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𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓐𝓫𝓼𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮 𝓒𝓱𝓪𝓻𝓶𝓼 𝓨𝓸𝓾𝓻 𝓟𝓻𝓮𝓼𝓮𝓷𝓬𝓮

I read it again and again. Again as my heart clenches, again when it cries, again when it pauses, again when it begins beating again.

Within the beats of my heart, I find myself dead.

Diagnosed with Stage IV of Cervical Cancer.

I read the name. Zubab Zaheer Shah. I read the time, it's 11AM this morning. The name of the doctor, Dr. Urooj Asjad. Yes, she was the one I called from the nearby Shah Hospital.

Cervical cancer? I took my phone, shaking and googled the symptoms.

Vaginal discharge with stench

Purulent or body secretions and

Vaginal irregular bleeding.

She had none of it.

This was a mistake. This has to be one. How can life be so cruel to me? It snatched my mother from me. The one who looked after me. The woman I love with all my heart is the only person I am living for. I'll die if anything happens to her.

I received a call from her. I picked it up. There was no second thought. Her voice came out weak.

"Hello?" Weaker than she was. "When will you return home Asfand?"

She never asked me this. She has always given me time but today she needed me. I am scared.

"Are you okay, Jaan?" I asked. My voice came out shivery. A sense of casualty plastering my fear. I don't want her to know. At least not now. She doesn't even know I got her blood tested.

"I am fine. Just got my periods and I have been on irregular terms a lot from the past few days. I really need dark chocolate. Can you bring me some? I am over with the current ones."

My hand stills as I hold my phone.

She had been getting the symptoms from earlier and I had no idea.

"Asfand?" She calls but my voice is lost. I could not make myself voice out that I was not okay and this was too much. It hurts. It hurts a lot. "Asfandyaar?"

My heart falls in a ride of peace as I hear her call me. My dreams shattered in front of my eyes and I couldn't do anything. I was thinking that maybe we will become a family and here I was losing my only family.

This cannot happen.

"Asfand? Are you there?"

I build my courage. I can't let things change our beautiful beginning. I will fight for us no matter what. "Yes, Jaan. I'll bring it home. Just prepare yourself with a hot bag okay? I'll be right there with you."

She hangs up. I am sure she must be smiling. She smiles everytime I call her Jaan and I will do anything for that smile.

I drove towards a supermarket and bought the chocolates she wanted me to buy, bought more than she ever bought. I entered the villa and walked towards our room. She is there; Sleeping. Her hands clenching her stomach. Maybe it's the pain. I am crying again.

She is not pregnant. She is diagnosed with cervical cancer.

She doesn't deserve this. She never did.

I sat beside her and kept staring at her. My mind revolves around our tattered destiny. I have never felt more helpless in my entire life. I wiped my tears. She opened her eyes, still whimpering in pain. I hold her hand and keep it closer to me.

If it was before the reports, I would have thought this was a random cramp. My mind does not believe it yet.

"It's painful." She says, closing her eyes. I had never seen her weaker. "You'll be fine, Jaan."

I take the chocolates and give it to her as she sits straight. "You shouldn't have bought so many." She says. She eats some and keeps staring at me, "You look cute today."

This woman.

"You should rest jaan."

"I have been resting too much. I am bored."

I sigh. She must have been. At least I worked for a while at home but she could not. "Let's read a book together."

I say and remove my coat. It's winter so here in Delhi it's freezing. I took a fictional book from my collection. Though I read it years ago, I can read it all over again for her and with her. I sat beside her and she lay in my chest as I read aloud.

•

It's been two days since I knew about it. I have not told her yet. It's breaking me slowly more than it can ever break her. I have been contacting so many doctors at the moment with her reports. I deleted it on my phone. I don't want her to casually find out what she is going through. It can be hard on her mentally as well.

It's midnight and I have been praying. Asking Allah(SWT) to bless her with health. Good health that would heal my woman, that would bring her apart from the pain she has been suffering. It's been hard as the amount of times I see her whimpering in pain, holding her stomach. She is aware that something is wrong but she doesn't have enough courage to get checked and I do not have enough courage to show her the reality.

Every doctor seems to have told me that stage 4 of cervical cancer is not curable. I am still hoping, wishing and praying.

I haven't asked anything to my Rabb. Here, as I sit on the prayer rug, I feel everything will change. She would be happy again. She would smile again. She would work again. She would cook for me again. She would come out of her bed again. She wouldn't ask me to buy her chocolates because of the pain but to buy her chocolates and flowers because she wants me to love her and only her.

I felt helpless but here I feel powerful. Like Allah is granting me the hope that everything will be fine one day.

She rarely sleeps but when she does she is deeply immersed. My eyes were teary when I got up and folded the rug and slept beside her, holding her ever so close to him. I could hear her heartbeat.

