Iram’s smile vanished.
“Sorry.”
Iram shook her head — “I have gotten over that time.”
“Let’s not talk about it.”
“No,” Iram insisted. “Let’s talk about it. Because I am not scared of that time or that event anymore. It’s taken me a lot to reach here. Am I ok with him? No. But my anger was directed at, first, Sufiyaan Sheikh, and then, myself. I never got a chance to be angry at him or hate him. And then when Atharva was taken for investigation, he tried very hard to sideline me. I was angry at him then more than I was for what he did to me… His hatred of my father is maniacal, he did a lot of damage to Atharva, KDP and me. But he is still in Atharva’s circle and his life. There is no way around that.” She set her pizza down. “And, Amaal, this is not amusing to me. But having gotten to know you closely over the last year, I know that you wouldn’t feel like this for somebody who is rotten to his core.”
Amaal stared at Iram. And realised what she had been suppressing inside herself for all these months. That she couldn’t fall for somebody this bad. She couldn’t have been attracted to somebody who was… rotten to the core. She couldn’t have been wrong about the man she saw through that window. Samar was many things — wrong and dejected and disillusioned and lost. But not rotten.
“Am I right?” Iram’s voice broke through her thoughts.
“Man! How are you so mature?” Amaal sputtered, picking up her pizza again.
“I thought the same about you when I joined the party. I even asked you, remember?”
Amaal filled her mouth with pizza and eyed her over the crust — “He still dislikes you to the core.”
“I know. What else would he do?” Iram picked up her slice, her gaze going far away. “Lucky for me, there is no place anymore where our paths cross. And where they do, Atharva will be standing in front of me. I have spent a lifetime being afraid of a lot of things. Now that things are going well for a change, what will I get from thinking about his dislike of me? He has moved on, he stays far away from us. That is enough.”
Amaal rolled her eyes. “I came here for fun stuff and you have made this into a dark, deep therapy session.”
“Fine, Drama Queen, get those naughty movies out… Amaal, isn’t that your area?”
She focused on the TV. It was a news item about a petty robbery in a bungalow.
“That’s far away from where I live.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, at least two lanes away.” She switched the TV to DVD. “Let’s start with Pretty Woman again.”
“Piano scene!!!” They squealed in unison.
————————————————————
Amaal didn’t see Samar for months, and then, one fine summer evening, just like that, he walked into the Jammu Secretariat while she was leaving.
“Hi.” She stumbled back on her heels, coming to a halt. He looked good, not as tired and worn out as he had the last time they had met. In his monochrome formals, his jaw stubbled, he still managed to look fresh.
“Hi,” his face softened, nodding at the bright evening outside. “Leaving early?”
“Hmm.”
His eyebrows went up. And Amaal realised what she had said.
“Hmmm,” she repeated, pointedly.
“You can Hmm to me but I cannot?”
She found herself giving away the smile that had sprouted naturally for him after a long time.
“Why are you leaving early?”
“I have taken a half day.”
“Nine to five thirty is not half day, Amaal.”
