I laugh, but it’s as hollow as I feel right now.
“No, Aisha. I won’t. I know we have problems, and I know they are because of me, but how could you even think that I would be okay with this? How did you think I would so easily agree to letting you go?”
“Are you kidding me, Reyansh?” she unbuckles her seat belt, and I withdraw my hand. “How could I think of it? How canyounot think of it? We haven’t been in a relationship for the past few years. We haven’t even acted like friends, let alone two people who got married because they once loved each other. Why would I not think of ending this marriage when it ended a long time ago? I am just asking you to put a stamp on it.”
All my mind focuses on while she lets her heart out is “two people who once loved each other.” Is that true? Is that all we have become according to her?
“I know there are problems, Aisha. I want to fix things; I just ask of you to let me do that.”
My voice is downright pleading, but I don’t care.
I will get on my damn knees if need be.
“It’s been too late, Reyansh.”
My eyes well up as I look at her, only to find the same pained expression mirrored in her eyes.
I don’t care what she thinks. This is not how we will end up.
I lift up my fingers to wipe away the lone tears that slip out of her eyes unknowingly.
She sucks in a deep breath as I cup her cheek and rest my forehead against hers. This close I can smell her perfume that always used to turn me into a maniac. Just like everything about her used to and still does to this date.
“Aisha, please,” I whisper with my eyes closed. “I am so sorry, but please let me fix this—fix us. Please, I beg you. Don’t give up.”
She shakes her head, pulling away from me enough that I can look at her now, but I don’t let her go.
“Too late, Reyansh,” she sniffles. “I want you to give me a divorce, and you can’t say no. You will have to.”
My eyes turn cold as I look at her. She has always been stubborn.Ziddi,as her mother calls her.
Too bad I amzidditoo. Especially when it comes to her.
“Over my dead fucking body, Aisha.”
* * *
Aisha stares at me, her look confusing. I don’t know what’s going on in her mind, but I know that she didn’t expect this response from me. Maybe she expected me to give up, but what she doesn’t know is that I would give up everything I have ever had or achieved but not her.
She doesn’t make it to that list.
She pulls away from me with a grimace, her eyebrows furrowed together and her breathing heavy, and I just know that if she could beat me with herchappal,she would happily do so.
She gets out of the car and gives me one last look before slamming the door in my face, and I close my eyes.
Fuck, I was so close to losing control over myself. I need to keep myself in check. I cannot be having thoughts about my wife when all she wants from me is divorce.
I take a few deep breaths in before parking the car in its right spot and then stepping out.
When I get in our house, I am met with dead silence, and once I quietly move into my room, I find Aisha to be packing her bags.
I lean against the door frame with my arms crossed, watching her huff and stuff all her clothes in a mess in her suitcase.
“What are you doing, wife?” I ask.
Am I treading a dangerous boundary by pissing off my already pissed-off wife? Yes
Do I know any other way to cope? No