It will live forever as long as mine will.

•

"Do you really have to go?" I hear her voice. Zubab doesn't know that I am going to Houston, America for a meeting with a known doctor in a cancer centre in Texas for the treatment and more about it. I told her it's about business. "I'll be back. It's too important."

She held my hand. For the first time, she said, "I'll miss you." She had tears in her eyes. She had begun to have eye bags because of lack of accurate sleep.

I kiss the scar on the bridge of her forehead. "I'll come back before you'll realise."

She squeezes my hand and stretches out a smile. The only smile I could die for. "Take care of yourself." She says. "I will. Make sure you take your tablets and fruits and greens are mandatory every day, Jaan. You cannot let loose on that. You'd be fine within a week, okay?"

I hold her arms and look her in the eye.

"It's just menstrual days and post fever tiredness. I'd be fine before you fly back home."

I nod, giving her an assurance of a smile. She will be. It's going to be alright.

"You look beautiful today."

She hit me, laughing. The sound of her laugh. It's ringing like the breeze of the air, like the sound of waves, like the brushing of leaves. It's refreshing. It's new and lovely. "You find beauty even when I am in pajamas."

"My wife is always beautiful." I say, pecking the spot again. "Yeah! Yeah! Your wife is too much to handle. Shut up it's cringe to hear so much appreciation from someone like you. Your first impression is still aggressive to me."

"Honestly," I held her. "I fell for your beauty, the moment I saw you in the reception the very first night we met."

She stares at me slowly. "Women act like they don't know but they know exactly when I man falls, I could feel you looking at me like you never saw a human before. When I man is head over heels for her, I knew it when you came as Asshar Zaman."

She hugs me.

"And there's nothing that will separate us."

•

The journey to America felt like the hardest morsel to gulp. I had never felt so bad about journeys. I was restless by the time my jet landed. The entire time I was wondering about her.

She was abandoned by her father just because she was a girl. She was abused by her husband for nothing but money. She had the worst life and I cannot let it end this way.

I walk towards the car. The guards stride towards their cars as soon as I sit inside. The driver starts the machine and I stare at the picture on my phone. The picture of our marriage. I was going to the cancer centre directly.

I called her after I changed the sim card. She takes it within two rings. "Hello?"

"Hello? Assalamu alaikum Jaan!"

"Walaikum assalam. You reached?"

"Just now. How are you?"

"I am better at the moment. Moosa came by with fresh fruits."

Moosa is caring but never the person to consider someone else before him. It was new to him as he doesn't accept someone quickly. Zubab is like an elder sister to him.

"He did?"

"I thought you'd know?"

"No." I say. "Maybe he wanted to check up on you as I am not there."

"He is such a caring person." She says.

We talk for a while but it's hard for me to hold back my tears everytime I hear her voice. It tells me until when will I be able to hear her voice. It scares me. It scares me too much to even think about a life without her presence.

She has taken such a hold in my heart, my mind, my soul and in everything that I can admit to be stronger for her my aggressiveness flew away the moment she entered my life. I never thought her wit could work like wonders.

I cut the call the moment the car slid inside the centre. I take a breath and hold the file. I opened the door before my driver could. I don't have enough yet to face anything.

The doctor was right there, the entire staff members were there with warm smiles stretched upon their faces. The building looked fine but bright. The elevation of the building was simple beside the centre. I walk towards the head of the centre. Dr. Andrew Reynolds.

"How are you, Mr. Shah?" He asks. His voice came out husky and deep to my judgement. A mixture of spookiness in his voice.

"I am fine, well. How about you Dr. Reynolds?"

"Good."

I showed him reports as we sat inside his cabin after I met with the staff which was unnecessary but they wanted to. He had been looking at it for a good one minute now and looked back at me.

The look in his eyes is no different than mine. Hopeless, too scared to reveal and mine too scared to inhale the information.

"It's hard, Mr. Shah." He begins. "Too hard. High risk is involved even in the treatment as this is stage 4. It's too hard to even think about a solution for this."

"How much is the curable chances, Dr. Reynolds?"

He could notice the cracks in my voice and I for the first time in my life felt too powerless, too hopeless, too weak.

A tear dropped from my eyes when he said,

"Survival for all stages of cervical cancer more than 80 out of every 100 (more than 80%) will survive their cancer for 1 year or more after they are diagnosed. more than 60 out of every 100 (more than 60%) will survive their cancer for 5 years or more after diagnosis."

Anything could happen. Everything was ending. She did have it and it breaks me completely to breathe.

I break down crying. I don't care if the doctor is in front of me. I just want my girl to live with me happily. She does have cervical cancer. That was enough for me to kill the charm of my life. I walked out of the room and called her. She picked it within a few seconds.

"Yeah?"

"I love you, Zubab."

•