Chapter Fifteen

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TW: DEPRESSION + ABUSE.

HARNAAM DROPS THE KEYS ONTO HER COUNTER, her eyes watching Kabir like a halk. It's been four days since he's shown up here and it's the first time she's seen him outside of his room. She scans all his features, the messy his of his and the ashy skin tone. Usually, his skin is a warm and mellow tan, but day by day it's becoming more grey. Even his brown eyes have eyebags under them.

"Kabir, please talk to me," Harnaam begs, her tone soft. Kabir looks up from his bowl of cereal, and pauses stirring the mushy oats. He hates oats. Ever since they were kids, Kabir would only eat chocolate flavored cereal or aloo parothe. When he grew older, he switched it out for coffee or tea. And during his worse times, he ate nothing at all besides the air of his smoke.

"What do I say?" he questions, speaking for the first time since he's entered her home. She's making progress. When he first came, he only told her not to contact Nazia and didn't come out of the spare bedroom even when Harnaam begged him to. Today, a day later, he's trying to eat - although from the looks of the cereal, that's been failing too.

His fingers trace circles on the spoon, holding it until there's small dents in his hands. When he looks at the circular marks, he raises his eyebrows as if he didn't know.

It's as if Kabir isn't here yet his body is. He seems just so . . . empty.

"Why don't you want to talk to Nazia? What's even happening?" Harnaam quizzes. "Not even Nazia is telling me what happened."

Kabir looks up, his eyes softening into their usual shade of brown before hardening back to the dark shade. It's the simple mention of Nazia's name; the simple mention of his happiness, and his destruction.

"You won't understand -"

"Yes I will!"

"Have you ever fallen in love?" Kabir asks, his eyes watching hers boldly. The tone barely sounds like Kabir, it's become harsh and sharp. Both of them know that Harnaam has never dated any guy or been emotionally invested, so Kabir carried on to speak. "Love is the worst thing to do when you're barely a person."

"Have you heard of the saying 'my better half'? I always thought it was bullshit. You shouldn't need someone else to feel complete," Kabir speaks. "But when Bella left me - actually, when Bella started cheating on me, I always felt less than a whole. I wasn't enough to statify someone, I felt like a time pass and so fucking hollow.

I never got to be the same Kabir I was all those years back until I met Nazia. She completed me, she became my better half, and the feeling of being less than a half went away. The hollowness, the emptiness - it all went away and was replaced with an aching for Nazia. But Naiza never needed me to complete her. She was more than enough for herself and the moment she leaves . . . I'll be the one left into nothing a half. She'll still be Nazia, I'll be a Bir."

Harnaam doesn't laugh at the lame attempt of a joke. Instead her eyebrows crease together. "But Nazia loves you as much as you love her," she comments.

"But does she need me like I do? Nazia was my knight in shining armor, the only person who could understand me in this hellhole. She's the only one who could give me enough strength to go through with the court case, who made sure I was valid, and whenever someone said some bullshit like guys don't get abused, she was there. I fell in love with her because she was safe. She made me feel safe.

And when we decided to stop being a burden on you and brpught an apartment, that love changed from friendship to boyfriend girlfriend type. Goddamit, I've always needed Nazia. Whenever I would have a shit day at work, my first thought was to go back to Nazia. Whenever I get the slightest happiness, I'm already dialing her number. Everything I do includes her - and I'm so tired of it."

"When I realized she was cheating on me, my first thought was to pretend I didn't know. I didn't do that with Bella. I remember when I found out I was so angry. I yelled at her and packed my bags. She asked how could I give up so easily and locked herself in our room. It wasn't until the next day she opened the door, knowing that I had been sitting outside, begging her to open the door."

Kabir takes a deep breath in, his eyes lost in thought and cloudy. All his mind remembers is his ex's golden hair, the curly strands of it, and the soft spray of freckles on her high cheekbones. She spoke in a ridiculously soft voice, pursing her pink lips, and pretended she wasn't aware of the effect her doll like features made Kabir do.

