. . .

. . .

~

"Oh humanity! Indeed, there has come to you a warning from your Lord, a cure for what is in the hearts, a guide, and a mercy for the believers." (Qur'an 10:57)

~

When she returns home, Zoya cannot stop the tears from streaming down her face. She rushes upstairs and locks her bedroom door, collapsing on the bed. The bed on which she had snuggled into Haroun's arms just this morning.

It seems like ages ago.

She thinks of his eyes at the hospital. Stricken, pooling with grief and disbelief.

Broken.

She screams and screams and screams until her throat turns raw from screaming. Her body convulses with shudders as she cries.

Soon guards quietly step into Haroun's room to retrieve his luggage, prying Zoya off of them with helpless eyes when she begs them to stop. And eventually she falls back with trembling lips and soundless screams.

Zoya Zameer stays in her room for days, opening it only to receive the food that is placed outside her door after her maids give up incessantly knocking to ask whether she is okay. She eats numbly, without tasting anything, and throws it all up almost immediately after.

She ignores all calls from the office and picks up her phone only to text Haroun but cries harder when her messages fail to send. The doorbell rings frequently and insistently but she ignores the guards who come to inform her of people's arrivals. People from work, investors, contractors, more people from work.

And when the guards inform her that Ammi and the sisters have come, Zoya buries herself deep into the closet. Palms over her ears, muted screams trapped within her.

When her house workers approach her door to ask questions, she refuses to reply. Mutely she sits, waiting and waiting with baited breath by her window, hoping to see his car pull in and for him to step out. Because there's no way Haroun Suleiman wouldn't come back for her. If not for her, he would come back because he's too good to leave anyone in such a broken state.

But days and days and days pass and still no sign of him. It destroys Zoya. Especially to know that she has done this to Haroun Suleiman.

Zoya continues to call and text his number, but every single time she reaches his voicemail she hurls her phone across the room. Hands in her hair, she sits on the prayer mat he frequented the entire day, hoping that if she savors some remnant of him he will somehow remember her and return.

But return he doesn't. And Zoya cannot believe it. Living in denial, she avoids her office and doesn't speak a single word to anyone. All she does in her room is wake up, pray mechanically, eat, and attempt to sleep at night with heavy tosses and turns on the mattress-foamed bed which feels awfully large for just her. She reaches around, groping in the blankets constantly to touch another body. But her hands come up empty and again tears spring to her eyes.

About two weeks later at the end of the month, she receives an envelope with her bank statement and information on all bills paid. She throws it to her bed carelessly and later, when she decides to open it to distract herself, she furrows her brows at the paid statement. Electricity, housing, the guards, everything has been paid for. Her mouth opens and closes, and her knees begin to crumble. Her feet give way and she falls to the bed, hand covering her mouth.

Because that's when it really hits her.

He's not coming back. He's paid the bills and he's asked for his bags to be delivered to him, and he's not coming back.

The reality hits her so fully and so strongly that she drags down the bed and falls roughly to the floor, causing a searing pain in her lower back. But the pain is numbness to the storm starting to brew and rage within her.

She stands and slams her room door open, rushing down the stairs. Her head is pounding.

Zoya wants to scream, but after having been unused for so long, her voice doesn't come easily. She hurls down the stairs and all the maids and guards rush to her service, glad she has finally left her room after so many days but panicked at her explosive nature.

She points to the paper and opens her mouth to scream that he's gone, that he's left, that he's never coming back. Tears stream down her face and her expression is the epitome of grief. She tries to speak but her voice cracks, and she attempts to clear her throat.

But after seconds of stumbling over herself and clamping her mouth open and shut, Zoya realizes her voice is not just aged from disuse. It's really not coming out. She touches her throat and looks up at her worried house maids and guards and her eyes widen, but still no sound escapes. She falls back and clutches the railing of the stairs, the paper slipping from her hand and fluttering to the floor.

Zoya takes heaving breaths and tries to open her mouth once more to speak, but her voice fails her and all that comes out is a whoosh of air coupled with a rasping sound. The telltale sound of wind before a storm hits. Her eyes widen and she gazes back up at her audience. A looming fear begins to rise over her head and cloud her vision, blurring her sight and arresting her senses. Speechless, she hacks at her throat, as if attempting to procure sound. But to no avail.

Because Zoya Zameer has lost what is most valuable to her.

Zoya Zameer has lost her voice.

. . .