Dear Z,

I don't know how much we can take.

• • •

Thursday Afternoon

I am smiling. My lips stretched till it hurt my cheeks. It's a fraud one too.

The sergeant sat in front of me, his leg folding across his other. His hand handling the short white stick of a cigarette whose one end had ashy remains nearly toppling off. Blowing out the white smoke through his nose, the dark black framed spectacles were perched on his nose. "Have you thought about what I have said?"

I keep smiling. He angled his face away, disgust etched on his face. Stabbing the butt of his cigarette on the crystal glass ashtray, burning it out. He knows I'm mocking him. "You never listened to me, Zaid. Why don't you listen to me? I only want what's good for you."

I lost the smile. "You mean, for you?"

I never understood why this rift was caused between my father and I. Especially dealing with my career. With my life. He never wanted to ask what I wanted, what my heart yearned for and with that, I was scared to tell him what I want because I couldn't bear to hear the 'no' leave him, slamming my soul with the rejection.

The thought of it hurt my head. I didn't know how we were reduced to this.

He shook his head, once. "All I have done is for you. Never me." His words sounded sincere but I have gone through this too many times. Multiple versions of the same story. I have melted before when he spoke like this, thinking maybe this time, just this time he actually means it. However, it ended in the same way. Always all for him.

It's probably the reason I take after him. I care about myself only but I at least have the decency to not include anyone so as to spare them the pain they would feel later.

I don't argue with my father nowadays. I'm too uncomfortable with throwing words and emotions at him. He must never know my ruling hurt and hate in me. Fucked up, isn't it? Can't share my own thoughts with my own father? Cant share the pain bridling inside me?

"Look, I am not meeting her. No matter how close her father is to you. I will not marry." I stand my ground. Vile bile jumping my stomach. Jaw flexing to control myself from lashing out.

"So what will you do then? Stay alone for the rest of your life? Fuck with skanks every night? Is that who you want to be?"

I try not to flinch. His words cut a cord. A strong one. Every time I try to build walls after walls, tombs after tombs around me, he manages to swing a wrecking ball right through them. The bricks tumbling down like they had nothing to glue them together in the first place.

I grit my teeth. "What I do with my life is my own fucking business."

"Then after your sister's wedding, leave and never come back. I don't want to see you!"

My palms that are already fisted like solid rocks, twist more. Nails biting into my skin. My skin reddens. "Why then, I will leave now!" My voice loud and clear.

I almost turn when my father jumps and grabs a hold of my bicep. I see the thick vein in his forehead pop. "Your sister needs you. Your mother needs you now. You can leave after everything is done but if you leave now, you will see your mother's and sister's tears on the happiest day of their lives and that's something you have to live with for the rest of your life. Choose very wisely how you will proceed."

I wrench my arm away and he leaves me alone in his study. The broad wooden door slamming against its threshold and my chest heaves up and down.

My own father has shunned me away. Just because I don't listen to him. This is what my world has come to. I feel anger contouring my veins. Hurt and betrayal from the man of my own flesh and blood burns inside me. I never thought we would come to this.

Feeling restless and bounded, I wrangle the doorknob open and stride till I'm outside. The sky was clouded. The dreaded calling of rain was close. It was grayish black and its clouds of the same moved closer. Good thing the ceremony of Sanchaq will occur in close doors and it will be held late in the evening.

However, I needed to let the steam brewing in me out. So I run.

I keep running till the mansion of my home where I grew up in, where I saw disloyalty in the eyes of my father, were all left far behind me. The road was narrow and trees flanked its sides. I turned and disappeared into the woods that surrounded this area. Nothing but heavy trunks of trees covered acres and acres beyond. The ground muddy and patches of grass here and there.

The density of the forest called to me. It camouflaged me so I could hurt privately. Their leaves covering me with its lush thickness so the sound of my grief came roaring out.

The burn of my thighs lit and I kept sprinting.

My gym shorts clung wet to me. My ratty t-shirt grew sweatier as I ran and ran, passing and dodging different and oddly shaped trees. The soft mud kicked by my the heels of my shoes. Leaves hanging on low branches slapping my face and I didn't care for the stings.

My thoughts were with how my father never cared to ask if I was okay when I returned. If I was hurting. He never asked me a simple how am I doing.

I try to think something else but my brain takes me to another disturbing memory that I keep locked because it hurt too much to relive it. Flashes of it made me accelerate my speed, trying to forget it. His voice. His face. Smoke and smell of gas in the air. Me helpless as I watch. I clench my eyes close and then open them. They widen involuntarily on seeing a massive trunk fallen on its side in my way and I jerk to a stop when I saw her sitting on it. Rose.

