He shook his head.
“What is wrong with you people?!!” She rubbed her hands over her face. Kept rubbing.
“Relax.”
“Don’t use that word in front of me!”
“Hmm.”
“Not that word either!”
“Ok.”
“Not that either! Ugggggh!!” She began to walk away when he stood up and blocked her path. “I am sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“You look… frustrated.”
“So?” She barked. “Atharva needs to be sorry! What the fuck was he thinking?! What the actual fuck were they… Uggggghh!” She huffed, shaking her head. Her dark eyes met his and she sighed, a smile coming to her mouth even in this moment. That should have made her a lunatic but Samar admired it. He admired the hint of that dimple. Just the promise of it was beautiful. But why was she smiling?
“Why are you smiling?”
“Now he has decided to marry Iram.”
Something slipped from his mouth. A smile. Samar felt his finger singed. The cigarette had burned to the butt. He crushed it between his fingers, feeling the burn and yet not feeling it.
“Can you repeat that?”
Amaal threw her face into her hands and rubbed — “He wants to marry Iram. Legitimise this.” Her hands came down and she was smiling unabashedly. “It’s so stupid how happy I can be for these two and so done with what’s about to come. It’s going to be a…”
“What kind of a solution is that?”
She stilled. Then nodded — “It’s a logical one.”
“But Qureshi said to send her away…”
“Doesn’t clean Atharva’s character.”
“Bu…”
“This saves them both. And the media stories that I can play with…” she looked downright gleeful. “But we need to get over the short term losses first…”
She kept talking but he did not listen. His blank mind was suddenly erupting with a future. A non-future. Atharva with Aamir Haider’s daughter forever. Atharva, Aamir Haider’s daughter’s husband. The man who had fought the hardest against Aamir Haider, now his son-in-law.
“…and you had smoked that day too, isn’t it?”
“Huh?”
She pointed to his hand. He dropped whatever was left of the cigarette butt.
“Let’s go in.”
“How many did you smoke?” Amaal gasped, eyes on the second step. He looked. And realised he had smoked more than the two that he had counted. His blank mind had gone too blank. The floor was littered with cigarette butts. He patted his pocket. The pack felt lighter.
“Let’s go.” He climbed the step and walked inside the house, down the hall and alley, and to the open door of Atharva’s office.
Qureshi was chuckling, “…beware, nobody comes out of marriage alive.”
