His eyelids flickered.
“Daaxsaab.” Her haunted face flickered with a semblance of a smile. His eyes squeezed shut. “Don’t call me that.”
“Why?”
He inhaled, his body vibrating.
“Samar.”
He opened his eyes, and her hands were on his face, holding his cheeks, pulling his head close so that their eyes could hold onto each other. Samar saw the hope and the faith in her eyes. It was for the wrong man.
“It will become alright.” Her thumbs caressed his cheeks. “It will become better.”
He shook his head, trying to pull back. She held on — “You went through all that and still stood on your feet, you will go through this too. This is nothing. It’s a pebble in your path. No offers are made to Janta yet, no announcements are made. I will make sure that they are stalled until you are inside the cabinet, trust me, I will make it happen…”
“No.” He grabbed her wrists and pulled them down, stepping back.
“We will speak to Begumjaan and Zorji,” she went on. “If anybody can get through to Atharva, it is them.”
He shook his head, looking everywhere but at her. Amaal went silent.
“What is wrong with Atharva?!” She lost her cool. “Whatever might have happened between you two, he wouldn’t do this… Samar, hecannotdo this. You are a founder of KDP. You won Udhampur with a thumping majority. He will have to relent. If you don’t want to speak to Zorji then I will speak to him…”
“No!”
Her mouth snapped shut. Samar gaped at her. She gaped at him.
Amaal shook her head — “This cannot be like this. No… If you don’t want to involve Zorji then I will talk to Iram. Her father is involved, but she has been very brave through it all. She sat through Atharva’s press conference, she took difficult questions, she stood by him. She will make him see reason…”
“Sheisthe reason.”
“How is she the reason?” Amaal asked, looking at him with so much trust that he was forced to break it. Knowing she would not wish to see his face again, he confessed what had sunk to the base of the pot of his sins.
“I gave Iram to Sufiyaan Sheikh.”
“What do you meangave?”
He looked down. “The way to reach her when Atharva was running to save her that night.”
Wind whooshed across his ears. Amaal did not say anything.
Samar bolstered enough courage to look up, and found that her face had lost its fighting spark. Their eyes met, and he noticed the exact moment that her face completely turned away from him, even as her eyes continued to stare into his.
“You… could you? Did you really?”
He stared back at her, silent.
“Speak!” She yelled. “Did you really? She… they tried to… oh my god! You knew they would…” Amaal’s feet staggered back from him. “Why?! How… Why?! If you didn’t like her, you… gave her?” Disgust stretched across her mouth. He could take that. Anger surged. He could take that too. And then, she swayed away from him in fear.
Samar took a step forward because that should never have happened. She had nothing to fear him.
She took quick steps back and he took more.
“Stop, stop, stop,” she held her palms out. He kept going.
“Stop!”
He didn’t relent.
