawled her name, marveling the taste of it in full vigor, not leaving an inch of it. Seeing this woman standing in front of him felt nothing short of a dream to him as the intensity of the moment sliced through him, his breaths strangling, but finally coming to comfort for he had finally found his home standing just a few feet away from him.

"You." She seethed with so much disgust it ricocheted right at the pit of his stomach. "What are you doing here?" Her voice was cold. So cold, it slit him into smithereens.

Taking small and calculated strides, he sauntered towards her. He held his hand to touch her; to know it was indeed her standing in front of him and not another figment of his imagination.

"KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF ME!" She howled like a stray wolf.

It was her. The real her.

"Wait...what's going on? Who are you, mister?" Ayat intervened, sprinting towards Azlan but a call from her husband standing at the door pulled her attention as she looked towards him. A single shake of head from him told her the untold and with a nod, she went out of the room.

"They are a second version of us. Let them figure out. I hope Safa isn't stubborn like you to not even give him a chance to explain himself." Ahid said only to receive a punch on his bicep from his wife.

Chuckling, he wrapped his arm around her and exited the lobby.

"I need to tell you something." Azlan rasped. Like a plea.

"I've heard enough already. I don't wanna hear anything so you might as well go, please!" There was no anger laced with her words. It was as if she was talking to a stranger.

"Please. You need to know the truth." He almost begged as anguish washed over his entire being.

"What truth? That you wanted to avenge your animal of a cousin?"

"Please..." He shut his eyes. "Don't call him my cousin."

"Why? Isn't he the reason you wanted to make my life hell?" She deadpanned.

"Yes...But that's not it. I did not know the truth back then. And I'm, by no means, trying to justify myself. I know what I did was wrong. It was a sin. And I'm not even here for your forgiveness. I don't deserve that."

"I don't care." She cut off.

"What?"

"I don't care about the truth. I don't care about anything anymore. It really doesn't matter anymore. I'm done with you." The coldness in her voice coiled around him like a deadly serpent, choking him mercilessly.

The thought that she wasn't even angry at him smothered him. She wasn't anything at him anymore.

He wanted her to slap him. Say harsh words to him. But she did neither.

He was dead to her.

He didn't exist for her.

And it killed him.

"Please, don't say that."

A lone tear rolled down his cheek.

"Say what?"

"That it doesn't matter."

"Well, it doesn't." She shrugged, nonchalantly.

"No, please, no!" His head lolled downwards as he broke down in front of her, his knees crashing on the marble floor. "I beg you to not say that. It's killing me." The faucet was now broken as hot tears cascaded down his face in full torrents.

"It kills you that you don't matter to me?" She shot both her eyebrows up, the snide hint not hidden in her words.

"Yes." His jaws hardened to his cheekbones.

She chuckled, humorlessly.

"Bullshit!"

A heavy silence ensued. He didn't reply. Just stayed there on the ground with his head craned downwards as he contemplated on her attitude towards him. He wanted earth to split open and swallow him. That would be much better than her coldness towards him.

"Why the fuck do you even care?" She questioned with a humorless chuckle making him shoot his head in her direction.

"BECAUSE I LOVE YOU, DAMMIT. CAN'T YOU SEE IT?"

He shouted on top of his lungs and she jerked back in arrant shock.

His heart was in his sleeve. Did he really love her? Deep down, he had always known that he did. That, too, irrevocably. But he didn't want to vocalize it, because vocalizing meant acknowledging, and acknowledging meant her having a power to break him. And even though he had never admitted his love for her, somehow she still had that power over him.

This is what love is. Its power can even break a person like Azlan Shehryar. And tear him apart.

But now that he did know it, he didn't want to turn his back on this emotion, this holy feeling. He wanted to accept it and lose himself in the whirlpool of it. Doesn't matter if she didn't reciprocate. She wasn't obliged to. She can hate him forever. Knowing she at least felt something about him, he would be happy. Even if it was hate. He could live with it.

She had dissolved in his veins like blood. Too thick and indelible.

She stared at him with horrid expressions etched on her face as she fisted the sides of her kameez in her hands.

"No, I see what you're doing here. I'm not gonna let you play with me again." She spoke as the scalding liquid threatened to run down her eyes, but she held them back. She couldn't be weak now. "You know, your people did come here in my search. I had to hide. Do you have any idea how tormenting it was to even think that you were still after me, my life? Oh, well you do know! Isn't that exactly what you want? To torture me? To hurt me? And guess what? You are actually succeeding in your game."

Adrenaline flushed from her body as she took another step back. It was becoming too hard to control the tears back. Her throat was clogging. She needed air.

"When I left that hell, when I killed that monster, I thought that was it. That I had finally gotten my freedom. I felt alive after what felt like an eternity. I could finally breathe. I moved there in that peaceful Valley. Just what I needed. I found my solace in the shroud of those mountains. I got a best friend in Asmara I never had. I got my baby in those children. My baby who died before it was even born, I found it in the faces of those innocent children. I was finally getting what I had always deserved - a life. I was finally living. Not just existing anymore. I had a purpose. And then came Azlan Shehryar who snatched everything from me."

She threw an accusatory glance his way.

"You robbed me of everything again. My life, my baby. It hurt all over again, with the same pain. You brought my past back and put it right in front of me and, ya Allah, did it agonize me to my very core! I felt like dying. I thought I was over everything and that it has stopped affecting me but hell was I wrong! You let me know how weak I was. You are just as much my criminal as he was. And I hate you for that."

She paused to regain her breaths. And this time her voice dropped a notch as if it was too hard to speak let alone stand.

