*****

Denial.

A powerful force.

For two years Aamir had denied Mayra her right as his wife. For two years he had denied himself the truth. For two years, two familes had denied the reality.

And denial was blissful anaesthesia, he thought wryly as the continuing screams from both sides made him want to bang his head on the wall.

What he wanted to do was to walk out and run to Mayra. The fact that he hadn't confessed his love to her yet was eating him up. But how could he have done it. Mayra had been crying so bad that Aamir was forced to call the doctor who said that Mayra has to be calmed or else she would hurt herself. And so the doctor had sedated her and yet again she was sleeping.

He seriously considered giving up the whole charade and confronting Mayra about her attempted suicide. He knew, for sure he knew that he had never wished for Mayra to die. Even at times when he had hated her with all his heart, he never wanted her to do something so drastic. He couldn't reassure himself that he wasn't deserving of blame in all that had brought two families to their knees, but this he wasn't guilty of.

Then what was making Mayra think that it was Aamir who wanted to see her dead? But considering the fragile state of Mayra's mind, asking any questions of such serious nature was going to be impossible.

And, as if the entire issue wasn't getting messier on it's own, at the worst possible timing of this entire episode, the police had sworn to get him imprisoned and he could swear that the officer and Mayra's doctor were secretly conspiring against him. He hadn't been approached for questioning, yet, but he knew he would be soon enough. His lawyer would give him more information about that.

His lawyer.

He really needed to speak to that man. The divorce papers had messed things up even further. The long list of things he needed to apologize to Mayra for only seemed to be getting longer and longer.

"He hurt my daughter! He hit her!"

Aamir winced as his father-in-law screamed that one sentence, again. And he knew his father would respond just as ferociously, which he did a split second later.

"Yes, he did. And he will pay for what he did. But what of you Rizwan? You think you are not to blame? I can't even tell you the number of times she called you, begged you to speak to her once! You never let her tell you the truth. You never cared enough to find out why she called you. I tried my best to keep my daughter happy, can you say the same? Can you?"

"Oh right, Farhan. That automatically absolves your entire family, doesn't it? If you tried your best, if your family tried their best, then why is she in such a state! My daughter is suicidal, dammit!"

"No," Aamir spoke for the first time since the shouting match began. "She's not."

Farhan glared at his son-in-law and Aamir could see that it was taking every ounce of patience he possessed to not punch Aamir in the face.

"Naturally you would want us to believe that, wouldn't you, you spineless animal! You think we will fall for it! My daughter will get justice! I will see to it that you be punished so severely that it becomes a lesson for everyone!"

Standing up, Aamir replied in a calm voice that made Rizwan want to punch him even more. "The only person with the right to punish me is Mayra. And when she gets well enough, I will readily accept whatever punishment she gives me. Until then it's important to remember that I'm not the only one who needs punishing."

"What on earth is that supposed to mean?" Said Maimoona, getting extremely angry at Aamir herself.

"You slapped her when she told you she didn't want to marry me, didn't you Ammi?" Aamir asked calmly as he watched the woman's face blanch, turning from fury to alarm and panic in a matter of moments.

"H.. how - ?"

"That's not all what you did. You pretended that Abba was having chest pain and would have a heart attack if Mayra did not agree to marry me. Did you not do that Ammi?"

She turned her face away as Aamir's accusations pierced her heart, all of them true.

"Abba," he said turning to his fuming father-in-law. "Remember our wedding, when you looked at her dressed as a bride and said - and I quote - "good riddance", and you really did mean it when you stuffed her hand in mine and walked away. Do you think that it didn't hurt Mayra a bit when her own father did that to her?"

"And you mom," said Aamir turning to his own mother. "I remember the countless times you would tell me not to hurt Mayra, but every time Aunty Zainab and Faiza would tell you about somethings that Mayra had supposedly done, did you not humiliate her in front of your friends and the servants?"

His mother looked infuriated, the way her son was accusing her in front of others outraged her. "Aamir, stop it!" She snapped angrily.

"Why should I, Mum? Everyone here seems to have forgotten that there were other people in Mayra's life apart from me. Do I deserve to be punished? Most definitely I do, but I will not allow everybody else to think that they too do not owe her a bloody big apology."

