Part 2
637 Words
Chapter Two: “Where It Hurts the Most” (Part 2)
That weekend, the sky refused to clear — like the weather understood her silence.
Areeba stayed in her room.
She didn’t go to university.
She didn’t write.
She just… existed.
The walls of the house seemed to press closer. The air heavier. Her identity — now reduced to a rumour. A line whispered in the kitchen. A shameful sigh behind the curtain.
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Zidan’s Visit
It was past midnight when she heard a knock.
“Can I come in?” Zidan asked quietly.
Areeba hesitated, then nodded. He stepped inside, holding two cups of chai — hers always sweeter than the rest.
“I read nothing,” he began. “Just… heard Ammi shouting.”
She stared at the floor. “You don’t have to say anything.”
“I know,” he said. “But I want to.”
There was a pause. Heavy but kind.
“I just wanted to say… if you wrote about someone, that doesn’t make you wrong. That makes you alive.”
Areeba’s lips trembled. No one had said that to her before.
“I didn’t even have him,” she whispered. “And still I lost him.”
Zidan placed the cup beside her. “Then he didn’t deserve to be in your poems.”
And with that, he left — no judgement, no noise, just quiet understanding.
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The Letter from Rafael
The next day, Ayla came in with a folded paper and a flushed face.
“He asked me to give this to you,” she said, sliding it into Areeba’s hand.
Areeba froze.
Rafael.
She stared at the paper for hours before opening it.
> *“I know I lost the right to speak to you.
But silence burns. And I have so many unsaid things stuck in my throat.
I don’t regret meeting you.
I regret meeting you with a chain still around my ankle.
Please don’t let them make you feel ashamed for loving someone.
Especially not someone who loved you back…
even if only in silence.”*
She pressed the letter to her chest, eyes closed.
But peace didn’t come.
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That evening, Mahira came storming into the room, holding the letter.
“You really think love letters belong in this house?” she snapped.
Areeba’s heart dropped. “You read it?”
“You left it out like a billboard,” Mahira hissed. “Everyone knows. Dadi cried. Ammi locked herself in the room. And now you're acting like a sad princess?”
Areeba stood up. Her voice didn’t rise — it shattered.
“You don’t understand anything.”
Mahira laughed bitterly. “I understand how people like you ruin families.”
Ayla stepped between them. “Enough!”
But the damage was done.
Areeba’s chest cracked open again — only this time, the pieces weren’t hers alone.
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🧨 The Hidden Truth (The Twist Begins)
That night, while arguments buzzed through the walls, Areeba sat outside Dadi’s room — where soft sobs came through the door.
She knocked. Slowly opened it.
Dadi looked up, her face wet.
“I didn’t mean to make everyone upset,” Areeba said softly.
Dadi touched her hand. “It’s not you. It’s… everything else.”
And then, without warning, she whispered:
> “You deserve to know… your mother once loved someone else too. Before she married your father. She burned her diary the night of her wedding.”
Areeba froze.
“My mother…?”
Dadi nodded, eyes distant. “You are her daughter in more ways than one.”
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📝 Diary Entry – That Night
> “We are not only what we survive.
We are also the stories our mothers never got to tell.”
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🕊️ To be continued…
- Writer
