First Time Ever

First Ends

Chapter-19

First Ends

“You don’t look very radiant,” Rose commented while fixing the bottom of my gown.

“I’ve never been radiant Rose.”

Standing at her full length she threw me an ‘You’re an i***t’ look, “Neither have you been married India.”

“She’s right,” Lita stumbled into the room, fixing her beautiful stain knee length dress, “Brides are supposed to be radiant.”

I weighted in the pros and cons of the situation, it was two against one, I couldn’t win this one, “Okay I’ll try.”

“Yeah keep trying,” commenting sarcastically, Rose went to adjusting my corset while Lita started fiddling with her phone.

“What’s wrong?” she wasn’t being the kind of the to be nervous, ever. And right now she seem even more on edge than me.

Biting her lip, she looked at her phone then at Rose and finally at me, “It’s nothing.”

As hell! She was lying, right to my face, “Lita!” I demanded.

Taking a deep breath she looked at me through the dressing mirror, “No matter what happens, remember this India, Keith loves you. He really do.”

Turning my head, I met her gaze head on, “I know that but what has it got to do with anything?”

She was biting her lip again and her fingers were continuously tapping her dress, something was very, very wrong and even Rose seem to have noticed that.

She raised an eyebrow at Lita as if asking for an explanation but otherwise kept quiet.

I could feel it, burning beneath my skin, something was so amiss, it started tingling my senses. Something bad was about to happen, I could almost taste it, it was as if the surroundings were trying to convey something and I shivered, not because of something pleasant but because I felt something terrible all around me.

Maybe we should postpone the ceremony? It just didn’t seem like a very good idea right now.

“I should talk to Keith,” something told me I should talk to him, just hear his voice, if not anything else. I made a run for my phone but Rose beat me to it.

“Don’t you dare,” she warned, clutching my phone in her palm, “He’d be getting ready right now, thinking of you, about the ceremony and afterwards…..,” she let it hang.

The afterwards part earned her a blush.

“You’ve done it before, haven’t you?” she teased.

Fisting the skirt tightly, I replied, “Once.” Oh God, this was embarrassing.

“Then why the blush?” she was good at teasing and even though I understood her plan to divert my mind, I played along. Maybe I was over thinking, I mean after everything that happened with, I was being really obnoxious.

Hell! I was getting married and no force in the world could stop me now, not even the nagging feeling that Pete wasn’t here. I had cried myself to sleep last night because of him but today, today belonged to Keith and Keith only.

“Not in my wedding gown,” I muttered, intending it to be for myself. The idea of making love in the bridal dress has always fantasized me, it was adventurous, rebellious, risky and made my blood rush.

“Ooh!” folding her scarlet lips in a duck bill kind of manner, she continued, “You’re a naughty girl, aren’t you? Does he know?”

“Don………,” I was about to reply when Lita’s phone rang, both of us turned to her as she received the call. Whatever the person on the other end told her, it drained all color from her face.

“Are you sure?” she asked in a pained voice while me and Rose looked at her askance. But she ignored us and then throwing me a look she ran out of the room.

My heart started thumping painfully, something was not right, I knew it, I just did, “What’s the matter?” I was about to go after her when Rose pulled me back.

“You stay here, I’ll go get her. It’s not a good omen for the bride to be seen in her wedding dress.” Something told me it wouldn’t really matter but I nodded nonetheless.

Taking that as confirmation, she went out after Lita.

Now I was sure something terrible happened, they were gone for about twenty minutes and it was starting to worry me even more. What was she hiding from me? What was it that made even the ferocious Lita so nervous?

“Ya Allah!” it was the only thing I could think of. And then the doors opened and Rose walked in, followed by Lita. Rose’s face mirrored the worry and pity I saw on Lita’s face earlier.

My heart sank.

“Guys what happened? Is Keith okay?” so many horrible thoughts ran through my mind that I had to scold myself to keep it together. He had to be alright. Nothing could happen to that i***t.

They looked at each other, worry glazing their eyes, urging the other to initiate. The suspense was eating me and I had to restrain myself from shaking the answer out of them.

It was Rose who finally spoke up, “There….umm…….something bad has happened.” My knees wobbled, threatening to give under my weight, my heart was ready to tear apart my chest and come out.

“Is Keith okay?” I was halfway across the room when Lita answered , “It’s not Keith.”

“What?” Stopping in my tracks, I turned around, “what?”

“It’s not Keith,” she said in a hushed voice, if not Keith then who? What? Outside, thunder roared to life, it had started to rain. Definitely not a good sign.

I was confused, every name I could think of ran through my head and my dread increased, “Then?”

The door was pushed open so forcibly that even the hinges shook with the impact, “It’s my brother,” he was dripping wet, already in his tux, tie hanging around the neck, his hair plastered to his forehead. But what scared me to the core was the look on his face. It was something I would never forget as long as I lived, it would continue to haunt my nights and my days.

And in that moment I knew it was over, all of it, gone, just like that. It hurt, my heart hurt all over again.

“Your brother?” my mouth was parched, I remembered talking to his younger brother on Skype a lot of times. He was studying in Paris, his name was Blake and he was six years younger than Keith but looked like a child with unruly brownish hair, shimmering greenish blue eyes and a happy go lucky attitude, I instantly took a liking to him and he to me. We went along really well, Blake reminded me of my own brother in a number of ways, plus he was the only member of Keith’s family who had no problem with my religion, surprisingly.

