My eyes ache with the weight of unshed tears. You are my home, do you not understand?

The snow falls silently but the sky is sad. The gray clouds are outlined by the feeble orange rays of the sun. She puts her arms around herself. The cold is biting and the air melancholic. The nature shares her mood.

She watches Mustafa playing in the snow from the bench; he's making small ice balls. Leyla doesn't know what he's trying to do with them, but she's liking the show.

His little round nose has turned cherry red but he refuses to wear a beanie. His dark hair rests on his head messily, just like his father's. But he can catch a cold and Gulalai won't be pleased to find him like this, she thinks.

"Mustafa?" she calls out to him.

He turns to her only briefly before resuming his doings.

"Come here, jaan, wear your beanie."

The child ignores her and excitedly points at the numerous irregularly shaped snowballs. "Look, lily, it's so white."

Leyla cannot help her smile. "Yes, darling. But what are you making out of it?"

"Bricks."

"What for?"

"A snow house."

She chuckles at his reply. "Okay, can you make me one too?"

"I will!" He grins up at her. "But I'll make one for baba first."

Lawangeen.

Her smile disappears as her heart contracts achingly, a dull pain nestling in her bosom. She gets up and walks towards him. He resumes working with the snow as she settles beside him, running her hand over his head.

"I'm sure your baba will love it." She kisses his temple. "He loves snow, and he'll appreciate you making a snow house for him."

"Mama says he can't live with us anymore because he lives in the sky now. But I can't go to him because the sky is taller than me," he talks whilst putting the snowballs over each other. "When I make him a house I'll call him back."

Leyla helps him steady the model, quietly listening to him. How can she learn to be numb to this pain?

"Will he come back to me then, lily?"

She blinks back her tears and forces a smile at him. "Yes, jaan."

She feels like manipulating the innocence of a child— she feels terrible. But she cannot break a blameless heart.

Her memories begin to take her back into time to the days when her brother was still alive— when Mustafa still had his baba.

"I'm calling off our engagements."

She looks at his face in shock at his statement. Leyla cannot believe her ears. "Lawangeen, what are you saying?"

"I cannot keep doing this all for the sake of our betrothals when we barely even knew what marriage is."

"But now after all these years?"

"Yes."

"But why? What changed?"

Lawangeen licks his lips and runs his fingers through his hair, his dark eyes mirroring Leyla's. "Everything. I have a say in this. You have a say in this. Zarbakhta and Asfandyar have a say in this. I respect baba's commitment to their family, but without our agreement it's null."

"Our agreement?" Leyla shakes her head. "Zarbakhta loves you, Lawangeen. Asfandyar wants this— wants us."

"I respect Zarbakhta's feelings, but I couldn't stop my heart from loving another. Neither did I ever nurture any such feelings for Zarbakhta. She was always my friend's little sister to me and never my fiance. But Gulalai," his expression becomes serious yet soft, "she's the soul to my body. I'll die if I even try separating her from myself."

Leyla stares flabbergasted at him. Things were suddenly ugly and out of hands. She now understands why he was reluctant to their formal engagement celebration and has been down lately. This was bad news.

"As for you and Asfand." Lawangeen now holds her gaze sternly. He's two years older than her, but they grew up close to each other. Yet he's not only her brother and friend but a fatherly figure in her life too. "Do you love him?" he asks her straightforwardly.

She steals away her eyes from him. Having this conversation with her brother isn't something she feels thrilled about. "You don't want me to marry him?" she questions instead.

"Do you want to though?" he replies with another question.

She looks back at him. "I've grown up thinking only of him. What do you expect?"

"I understand. But he's not the same young boy anymore. He has grown up too. And now he's a totally different man."

Leyla blinks in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"You're my sister, Brekhna." Lawangeen steps closer and holds her face in both of his hands tenderly. "And he's my childhood friend; I know him. And knowingly, I cannot push you to the hell into his arms." He sighs, as if exhausted, and releases her. "I've to show my face to God on the day of judgment, face our parents then. How will I do this if I, being responsible for you and Spogmay, am blind to everything? I honor our family traditions, but things have changed and these betrothals mean nothing to me anymore."

Leyla bites the insides of her cheeks anxiously, not knowing what to say.

"I won't force anything on you," he continues. "You're a mature woman and has the right to make your choices. Be it Asfandyar, if you still wish to marry him, or any other man you like, you can trust to tell me. For as long as I'm alive, you've nothing to fear."

A knock comes at the door and Spogmay pops in her head into the room. "Lala, Zari is here to meet you."

Lawangeen nods. "Take her into the drawing room. I'm coming."

Spogmay nods back and leaves. Leyla looks at him with wide eyes. "You've called her here to end your relationship?"

"She's no child. I'm sure she'll understand," he answers calmly.

"Lawangeen—"

"Brekhna," he shushes her protests. "I've a wife and a child to take care of; I cannot leave them alone. And I don't think Zarbakhta will be ready to be my second wife and spend the rest of her life with me unloved. She doesn't deserve this— she deserves to be loved too. I have to tell her the truth. It's overdue already."

Leyla puts her palns flat against his chest to stop him from leaving. She looks up at him. He's a head taller than her. "Asfand will kill you, you know this?" she says, remembering her conversation with Asfandyar from their engagement night when he had first put forth the threat. She knows he meant it— he's a man of his words, no matter how grave.

Lawangeen grits his teeth. "Then I'd rather die than be a coward."