The only thing about her features didn't seem doll like was her height, her curvy body, and the way she wrapped her fingers around Kabir's hair and kissed him. The illusion broke completely as Kabir starts to remember how when he accidentally burned her favourite dress, she locked him outside of the bedroom and in the morning, she stepped on his hand with six inch heels. At the time, Bella had apologized over and over until Kabir thought it was nothing more than a mistake. He knows better now.

"My first thought when I realized Nazia was cheating on me was that I deserved it. I knew from the beginning I was a rebound. Why would Nazia even date someone so broken like me? Bella was right, there was no way I could get anyone better than her."

The memories taste bitter to him. His eyes stray away from Harnaam's gaze, avoiding her shocked expression and remain on the mushy cereal. He could still remember the way she had her hand on the nape of his bare neck, back when the skin wasn't scarred, and the way she had moved her lips closer to his ear. Her lips had kissed the outer skin of his ear an her soft voice and spoken, "this is the best you'll get, Kabir," with a trace of a British accent.

At the time, Kabir didn't move away. Instead he had remained in the bed, his eyes heaving shut with the need for sleep. His fingers still remained on her hip, tracing circles and his voice remained quiet as it has been for the last few nights.

"My second thought was to remain quiet. It wasn't because I was afraid that Nazia might be another Bella. It was because I was so afraid of loosing her. I knew that this stupid hollow feeling will come back. Nazia was the only dose of happiness I had left."

Finally, he stops speaking. His mouth is dry, and his hands itch towards his pocket for a ciggerette. He needs to stop this sharing session, he can already feel the hollow ache rest in the same place his heart should be. "Why did you leave then?" Harnaam asks, her tone soft as if she understands that all Kabir needs right now is sugar and sweetness.

"I could see some disturbing parallels between the way I acted with her and Bella. I started to tiptoe around her, making sure I took as less as space as I could and started working later to avoid her. The only difference is that the nights are different. My nights with Bella were . . . awful. With Nazia, they were quiet but I could tell she was just as restless as me. At two am, she would turn over until her skin brushes against mine."

He pauses, his hands pressed together as if he's praying. "It feels like I'm selfdestructing myself again for Nazia. Everything just feels as bland as it did before by staying with Nazia. My happiness is reliant on Nazia and she's in love with someone else."

"Are you sure she cheated -"

"Love doesn't just fade away. We both know that Nazia loved - I mean loves Abeer," Kabir replies, his eyes watching Harnaam's. They seem to be devoid of emotions, and exhausted with the way his grey eyebags pop out. "And if she did hate him, it doesn't matter. There's a ridiculously thin line between love and hate."

Harnaam scrunches up her nose and Kabir chuckles at her expression. "That's so not true," she argues.

"It is. Remember Danielle? I used to hate her since I was twelve. We - let's just say we had quite a few one night stands while we were seventeen. During school time, we carried on to pretend we hated each other and during night, we had . . . fun times."

"That's so gross," Harnaam comments, moving away from Kabir. "How many girls have you even slept with?! That's like the fourth I know."

Kabir's eyes widen for a second at her question. Instead of answering, he simply shoots her a smile and shrugs. It's not that Kabir was ashamed of his sexual history, it's that Harnaam is the perfect cousin that he was compared to. Compared to Kabir's smoking, sleeping around (to be fair, the only person he ever had one night stands with was Danielle; the others were his girlfriends at the time), and even the occasional aloholic drink, she was perfect kid.

"Let's leave it at I'm popular." Kabir winks and bursts into laughter. Harnaam lets out a bright smile, happy at the sound of his cheerful laugh. She misses her happy Kabir, the one who'd brighten a dim room with his presence, with his random jokes and his laughter.

"Don't you miss Nazia?"

"Miss isn't enough of a word. It's a word your seventeen year old self would say to their classmates after the holidays. The type of aching I have isn't temporary; I can feel like bouncing in my bones, in my heart's beats, and my dry mouth. Her name is on the tip of tongue even as we speak but I don't want to even say her name. I don't know, I just think if I pretend she never existed, I would get over her faster."

