Not Your Love - Short Story

She feared being late so much that she would rather never show up than be a minute late to any event. It would be an utter shame to walk into that party when the guests had already arrived, everyone was indulged in conversation, the music so loud that people talked over each other without being noticed and the food had already landed in the plates of those too hungry to resist. But she could never explain it to her husband. He barely needed five minutes to get ready but his rule book dictated that he wouldn’t leave the house until it was officially late. 

“Did you see my shirt?”, Sarim asked, finally getting up from the sofa and throwing away the cushion he had been holding to his chest while watching the soccer game on the television.

“It’s right there”, She responded, hoping he would find it immediately when he entered their bedroom. She was never expected to iron his clothes and hang them neatly in his wardrobe but she did it of her own accord. If she didn’t, he would be a mess. She smiled at the thought of him ironing his own shirt, trying to smooth the creases, and struggling to get the task done within an hour. 

“Oh you ironed it already”, He said, matter-of-factly. She set down her cup of tea and walked into the bedroom after him, “Please get dressed, we’re already getting late”

“It’s no big deal, no one cares”, He shrugged.

He was probably right. She meticulously planned her day around the party just so they could get there on time. She had cooked lunch earlier than usual, shopped for groceries right after work, and even ironed their clothes while Sarim watched the match. She had done all that but why? Did it matter if they were late? Not to Sarim. Not to anyone at the party. It wasn’t a party for her. It was an office party hosted by Sarim's boss to celebrate the inauguration of their new office. No one was waiting for her. Most of his colleagues didn’t even know her. All she had to do was show up, not exactly on time, look pretty, and smile constantly.

She glanced at her reflection in the mirror while Sarim was still in the restroom. She did not hate what she saw but it terrified her. Her hair pulled back in a bun, her contoured cheekbones, her rosy cheeks - the face that stared back at her was her own but not the one she was accustomed to. She hated putting makeup on her face before marriage and it had never occurred to her that she was fooling herself by doing so. 

April 24, 2002. The day she met Sarim for the first time in a meeting fixed by their parents.

“Are you sick?”, He asked.

“Yeah, the fever”, She lied.

“Oh, that explains the pale skin”, He had nodded to himself.

April 24, 2002. The day she looked up foundations online. Not only did she realize that she knew nothing about makeup but also that she knew nothing about herself. She had looked pale all these years and no one even bothered to tell her about it. 

She reapplied her ruby red lipstick hoping it would make her complexion appear brighter even though it often had the opposite effect. 

“You look lovely”, Sarim reentered the room and beamed at her.

“Thank you”, She smiled, unsure if he was mocking her or he meant what he said. She had a tendency to judge him and his intentions too harshly even though there was no reason to do so. If anything, he was the most sincere and honest man she had ever met, he told her exactly how she looked, never complimented her unless she deserved to be praised, and was not afraid to voice his opinions about her appearance and mannerisms. 

“Let’s head out, shall we?”, He asked as he grabbed his car keys and headed towards the door. 

She turned off the lights in the bedroom, the lounge, and the kitchen before leaving. She peeked inside the bathroom to confirm that Sarim had not accidentally left the shower on. It had only happened once but their house had been flooded as a consequence. 

“There’s a letter for you, I think”, Sarim handed her an envelope when she entered the car. He must have found it in their mailbox while looking for his own mail.

“Oh”, She slowly reached for it, hoping it wasn’t what she thought it was. She never received any letters because no one wrote letters these days. Her parents would call her if they wanted to speak to her and her friends texted her if she was needed. Even her workplace did not believe in mailing important documents to the employees’ home addresses, they simply handed them the documents in the office or emailed them.

“Any idea who it’s from?’, Sarim asked, without looking at her.

“How could I?”, She shoved the envelope in her purse and looked out the window. To enjoy the view. To avoid his gaze.

The letter had no return address but somehow, she knew exactly who it was from.

“Don’t you want to read it?”