"There is no need for anybody to apologize," snapped Rizwan. "The time for that is gone! You wanted a divorce, you will get one! I'm taking my daughter back!"

"NO!" Yelled Aamir and Farhan in unison while the women looked horrified.

Aamir fisted his hands, and kept them pressed tightly to his side to prevent himself from punching something. Farhan spoke out against the outrageous declaration, "You no longer have the right to claim Mayra's future. She belongs in this house with us. We are her family too."

"And that has done much good to her!" Shouted Rizwan.

"Being with you wasn't all heavenly either, was it Rizwan! You tricked her into a marriage she didn't want!" Farhan yelled back.

"But we didn't punch and slap her all the time! You did!"

"And you.."

"ENOUGH!" Roared Aamir. The room plunged into silence as everybody glared at everybody else. Aamir sighed and sat back into his chair.

Only after everybody had resumed their seats, and tempers seemed to cool, Aamir spoke. "We never learn, do we? For two years, the lot of us has called the shots in Mayra's life. We thought we knew what was best for her, and we forced her - mentally, emotionally, and in my case with physical brutality - to accept that she was incapable of deciding for herself. We are all, in some way or the other, responsible for Mayra's belief that she would never be able to look after herself, never deserving of care and concern, of love, of happiness. In a small way or big, directly or indirectly, each one of us is responsible."

Aamir let his words sunk into their minds, knowing that all of them cared enough about Mayra to accept the unfortunate truth. And they did. Each person in the room looked and felt guilty. Having made his point, Aamir pressed further, "Amazingly today we have a chance, a God-given second chance, to soothe some of those hurts, right some of those injustices. All we have to do is accept that we were wrong, all of us, and bury our differences, so that we may shower Mayra with so much lovethat she gets strong enough to decide for herself what she wants. And she will know that whatever she decides, her family, and those who truly love her, will stand by her no matter what she chooses. As for me," concluded Aamir getting from his seat, "even if she chooses never to see my face again, I will make sure she knows that I will love her forever."

Aamir walked out leaving his stunned elders behind. He knew it had to be said, and he was glad that he had said it.

Unless Mayra herself would ask him to let her go, he would never leave her. She was his, for all eternity, just as he was hers, and that she only had to know. And he would spend his entire life convincing her of that unchangeable truth.

As he drove back to the hospital, he found the same barrage of questions bombarding his mind yet again. Did Mayra really wish to die? Was she suicidal? What on earth had happened that night when she wrote those words in her blood? Did Mayra want to end their marriage now? Would she leave him, now that she had enough support to do it? Did she even love him anymore?

And the only one who could give him the answers to all his questions had been crying so hysterically that the doctors had to sedate her to get her to calm down. And considering how long she was going to be out cold, the elders had decided that a 'talk' was in order, which essentially turned out to be a blame-game and a shouting match.

Utterly useless.

It was high time that they all realized that they needed to shut up so that Mayra could talk, Aamir thought angrily as get parked his car at the hospital parking lot. He leaned forward, his head on the steering wheel as he contemplated how hard it was going to be to get Mayra to talk. How was he going to do it?

Pulling himself together, he walked to Mayra's room. Khalid and Zara were sitting next to Mayra's bed looking at him expectantly, while Mayra was peacefully asleep.

"What did they say, Bhai?" Whispered Zara, lest they wake Mayra.

"Nothing of consequence," replied Aamir evasively. "Was everything okay here?"

They both nodded. Zara looked at Khalid, who looked nervous as he said, "I spoke to the lawyer."

Aamir stared at his brother, waiting for him to continue.

"He said that you had asked him to prepare divorce papers two days before your accident. Bhai, is that true?"

Aamir looked at Mayra, at the gentle way in which breathed, at her pale face, at her bruised cheek. Keeping his eyes fixed on the face he loved he answered, "yes."

Zara shot up from her seat and in a burst of anger she asked, "why?"

"Sshh!" Khalid silenced her, "you'll wake Bhabhi up!"

"Why?" Zara repeated, quietly.

The other way he was ever going to be at peace with himself was when he would accept the true extent of his folly, thought Aamir as he looked at his siblings and thought that the time for truth had come.

"Because I had thought that she was going to elope with Jaffar."

*****