He leaves the room and Leyla keeps standing, unmoving, hardly grasping the turn of events. The world is spinning and she knows soon it will be shaking. An earthquake is to come.

➳

The dusk has set in and the snow is still falling. She strides quickly to his front door and rings the doorbell. Like always, Waleed answers her after a few moments.

"Marhaba (welcome), your ladyship."

"Thank you, Waleed." She gets into the house and asks her usual next question, "Where is Burq?"

"In his bedroom."

"Did he have dinner?"

"No, my lady."

"Not hungry again?"

Waleed smiles weakly. "He's in a bad mood."

"When isn't he?" Leyla comments lightheartedly and his smile broadens. She returns his smile. "Bring his dinner to his room. I'm going to—"

She stops dead in her tracks on stepping into the living room. Waleed follows after her. She glances around, taking in the mess. The table is flipped and shattered glass fragments lie scattered around. The rug is stained and the couch is misplaced as if being pushed away.

Leyla turns towards Waleed. "What happened here?"

He lowers his gaze. "His lordship got really upset after your conversation with him. He took it out on the furniture and forbade me to clear this up."

Leyla exhales is exasperation and directs to him, "Just get him his dinner to his room and then clean this mess."

"As you say, my lady.

"Waleed?" she stops him before he could go.

He looks back at her.

"Did Burq get angry with you afterwards?"

From the flicking of his eyes, she gets her answers. Feeling guilty, she adds,

"I'm sorry about him. I should have clarified to him right away that none of anything was your fault but my doing alone," Leyla excuses. "I'll talk to him. Please don't mind him."

He shakes his head quickly. "Don't embarass me, my lady. You have nothing to apologize for. I can understand his lordship's situation and that's why I didn't mind him."

"Thank you." Leyla gives him a small smile. "Waleed?"

He looks at her. "Yes, my lady?"

"Take care of him, not like your lord but like your brother," she requests. "For me."

"Don't worry, my lady." Waleed places his hand over his heart to show his sincerity and smiles. "He always has been a brother to me."

Leyla nods and he turns around and leaves. She briefly glances at the mess on the floor again before making her way towards Burq's room.

Knocking on the door, she pushes it open and gets inside. If she was to wait for his permission, she knows it would never have come.

He is sitting on the divan in front of his bedroom window with his back towards her. Leyla quietly walks towards him and comes to stand beside him. He doesn't acknowledging her and stares out into the dark at the wind-chime chiming in the wind.

She waits a few more seconds before gently placing her hand over his shoulder. "Burq?"

She watches his jaw clench but no response comes from his. His forearms rest on his knees and his fists too lie clenched between them.

Leyla purses her lips, not knowing where to begin and end.

He makes it easier for her when he finally speaks, "Sit down, habibi." He unclenches on hand and pats the space beside him. Leyla does so without hesitation.

The divan is not small but they sit close together so that their knees are touching. Once again, silence settles between them. Then she asks him,

"Why didn't you have dinner again?"

"I wasn't hungry," his usual reply comes.

"Don't be like a petulant child, Burq," she scolds him lightly. "You do know you need to eat to heal well and quick."

"I know."

"I've asked Waleed to bring you your dinner here."

"He's probably going to make another rude interruption."

"You want to talk?" she questions on noticing his tone.

He ignores her statement and goes mute again.

"Burq?" She cups the side of his jaw. "Look at me."

He obeys without protesting.

"Tell me," she urges, knowing well what's on his mind. She wants to lift the weight from his heart.

His gaze roams all over her features; she lets him without shying away. Then he says, "I always preferred words; I believe in speaking my mind— I believe people deserve to know our thoughts of them, good or bad. Silence has always been haunting to me— like night, like grave, like hell— abstract but black, like the void in your eyes." He leans closer to her and her hand falls between them. He swallow before continuing, "But then I find this void in your eyes more gripping than the havoc in mine— I find peace in there. How does one find peace in dark, Leyla?"

She doesn't know how to answer him. She only stares back at him in surprise.

"Do you know this peace now scares me too?" he adds, smiling ironically. "I'm realizing my ignorance towards these stories in your eyes led me astray. I'm realizing your eyes never answered my questions but wrapped them into nothingness. I'm realizing that's why darkness can be peaceful too, because you're blinded to everything."

"Burq," she stops him before he could say more. His words sear her. "I never meant to hurt you in any way."

"But you kept lying to me despite promising me you won't."

She shakes her head. "I didn't—"

"Leyla," he cuts her before she could give any explanations. He unclenches his other hand too and holds his open palm to her. She looks at it to find two wedding bands lying on it.

Their wedding bands.

Her lips part and she inhales in seemingly slow motion through her mouth before meeting his gaze again.

He turns them around so now she can read their names carved on the inside of the rings. Leyla stares at the one with Burq's name— her wedding band.

"That's why you're always rubbing your ring finger, isn't it? Because even though it's vacant, you're used to this ring on your finger."

She doesn't answer knowing it's a statement and not a question, that he doesn't need her confirmation. She feels a million seconds pass between them, none of them saying a thing, before he steals away his gaze from her, fixing it back on the wind-chime, and asking her so quietly she's not sure she heard him right.

"Stay with me tonight, habibi."

➳

Thoughts on Lawangeen?

Thoughts on Burq and Leyla?

Keep sharing your love, vote and comment.

Have been busy lately but will be getting back to your comments soon.

➳