44
"Do you want to go for a walk?" Rehaan looked at his wife as they both stood waiting for the valet to bring the car to the hotel driveway.
"A walk?" Shahwar thought she heard something wrong.
"Are you tired?" He looked at her with concern.
"I'm not. I didn't even do anything today." Rehaan watched her for a moment and then stepped towards her.
"I want to talk to you. I need to discuss some things.
" Shahwar felt her heart stricken at his words.
Why was he telling her specifically about discussing something?
He would always tell her things without making a point about the importance of the conversation, unless it was something that had to do with him not wanting something.
"Okay." She looked down holding her fingers of both hands together.
"Come let's go." He took one of her hand and started walking not even letting the hotel staff know that he wasn't going to take his car anymore.
"But the car—"
"Forget about it." He continued walking with her hand in his.
They were on the road side pavement walking on it after ten minutes.
He hadn't said anything till now. Ten more minutes later they were near a flower shop.
Rehaan asked her to wait outside and went in.
He came out holding a huge bouquet of pink roses.
Shahwar's eyes lingered at the beauty of the flowers.
"For you." He held them forward for her to hold them.
This was a lot for her. Clearly too much and too soon within the same day.
She took the flowers in her hands and stared at them, first the ring, then his friends' apology and now flowers.
Why was he doing such things? She was scared.
What did he want to talk about? Was he going to say something hurtful like he had when she'd asked him about Beena?
He had been caring towards her before that too.
"No—" She looked up at him not wanting to hear whatever he wanted to say anymore. "I don't want this," She handed the flowers back to him, Rehaan looked at her not understanding what was happening, "Why are you doing this, Rehaan?"
"What's wrong Shahwar? What do you mean why?" He was getting worried.
"I don't want this. Please, don't do these things. You'll make me smile and then take it away from me in a heartbeat. I don't want this Rehaan." She took her ring off and placed it on his palm holding his hand.
"Jaan, listen to me—"
"No, I don't want to. You did the same last time too, then you said you didn't love me. Will you say something like that now as well?" A lone tear slid down her cheek. She remembered the night. His words. How she'd begged him to say at least once that he loved her.
"No, please listen Shahwar, it's not what you think—"
"I don't want to listen. You should go back to Paris. I don't want to know anything." She started to walk away from him. Crying more she didn't realize, when she had started to run away from him. Rehaan had been calling her name and following her steps but she stopped a cab and got inside.
Regretting his decision to leave his car at the hotel he went back there on foot and got his car.
He called Meher on his way back to the house who told him that Shahwar had come back home and had locked herself in her room.
Only the flashes of his wife standing on the railing of the terrace were crossing his eyes while he drove in complete rage to get there as soon as possible.
Reaching there, he went inside the house and started banging Shahwar's bedroom door, "Jaan! Open the door! Please!"
Meher was standing looking at him in shock, "Did something happen between you two?"
It occurred to him that he had forgotten to ask Meher to make her open the door till he had been on his way. "Do you have a spare key for the room?" He spoke in haste.
"There is wait I'll go check." Meher ran back to the living room.
"Shahwar! Open the door! Please jaan! Open the door!" He kept on banging. He was going to break the door when there was no response from the other side. Till then Meher had returned with the keys in her hands.
Before he could take them from her the door opened, "Go back to Paris Rehaan." Shahwar stood there with her face swollen from the crying and her skin soaked in tears.
Rehaan without a warning pulled her into a hug seeing her, "Don't do that again ever. Don't ever lock yourself up." His own tears started to flow when he spoke.
Shahwar was stilled in his arms, "I don't want to see you."
"I won't go anywhere. I'm not leaving you ever Shahwar." He pushed his nose further into her neck.
"Go away." She responded in her cries.
"I love you." He felt like she was the air that he was breathing.
"You have hurt me, I am hurt." She tried to speak with fumbles like a child.
"I know. I am sorry. It was all because of me. I am sorry." His throat and chest hurt remembering his own words from the past, he had in fact only ever hurt her. "I have hurt you a lot."
"I don't want your sorry." She was angry and confused shaking her head that touched his hair when she moved it.
"I want you to smile." He angled his head on her shoulder to rest peacefully.
"I want you gone." She continued, Rehaan didn't budge at her responses.
"Okay." He started rubbing her back like always.
"I don't want your flowers." She added with a sob.
"Okay." He closed his eyes inhaling the scent of her hair, that smelled like her floral shampoo.
"I don't want your ring." She blinked as her tears kept on streaming down.
"Okay." He didn't want to ever let go of her, but then pulled back reluctantly looking at her face. "Will you stop crying if I'm not in front of you?" He wiped her face and she nodded with her tiny curved lips pressed together. "Okay, then."
Rehaan stepped back and took a deep breath, "Just don't cry now.
" He wanted to touch her, hold her and never be away from her, ironically he did what she had asked him to do.
Rehaan walked out of the house and sat down on the porch.
He closed his eyes and rested his head on the wall of the house entrance door.
He could stay away and only this was his limit.
He couldn't go beyond it. He wouldn't go back to Paris no matter what she said.
He'd been a stupid idiot by letting her leave the house when she'd asked for him to divorce her.
Rehaan kept on sitting there, it was now night and he was still there in the same spot.
The only thing that he could think of was of the pain he had brought in her life, everything he had said to her in the past, whether it was in the beginning of their marriage or towards the final fall of it.
He only deserved more pain. He felt peaceful when he felt his own pain, it was better than seeing her in that state instead.
Shahwar had been lying on her bed feeling her heart distress more and more. She sat up and realized that all of Rehaan's clothes and luggage were in her room and he had left. Meher knocked on her door and she told her to come inside.
"Shahwar, he's sitting outside, at the porch." Meher sat on the bed next to her.
"What?" She got up from the bed at once.
"Has he done something again Shahwar? I'll ask him to leave." Meher stood up too.
"Ask him to leave Meher. He can't sit there. He must be so uncomfortable sitting there for so long." Shahwar opened her bedroom door waiting for Meher to go and tell him.
"You want me to tell him to go because you're worried about him sitting there?" Shahwar nodded at her friend.
"If he's done something to hurt you then let him suffer Shahwar. I'm not asking him to leave." Meher shook her head.
"No, no, Meher. Please. He hasn't even eaten anything since lunch. It's almost ten now." Shahwar was becoming impatient.
"Who cares? Let him be. I have my shift starting tomorrow early morning and you do too. Go and get changed. I'll bring your dinner here." Meher left the room.
Shahwar couldn't bear the thought of Rehaan being there since hours and that too in such a state. But then she thought that he'd leave after a while himself as it was going to be time for him to sleep anyway after eleven.
The next morning when she opened her door to head out for the first day of her new job she saw Rehaan sitting there in the same place Meher had told her last night.
Her husband the man who couldn't even sleep if his comfortable bed was not provided to him had been sitting on the ground of the porch for more than twelve hours and throughout an entire night.
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