Chapter 10

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10| Nawal

I wasn't sure if it was intentional or not but it hurt just the same.

The first morning I woke up in our home, I was alone in bed and I woke up at 8! Lazily, still in my night suit since no one was around except my husband, I had checked all rooms of the house to see if Ahad was home, which he wasn't. I had visibly sagged if anyone else was there to see me. I had gone back to bed and slept for another two hours before getting up and having a light breakfast. I knew the importance of breakfast and that it should be the heaviest meal you have in a day because it was the first and I had followed that for my entire life but I couldn't get myself to eat anything except a single buttered toast when I was all alone. The maid had come later that day and cleaned the house up and I offered to make lunch so that Ahad could experience my cooking. In my frenzy, I ended up cooking two dishes for him plus dessert but the man hadn't even come home for lunch. I called him but he hadn't picked up so I called on his office phone that his assistant had answered and that frustrated me even further. I had politely asked her to inform Ahad that I had called. It was bad enough that he hadn't picked up my call but now I had to get another woman to get my husband to talk to me. Pathetic! Even I would laugh at me if I saw myself that way. At five in the evening that day, I started pacing back and forth, preparing to show Ahad how heartbroken I was because he hadn't called me back but instead, I was left to talk to myself, again, because he hadn't come home then either. I had passed the rest of the evening binge-watching a series on the TV and finally went to sleep when he didn't come home by 10 in the night either.

The next few days had passed by in the same way but I had given up dressing up for him when I was home and resorted to lounging around in a t-shirt and trousers and instead of cooking lunch for myself, I either snacked big or ordered something from outside. Not like my husband would be home to eat with me anyway. Being the stubborn person I was, I started waking up even earlier in the mornings to at least catch him before he left for work since I definitely couldn't see him when he returned home if he even did. Okay, no, he did return home since every night I felt the bed dipping from his side and my blanket being pulled up but I couldn't make out what time it was when he got home. I had thought of visiting him at work multiple times but realized that I didn't even know which branch of his hotel he worked at himself. Lahore was the founding city of the hotel chain so there was more than one branch here and I was too embarrassed to ask anyone else about my own husband's work so I quit thinking about that. I thought of getting some writing done and I did open my laptop everyday but how could I write romance between my characters when my own married life was wilting away.

Today, I got a courier in my name that I took up to my room and opened. The box was small and had an album inside it. The cover of the album read 'Nawal & Ahad' in gold, cursive letters and inside were all our photos from the wedding photo shoot and photos taken here and there on the the baraat and walima functions. The first album only had our solo pictures and the second album, without a title on the cover, had photos of us with the rest of the family and photos taken separately of the other members of the family. I looked at the photos in our album carefully and wiped a tear that had unexpectedly fallen. We looked so happy and in love, though I know it was far from it, in the photos and now I hadn't even properly seen Ahad in days. Mama called every day and I had to lie to her that we had been having lots of fun together while Ahad perfectly juggled his married life and work-life simultaneously.

It was an arranged marriage, after all, I couldn't expect him to give me all his love and time all the time, and maybe the attention he gave me in the first two days after our marriage was because we were around our families. But he had spent time with me when we were alone too. Whatever it was, I didn't like it now.

Deciding I had enough of my tardiness, I got up and changed into something presentable and left the house. I couldn't drive at all and didn't have a car either so I called a cab service and went to a stationery shop. Bhai had sent me pics from our album on my phone too so I selected my favorite picture which was definitely the first pic with my hands around his neck and his on my waist and got that printed in a large size. I got a frame of the right size from there too and went home.

One of the walls had artwork on it so I left it be but the empty wall opposite to the kitchen seemed like the right spot to hang the frame at. I dragged a chair from the dining table to the wall and hammered in a nail into the wall and hung the frame after making sure that the nail was sturdy and strong. The frame was thin and of grey color and complimented the blue of the walls pretty well.

I changed into my t-shirt and trousers again and checked the time. It was 1 pm so I finally decided to cook lunch for myself since the maid hadn't come today. I put on music on my phone and cooked some fried rice while dancing and singing along to the songs. My hair had been bothering me so I quickly pulled them up into a messy bun and resumed my work.

Suddenly, I felt hands on my hips and stilled. No one had the key to the house other than me and Ahad and he wasn't going to come back home right now. Did someone break in? Concluding that I was overreacting, I turned around and breathed a sigh of relief when I noticed that it was Ahad. I had planned to ask him why he was never home and possibly yell at him too for how he had been treating me but all that went down the drain when I looked at him.

My back was pressed against the counter and his hands were on hips, his body close enough that I'm sure that our breaths were mingling. I was breathing heavily as I looked up at him.

He leaned lower and whispered, "Does my proximity affect you?" Maybe it was just me but his voice was so smooth and sensual right now that I'm pretty sure I just melted right there and then. My body felt too hot under his touch and I could feel my cheeks flushing red.

Choosing not to lie, I stuttered out "Y-Yes, it does." I closed my eyes as he leaned forward and placed a light kiss on my head.

"Mama invited us over for lunch." He told me and walked away, just like that.

What the hell was that?! I placed a hand over my racing heart and bent over. Did that really happen?

I turned the stove off quickly and went after him to our room. He had removed his jacket and was unbuttoning his shirt but stopped when he saw me enter the room.

"She called us now?" He walked over to the closet and pulled out a fresh shirt and went into the washroom, all while answering me. "Mhm, yeah. She said she missed us and wanted to cook something for her son and daughter-in-law." He went to the washroom and locked it.

I slapped my cheeks to bring myself back to reality after seeing his three loose buttons from the top and went to the closet to pull out something to wear. I settled on a camel brown plain shirt and trousers with a printed purple dupatta around my neck. Ahad came out, showered, in a white button-up with the sleeves left to run down the entire length of his arms and two top buttons were left open. The shirt was tucked in his black denim pants and his wet hair were left to sit messily on his forehead.

"Are you ready to go?" He asked as he stood behind me in the mirror and wore his watch and sprayed some perfume on himself.

"Yeah, let's go." As soon as I said that, he wrapped his arm around my shoulders and took us to the car. Maybe I was still stuck on what he did earlier, but just the simple action was enough to make me hot again.


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