I was so looking forward to meeting him in person but he told us he won’t be able to make it to our wedding because of his mid terms but would definitely come meet us after the honeymoon.

Things seem to have changed now.

“You’re never satisfied, are you!” he was faster than lightening outside, “What do you want! When will you stop?” he demanded shaking me so violently that he ripped the sleeves of my gown, “When will you leave us alone?” that stuck a note.

“Keith,” Lita tried to come to my aid but I knew his wrath was for me and me alone and until it was unleashed, he wouldn’t be at peace. The funny thing was, neither would I.

“Lita, Rose, leave us,” I requested, still in his grasp. His eyes were red, blood red, his gaze frantic, his body shaking so furiously, I feared he would let out his anger on others as well.

“But,” Rose started to object, still in a dilemma weather to stay quiet and not interfere or to come to my rescue and get me out of is clutches.

“I said leave,” and I didn’t have to tell them twice. I might as well have made a death wish because the person standing in front of me had murder on his mind. And by telling them to leave I left myself defenseless against a former army person, he could kill me before I even managed to let out a scream.

“Why?” his nails dug into my. flesh, his grip so tight my arms started to go numb and my eyes began to tear. I’ve seen him mad before but this time he was beyond mad, way beyond furious. I couldn’t even name the emotion, the state in which he stood before me, ready to tear me to shreds, peel off my skin, grind my bones to dust, all while I was alive.

“What did I do?”

I knew it was nothing that I had done but rather what a group of people thought to be following the same religion as me did but whatever it was, it was tterly awful for this face of Keith to emerge and I was ready to hear the very hateful thing that could’ve happened but nothing could ever have prepared me for what he told me, not in a million years for my knees buckled when he nearly crushed my forearm and screamed, “You killed him! He’s dead! You hear me, dead!” my head started to spin and it took every bit of conscience left in me to swallow the bile rising in my throat.

It can’t be! That was not possible, Blake couldn’t die. I talked to him yesterday, he cannot die! No!

“I…….He……,” my mind stopped working for I couldn’t even form a proper sentence. What should I say? What could I say? I understood his pain, if not felt it and knew, understood the primal, raw anger swelling within him, lighting him ablaze.

He was a son who has lost his father, he was a son who has seen his mother become a widow, he was a soldier who has seen his fellow soldiers die and now he was a brother who lost his younger brother.

“What!’ he shook me again, so violently that the sleeves came of the shoulders, “What!” he wasn’t in his proper mind, wasn’t thinking properly but I couldn’t blame him. Because neither was I.

It wasn’t a matter of debate as to whether I was to be held responsible for his brother’s death or not, he had already decided and I’ve been found guilty. For a brief second I thought of how they executed an enemy in army? Would he shoot me in the head and end it quickly or would he shoot every single part of my body and enjoy the pain?

“How?” my voice trembled and y body shook. I wanted to know before the axe finally came down on my neck. It had only been twelve hours since I last talked to Blake, what could have possibly happened?

In return he shoved his tablet in my face with every intent of breaking my nose or any other thing that could be broken. It was an effort in itself to stand upright, let alone focus on the screen. With much difficulty I did and when my eyes finally focused on the screen another tremor passed through my body. A terror so raw, so deep spread in my heart, threatening to shut it down that for a second my breath left me.

‘Scenes of horror as Paris night becomes a bloodbath.’

I didn’t have the courage to go past the headlines, I didn’t need to.

“I……. I am sorry,” and the next moment black floaters filled my vision, the sound of his slap resounding in the empty room, overpowering the thunder outside. My eyes stung, my ears rang and I felt a sharp pain shoot through my jaw, "Don’t you f*****g dare!” he roared.

So this was what it came down to? Violence? I always knew he was capable of it but never had I thought that he would use it on me. Guess I was wrong, that night when I’d first told him I was Muslim, he had nearly punched me, nearly. And that had me believing that he would never physically harm me. He was better than that, way better.

But right now he wasn’t the Keith Night I had come to love, he was the Keith Night I had never been introduced to.

“You b***h!” grabbing a handful of my hair, he forced me to look at him, “I’ll kill you! I’ll kill every f*****g Islam following piece of s**t on this earth.”

“Then what’s the difference?” this was not the man I loved, could ever love. He reeked of hatred, of malice. He reeked of everything I could never love.

This caught him off guard, “What?” he seem truly astonished.

“Then where’s the difference jackass?” I spat in his face, “Your Bible doesn’t teach you to hurt others, neither does my Quran, your prayers don’t teach you to think ill of others neither does my Namaz, your Christ never preached of hating another human neither does my Mohammad. Where’s the difference between your amen and my Ameen?”

He looked at me dumbfounded, his eyes a little less wild, his body a little less frantic.

“Yet here you stand wanting to kill every person who ever said ‘Ya Allah!’ then what’s the difference between you and them?”

“The difference,” he spoke up after a few minutes, his voice eerie and it scared me to the very roots, “is that I didn’t start it.”

He was not going to listen because he wasn’t himself, because the demons of his father’s death still haunted him and now the demons of his brother’s death as well.

He’ll never find peace if he kept it all within him and I knew the he will, just like he did last time, if it wasn’t unleashed tonight, right here, on me. Because I was the closest source on which he could let his anger out.

And it might have been over but I wanted to give him a parting gift because I loved him and that was the least I could do.