Her eyes were closed and the woodsy breeze seemed to calm her. I felt the tiny brush of cold air hit my face now that I stop. I touched my sweaty face, it was burning.

"What are you doing here?" I almost wince at how harsh my voice sounded. I didn't care. I had to pour something out of me. This seemed necessary. An out.

She turned around to look at me. Opening her cold deep green eyes, I catch my breath. The expanse of my chest heaved silently. Everything which occurred between us fled into my vision. I was so close. So close to doing something I'd regret.

She doesn't answer me but her gaze is wandering over me. She was studying me. I wonder what she sees. Does she see a man rejected by his father and the pain so inexplicable that it's smeared all over his face? Or a man who is just a shell of one?

I shook my head. The water from my hair flung around me in droplets. I was hot and angry. I wasn't thinking straight. The drops tapped slowly down from above with the pitter-patter sound landing on the mat of grass and mud as the first pearls of rain commenced.

"I asked you something." I gnashed my teeth together. I love how the harshness of my voice causes her to bristle. Her spine straightens, her elegant nose goes up in the air and she glances away from me. Trying to ignore me? More rage fuels my gut.

I was itching for a fight. I need it. Badly.

"Ignoring me won't make me go away, Rose." If I hadn't been paying close attention to her, I would have missed the way she subtly shivered at her name rolled off from my tongue.

This woman was...I grunt lowly as I see her wearing a black biker jacket and what I could gather, nothing underneath. My hand shook as I rubbed a palm over my mouth. Her tiny black tights were till her upper thighs, shaping that ass of hers. All slowly becoming wet with the rain spitting by the clouds above. I felt my nerves tingle and I knew my cock was hard.

"Turn around." I growl again. I feel like a damn animal around her. Puddles were forming around us and we were still in our positions like cement was stuck under the soles of our shoes.

She still pays no heed to me. Fuck me for liking it even more. I prowl towards her from behind, making sure she doesn't hear me.

"I wouldn't come close if I were you." Her tone all sultry, icy and dizzy. She is aware of me as much I was of her. What she didn't know was her warning didn't scare me. I am picking a fight, I know it and damn it to all hell, I want it with her.

"That doesn't scare me, Rose." My voice raised above the tapper of the rain around us, on us.

Her hair was tied up in a top knot making her heavenly neck arch so beautifully. In a flash, I saw my teeth sinking right there on her beading pulse. Drops and drops of water leaked down her skin and my chest grew heavy.

She got up and started to walk ahead, away from me. I couldn't allow it. I stride towards her, rounding the fallen tree trunk but still making sure I'm walking behind her. Not closing the distance. Keeping her a few feet away from me.

"Stop following me." Her jacket shifted up and the small of her back visible. My erection only increasing under my shorts.

"I will do whatever I please." I bark back at her. I'm such a fucking asshole. I bloody know it but I don't do anything about it.

Suddenly, she started to pick up speed. My eyes narrowed. The murmuring of rain began to arouse faster. My gaze on her back like glue. She jogged faster and then, she took off in a sprint.

"Rose!" I bellowed her name. Why is she running? Then, I heard a dangerous cackle of her laugh. She was doing this on purpose. She was doing this to piss me off. She was doing this to fuck with me. She was pushing me! Like always, fucking pushing me! I couldn't take this anymore!

I sprinted faster after her. Digging deeper, blowing out hot air as I inhaled the earthy oxygen and was soon running her down, bent on capturing her. The water slashing, dirt kicking, rainfall becoming intense. I didn't fucking care about anything but her.

I want her. I have to catch her.

In a flicker of a beat, in the moment she was right within my reach, I pounced for her. Bad mistake! I catch her by her waist but I slip across the wet forest floor and we twist somehow falling down on our backs. I don't know if it had to with luck but we had a soft impact on landing. The mat of cozy mud and grass broke our fall.

I felt her struggle against me. My hands seized harder onto her slim waist to still her.

"Enough!" I growled, flipping her on her back easily as she battered my chest with her tiny spiky fists. I hung over her, furious. My hips wedged themselves between her legs as I snagged her wrists in one big hand.

I grapple with my own rage turmoiling within me. "Don't try to run from me, Rose."

She froze, breathing hard. Her chest fell and rose. Her eyes were glazed and hooded. Cheeks all flush and red. Her full plump lips parted open. I could see her pink tongue creep out and take a slow lick of her bottom lip.

"And why shouldn't I, Z?" She pants with such sexy breaths, it makes me almost smirk. Almost.

I raise my eye brow, replying in low vengeful whisper. "Because I will always catch you."