Apple of your eye-Part 19

He looked at her with begging eyes. “ Khor!! Tell him yes!”, her sister pleaded her. Aafreen stared at her sister with her eyes wide open. “ Stop talking nonsense!! You know my marriage is fixed.”, she said angrily. “ Why are you getting hyper? I didn’t say anything wrong. He loves you!! I can clearly see that. You are making mistake of shutting him out of your life.”, her sister explained, trying her best to change her mind.

Aafreen looked at her sister with intense curiosity. She still didn’t understand why her sister was supporting the stranger. “ Why?? Why shouldn’t I? How do you know he is the right one.? I know nothing about him. I… I don’t know where he belongs. And he is Jawan.. our enemy…”, she tried to put her point.  She couldn’t think about betraying her parents for someone she barely knew.

“ Khor!  Not all humans we think are good or evil. It’s only our perception…”, her sister said but she couldn’t complete it. “ What! What do you know about this person? Why are you supporting him?”, Aafreen asked bitterly. Her face had changed from the warm and bubbly one to cold and unfriendly one. Anger could turn even sweet angel into a demonic person.

“ I… I know I should.. be.. What do I say… How do I make you understand? I .. had followed you.. on .. that.. day when you had gone for walks secretly… I wasn’t snooping.. at you. But I saw.. you kiss and I was sure .. you love him..”, her sister stammered, finding a way to explain Aafreen the truth. Tears was in it’s verge of dropping from her face. How could she make her sister understand that her life will only revolve around her sacrificing.

The best possible option  for her was to run away from the situation. She has always done that.. whenever she couldn’t handle any situation, she would run away. So she ran as fast as she could away from her sister… away from the man she loved but wasn’t sure about.  She hadn’t realised that she had walked out of her own house.

She stopped until her feet hurt. She cried until even tears became scarce resource. After sunset , when birds flew to their nest and the sky turned from blue to orange and then to violet, she walked towards her house. Her parents were waiting with mixture of anxiousness and anger. “ Where were you? How many times should I tell you not to go out without our approval and someone accompanying you?”, her father scolded her. “ Sorry! I didn’t mean to hurt you… I wanted to tell you that I am ready to get married to anyone you want me to.”, she cried. Everyone except her sister was happy to hear the news. Her sister shot her expression that was filled with anger. But Aafreen didn’t meet her sister’s eyes.

( To be continued)