Her name reminds him of everything. It reminds of him whining her name, when his lips breathlessly said her name, when he told his workmates his fiancé's name with a large smile, and her toothy grin. Each time her name is heard, it leaves a hollow aching in his chest, in his arms that ache to touch her again, in his lips that wish to call out her name. It's right on the top of his tongue, waiting for her to arrive. He could forget how to breathe but he wouldn't forget her name.

The thing is that his ache feels more than "missing". It's everywhere, just not his heart. That is, if he has a heart. Everything in his chest feels hollow as if there's nothing left there.

He closes his eyes, envisioning how it would feel like to take a lomg drag of the ciggerette in his pocket. It peeks out, haunting him. All it'll take one drag and he'll have his temporary distraction. The emptiness, the ache will all be replaced with smoke and destruction.

Kabir wonders if he's already destroyed himself. He doesn't see a will in getting out of bed anymore, and this is the first time he's managed to be okay with speaking about Nazia.

"It's funny how the moment she tries to talk to me, I'll run back to her. It doesn't matter how much everything hurts right now, how those images haunt me, how these stupid lies of hers are brekaing ne right now, how my mind only taunts me with how I'm worthless to the person I love the most and how I'm so fucking replaceable. I'd do anything to stop this ache, I just want it gone . . .," Kabir says, his eyes dimming once again as he stares at his spoon.

He gets up. Harnaam gets up beside him, her eyes widening. She thought everything will be fine now, ever since Kabir showed a glimmer of his past self. It's not. "I think I'm going to take a nap," Kabir says.

Both of them knew it was a lie. It was code for 'I'm going to smoke a few ciggerettes, one after another, and stare at the ceiling'. But what can Kabir do? This is ths only way he knows how to relieve pain.

NIGHT HAS FALLEN, and so has the hollow quietness of Harnaam's apartment. Kabir watches the roof, his hand in his hair. He's long given up on sleep, and instead he blankly stares at the roof. The blankets have fallen on one side of his bed.

All he could think about was his hands toying with Nazia's hair, with honey warm lighting filling their room with warmth. He could practically hear her laughter as Kabir talked to her. It as as day after their engagement party and neither of them had fallen asleep due to excitement. It was five am, and they were still talking about the future.

The future looks pretty bleak at this moment.

Memories of her eat him up, and he wonders if they're poison. They give this horrid bitter feeling in his stomach, and it's nothing like the sweet poison of alcohol. At least alcohol gives the illusion of warmth and hope; these memories are bittersweet and fill him up with happiness and regret.

He doesn't understand why doesn't he just get up and give up. He knows he can't play this game. He can't stay away from her any longer, he's tired of this seperation and all he's doing is killing himself in this play.

Kabir gets up from his bed. He doesn't care Nazia probably doesn't want him; he just wants her. He opens the bedside table's drawer until he finds a ciggerette. There's a bit of him that's tempted to smoke but he knows it'll do utterly nothing to destroy the need of Nazia.

Instead of smoking, he leaves the ciggerette on his bed and walks towards the terrace. He already knows he'll spend the rest of the night watching the stars fade into day.

What a bittersweet spell you've put on me. Your lips taste like poison yet I still want more.

ABEER SITS DOWN, his fingers gracing the dusty keyboards of his MacBook. Although the gift was sent from some unknown person - possibly a businessman he has trade with or a ex lover - and is the latest MacBook out there, Abeer forgot about it until now. He had nothing to do really after he answered all his emails and queries about when his 'holiday' is over. He said in a week although his 'holiday' will only end when Nazia is back in his life.
Now, he's got nothing to do. He's already done all the research he needs to about the new Nazia, a little on Megha through her friends who thought he was just her secret admirer looking for a gift (at that time, he was a stranger to Megha), and the little he knows about Harnaam is through Nazia. During his time with Nazia, she would always mention her best friend once in a while.
That leaves Kabir. Abeer lets a small smirk overtake his lips. He's already destroyed his relationship with Nazia but that's not enough. He needs to destroy his life too, make him pay for touching his Nazia.

