Before you read

Although all my characters are Muslim, they don't portray perfect Islamic characters. No one is perfect and my characters are nowhere near them. They are flawed, stained. They consume alcohol which is prohibited in Islam, they have inked themselves, some maybe have questionable relationships and many such things, but once you are reading, I will request y'all to bear with those. All your feedbacks are welcome here, but please try not to be hateful in the Dm's. We all are suffering in one way or other, please be gentle, and let's make it a happy place.

||Aarzu||

LOUD music bustling the surrounding, youngsters screaming their hearts out, party poppers blasting every second, as they fill the void sky with fireworks. By the barges of River Thame, she stands hooting along with her colleagues.

Black hairs with few copper red highlights swaying amidst the cold winds the kisses her. Clad in black shimmer top with leather brown jacket paired with black jeans and ankle boots, she looks gorgeous but the little drop of diamond that rests on her left nose steals the show.

A smile lingering on her face as her blue orbs catch the known figure among the crowd walking towards her with open arms, a sly smile and two beer bottle. This guy will never change.

He engulfs her in a bear her handing her one beer bottle, holding her close to him.

"Another new year's eve together." He whispers, a smile never leaving his face hiding those millions of pain behind, just like her.

"And here's too many more to come." She leans towards his shoulder.

Another hooting begins as the countdown starts, "A decade it is." He whispers, she smiled gulping all her memories away.

"A lifetime it is." She replied.

3

2

1

"Happy New Year.." They scream their hearts out, letting their pain travel across the world, in hope of finding the happiness they deserve but never had their chance in it.

Her blue orbs collide with his amber ones.

Pain against grief. Yet it different this time, way too different.

A sudden pang of pain hits her but she gulps it down with beer. There's no place of pain in her life, no place.

"Happy new year Zaheer." She smiles at her confidant.

He holds her by her shoulder, laughing at a distant memory. A memory of them sitting next to each other by the bonfire in the valleys of Abbottabad. A sigh of pain a memory of grief.

"Happy new year Heer ki Aarzu." She laughed and the stars in her blue orbs shine.

Walking out of the crowd hand in hand they sat on a bench, lost in the chaos that engulfs them. Another gulp and she started laughing. Zaheer for once is happy for her laugh, but he knows the truth better.

"Stop laughing Aarzu." He said keeping her gaze fixed on the shinning sky. They say the new year brings hope, he is trying to find that, for him, for her, for them.

"Why? I thought you love the sound of my laugh." She asked with an innocent pout. He gulps his beer choosing silence to be her answer.

"Not now." He replied.

"Why so?"

"Because I know the screams skulked behind those laughs." She laughed hard at this letting a few stars fall from her eyes.

"Yeh Dard hi toh kambhakt khatam nahi hota na." She sighed.

"Aarzu"

"Ek baat bolu Yaara" He nods.

"Kabhi bhi woh gunah na karna jo maine kia hai. Kabhi bhi kisi kambhakt buzdil se ishq karne ki ghalati mat karna, saza e maut bhi usse behtar hoti hai."

"Aarzu. Mohabbat mei dard hona uska hissa hai."

"Hissa hota toh sikhwa nahi karti na, yaha toh dard hi dard hai, mohabbat nahi. Aree mohabbat choro yaha toh mehboob ko mehbooba ki aarzu tk nahi."

"Tu toh heer ki aarzu hai na."

"Haa kyuki kisi kambhakt ne aarzu ke maan ko cheen liya." He sighs, she closes her eyes blinking the stars away. The dark clouds suddenly fill the sky, resembling her life.

"Abeera ka call aya tha." He whispers slowly.

She nods, she knows, she got those calls too, but not the one she wanted, she longed for.

"Next week should we visit them." She laughed.

"We? As in you and me? Well, I guess you are forgetting something here."

"Aarzu, Abeera is getting married, Amma specifically asked for you, you have to be there."

Amma asked for her, she always has.

"I can't" She can't go back, so much for loving someone she shouldn't have.

"Aarzu it's been a decade now."

"But it still pains, Zaheer." It always will.

When lover left on a starry night while he had promised to stay for eternity, the pain of betrayal sojourned for an aeon. A pain that won't let one sit under the starry sky ever again, that won't let one go back to their home ever again, for they had taken their home along.

"I left that place too Aarzu. Maine bhi apna ghar chora tha."

"Wahi toh fark hai na Zaheer. Tumne apna ghar chora tha, mujhse mera ghar cheena gya tha."

Pain, a kind of pain that stayed for a decade and that would stay for a lifetime. Zaheer Shah had left his home because he wanted to be with her, Aarzu Shah had to leave her home because someone ordered that. For she had loved a forbidden fruit.

"Abeera aur Amma ke lia bhi nahi?"

She keeps her eyes fixed on the flowing river, how serene it looks right now even amongst the mayhem it never loses its serenity.

A voice echoed through her memory lane.

"Aarzu" He calls her, she smiled looking at the sky where stars are shimmering, in hope, again. She sighed and nodded slowly, how can she ever deny her Amma, she cannot.

A decade had passed and she is craving for that lap, that laughter that joy, she missed them. As she closes her eyes, the beautiful valley of Abbottabad comes up, those large wooden brown door, the green long lawn, those spiral stairs, those massive hallways, that rooftop, the cushioned swing, and for once she saw herself there. She opens her eyes and gulps her pain with beer.

She is for sure going there, even if for the last time it is.

"Jab Pyaar mein Pyaar nah ho, Jab dard mein yaar nah hoJab aasoun mein muskaan na ho, Jab Laafzo mein zubaan nah hoJab saasein bas yunhi chale, Jab har din mein raat dhaleJab intezaar sirf waqt ka ho, Jab yaad uss kambat ka ho Kyun hun mein rahi jab kisi aur ki manzil, Dhadkano ne saath chhod diya Ae Dil Hai Mushkil, Ae Dil Hai Mushkil"