"Aren't you even a bit tired of hurting me? Isn't there even an inch of humanity left in you?" Her shoulders drooped. "For the sake of Allah, please stop it. Saqib Hassan gave me physical scars. But you, Azlan Shehryar, have scarred my very soul." She crossed her arms over her shoulder tightly, as if protecting herself. "I don't want you anywhere near me. I'm not gonna fall in your trap. Not this time. Just. Get. The. Hell. Out. Of. My. Life." She gritted out last sentence with full force, wanting him gone from her life forever, and without throwing a second look his way, maneuvered her way towards the mahogany door.

Her words rang in his ears like eulogy. He had hurt her so much. Her pleading voice jagged a knife through his heart, twisting around to not leave any trace that wouldn't pain him.

"He's just as my criminal as he is yours." He barely managed to speak making her stop by the door, her hand still on the knob as she turned around with confusion perceptible in her bloodshed eyes.

Tilting his head slightly in her direction, he continued. "You are not the only one who spent her life in that hell. I've been there, too. And I know exactly how you feel."

******

"Because I love you damnit. Can't you see it?"

His words reverberated in her ears as she dragged her lifeless feet through the corridor.

His lies.

The strength seemed to have left her while she felt cold in her nerves. The numbness in her brain exorcised every inch of sanity she had been holding on to with all her might.

"Can't you see it?"

Pushing the door open, she trudged inside the room and locked the door from inside. Her lifeless body slid down against the door as she dropped on the floor. Pulling her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them tightly, as if trying to protect herself...from him.

Little did she know, it wasn't him she needed protection from, but her own self. Because what she was about to do next was going to leave everything shattered in its wake.

******

Throwing the door open, he dropped himself on the chair placed to the side. Since it was really late, Ahid didn't let Azlan go back now. It was raining like crazy and driving at this hour only meant inviting your own death. "You can go in the morning." He had said.

Propping his elbows on his knees, he buried his face in his hands as he clenched his hair in his fist. What had he done to her? He had never seen her like this. The girl who had always been lively and cheerful, spreading love and warmth all around, had been murdered. And he was the murderer.

The hollowness of her eyes haunted him as the words that she had just said a few minutes ago pierced his heart. For all he knew, she was a well collected woman who knew how to take care of herself. But now she was all but vulnerable. And it was all because of him. He had snatched her light away from her, her life.

"Saqib Hassan gave me physical scars. But you, Azlan Shehryar, have scarred my very soul."

His hold on his hair tightened as he remembered the fragility of her voice and the impact of these words. She was right. He did scar her soul.

He could see how much she was struggling to hold her tears back. That woman could do anything but would never show her miserable side to anyone.

"Just. Get. The. Hell. Out. Of. My. Life."

He had now promised himself to never come back in her life, to not so much as even show his disgusting face to her. If him being out of her life was what she wanted, then so be it.

He wouldn't give her any explanation now because that'd just leave her hanging between right and wrong again. It would only cause her more pain in trying to figure out the right in this chaos of lies and truths that was their life. If painting himself as a villain to keep her sanity intact was what he had to do, he'd do it. He could live with her thinking of him as a villain. But not her losing herself. He could be the bad guy in her eyes even if it killed him. He could live with it as long as she was okay. He'd leave and vanish from her life without telling her the truth.

He could do anything for her. Even if it meant keeping himself away from her.

Because sometimes, letting your beloved go is the biggest sacrifice you can make in love.

******

"Please, don't say that!"

His pleas swatted her already shaken self. She was still leaned against the door in the same position as the entire scene flashed across her eyes as if happening all over again. Too vivid. Too painful. She shut her eyes and a face with tears cascading down on it came into vision.

Azlan Shehryar had left her of nowhere. And she hated him for that.

Throwing both her hands on her mouth, she tried to muffle her cries which were too merciless to hold back. The vision had now morphed into a photo of him standing next to that animal. Arms wrapped around each other. Oh, she remembered it all too well, too lucid.

"It kills you that you don't matter to me?"

"Yes."

Her airways closed in on her as she choked for breath. But it was too hard, too agonizing. It was even hard to so much as even try to breathe. She didn't even want to struggle for breaths. It was good. Not breathing was good. But her stubborn body couldn't relax.

Stripping the dupatta off herself, she dashed towards the bathroom and stepped inside the shower booth. Turning the knob on, she let the water run down her body as she flopped down on the floor, her clothes now completely drenched in cold water.

During the entire ordeal, she had floundered against her tears, not letting them unleash on her and make a mockery of her in front of him. But now that she was alone, she couldn't hold them back anymore and lost the battle as they marred down her face faster than the water flowing on her.

"I love you."

She thrust her hands on her ears as she screamed "STOP IT!"

She couldn't take it anymore. She was strong, but right now she felt like the weakest person alive.

She didn't need this now. Everyone she had ever trusted broke her trust. Everyone she had ever loved only gave her pain in return and nothing else. And right now, she was angry at herself for ever falling for that man. That treacherous, treacherous man.

"You are so stupid, Safa. So dumb! No wonder he had treated you like that. You deserve it because you are stupid. Stupid enough to fall for the same mistake every time."

"He was my cousin."

"How didn't you see it coming already, you stupid woman?" She pulled on her hair ferociously as her shoulders sagged.

She sat there under the water for 30 minutes when her consciousness started giving up on her. She needed sleep - the aftermaths of crying. Her red rimmed eyes started drooping.

But sleeping meant nightmares of her past. And staying awake meant the onslaught of his lies reverberating in her ears.

Her addiction to coffee was her way of staying up through the gnawing night so that she could evade the nightmares. But now her entire life had become one. And there was only one way to escape this one.