At first, Abeer thought to kill Kabir. He would hire men to kidnap him, beat him up until there's nothing left of him, and then dose him with gasoline. Abeer would come himself to set Kabir on fire and watch Kabir go through the emotions that Abeer went through every single day when he saw him touching his Nazia.

But that seems minor really. There's so much more he can do. Destroy every essense of his life and then kill him. Simple. Or, he could give him a reason to live, snatch it away, and then kill him. The possibilities are countless.

Unfortunately, Abeer doesn't know him well enough. Is Kabir career driven like Abeer? Does he set goals for himself and then curse himself when he doesn't get it?

Out of curiosity, Abeer types up Kabir's full name on Google. Needless to say, his eyes widen at the first few hits that were all news reports. It's a tad surprising since Abeer assumed that Kabir kept out of trouble. Nazia hates bad boys anyways.

Abeer's grip tightens on his pen, he brings his notebook closer to him as his gold watch moves up and down his arm. In the center, he writes Kabir's name in large letters.

A few clicks later, he sees a large smiling photo of Kabir . . . With another woman? It's a petite young girl, around the same age as Kabir was in the photo. They're both smiling at the camera with large pearly teeth. The photo comes as a shock because the woman is so different from Nazia with her hair, her pale skin, her doll-like features, and her soft yet unnerving blue eyes. The website is a blog, so Abeer already knew it'll be slightly biased.

Abuse Victim or Liar?

Kabir is your normal Pakistani guy - he likes to sing, he's kind of hot, he's talkative, and jokes a lot. He has a girlfriend that follows a polar regilion from him (she's a Christian woman) and both of them seem quite happily in love until they broke up.

Kabir was in hospital with several wounds to his neck and the soles of his feet after their supposed breakup. For this incident, he blames Bella - a young and talented woman who aspires to be a ballerina. He had also stated that she's raped him on multiple occasions through rape drugs and blackmail. And that's not even the funniest part, he also claims that Bella - a soft and petite woman - is the reason why he wears long sleeves to cover his bruised arms in summer.

Is this a joke? As a feminist, this case really interested me. A Pakistani Muslim man is claiming a British ballerina abused him? Is this a joke? Pakistani men are proven as the most sexist men in the world. We all know that Islam is a misogynist religion, it's the polar opposite of Christianity and everything we believe in.

Bella had claimed that Kabir is lying and the wounds are self inflected and I believe it. The poor girl probably realized she deserved better, tried to leave him, and now Kabir is trying to get money through her. Pathetic right?

Drop down your opinions below! Are you on #teamKabir or #teamBella?

To say Abeer was shocked was an understatement. He had to read the article a few times to make sense of it, and even after that he opened a new tab and read another article about Kabir's abuse. The second was less biased, but they made sure to write Kabir as a Pakistani Muslim man and erase his Sikh Punjabi history. The secoud also discussed Bella's achievements to a higher extent, explaining how people think her talent is 'god's gift'.

Abeer is smart enough to know the only fact anyone is on '#teambella' is white privilege and islamphobia mixed with it. The funniest thing is that Abeer is certain that Kabir barely practices Islam - it's the color of his skin that made him the criminal rather than Bella.

It's as if Bella had some PR team. All of the articles were local to Kabir's ex hometown and featured cute photos of Kabir and Bella. The rare photos of Bella by herself were selfies of her smiling widely at a camera. There was no mugshot.

Almost all the websites seemed biased towards to Bella. The only one that didn't was a tumblr blog with two hundred followers that called people 'jerks' for victim blaming. The comments are mainly fights between white Christians saying 'this is why Muslims need to leave!' and intelligent people pointing out how incredibly biased this entire affair is.

No wonder why Kabir left his hometown.

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