“Not right now”, She shook her head, still fixated on the view outside the window. The drive to the party was only fifteen minutes long and she wondered how time stretched when one was waiting. It was as if the car ride wasn’t just measured in minutes anymore, it was a compilation of thousands of milliseconds, each millisecond longer than the last and each breath she took heavier in her chest. 

“Are we fighting or something?”, Sarim asked after five minutes of dead silence in the car.

“No”, She responded. 

It never failed to amaze her how good Sarim was at confrontation. He did not beat around the bush, he wasn’t afraid to ask her what he wanted and he wasn’t scared to get an answer he did not expect. It was plausible that they had been fighting and he was completely oblivious to the fact. They had argued several times in the past five years and Sarim had often forgotten about it way before she even stopped sobbing in the kitchen. She wished she were more like him.

“Why aren’t you saying anything? Do you not want to go to the party?”, He asked, without any harshness in his tone. She loved that about him. He was never mean to her. She had learned that after living with him for five years.

“I do, I am just mentally preparing myself for all the social interaction there”

It wasn’t a lie. The thought of greeting a hundred people with a smile plastered on her face was overwhelming for her. 

“I always forget you are such an introvert”, He laughed.

She was an introvert but this had nothing to do with it. Introverts did not hate parties, if anything, they were often the life of a party they willingly attended. She was socially anxious. She hadn’t been that since she was a child. Her anxiety peaked after marriage due to faults of her own. She misinterpreted Sarim’s words and gestures so often that it led her to fear him. If he ever raised his voice, she assumed he would slap her next even though he would never do that. He was a true gentleman. If he laughed about her inability to start a conversation at a party, she found herself feeling insecure. There was no need to do so. Sarim had a sense of humor that everyone loved. She was the only one who still hadn’t learned to appreciate it fully.

It was 10.26 by the time they arrived at the party. 26 minutes late. Enough for her to want to run back home. 

“Look who’s finally here”, A girl in a red satin blouse and white culottes walked towards them. Zahraa remembered her from the pictures Sarim had shown her of their office beach trip. While her petite figure and immaculate features were apparent in the picture, it had not done justice to her magnificent aura. Her smile reached her ears and she leaned into Sarim for a hug. Zahraa wished she could feel a tinge of jealousy but even the way Sarim’s face fit up at her sight did not bother Zahraa. She was not a secure woman, she was unaffected. 

“This is my wife, Zahraa”, Sarim placed his arm around her shoulder, pulling her closer.

“It’s so nice to meet you, I am Elena”, The girl said, extending her arm for a handshake. 

“I think you know Elena, right? I might have mentioned her a few times..”, Sarim looked at Zahraa.

She nodded, unsure whether to remind him that he never told her anything about her colleagues or to admit she knew Elena only from a picture.

“I would hope so considering that I am technically his work wife”, Elena laughed, staring into Zahraa’s eyes with confidence that did not fail to enamor her.

“In case I haven’t told you, Elena is known for her sense of humor”, Sarim shook his head.

“And for being Sarim’s right hand at work”, She winked.

“No way, all you do is make coffee and critique my work”, He argued.

“That’s exactly why you get your job done well”, She said.

Their banter continued and even though Zahraa was standing close enough to Sarim to hear his heartbeat, she watched the scene unfold from a distance. She imagined herself to be a spectator, not Sarim’s wife, not a woman whose husband had never told her that he never drank coffee at home in the morning because a cup was waiting for him in the office. The casual conversation between them reminded her of the ease of a bond between two people who spend half their day together. A bond that did not need to be maintained but by virtue was preserved. It reminded her of the bond she shared with Zain. A bond so unbreakable that it resided in her purse even now.

“Excuse me, I need to use the restroom”, She intruded while her husband and the girl in red were busy laughing at an inside joke she couldn’t understand.

“It’s that way”, Elena pointed towards her right. 

When she entered the restroom, she was relieved to find it empty. It wasn’t often that the ladies' restrooms were unoccupied. If nothing, there were always a couple of women reapplying their makeup by the mirror.

She reached inside her purse and found the envelope, slightly folded but still the same, She brought it to her nose hoping that it would smell of his Patchouli perfume but it didn’t. It smelled of paper that had been touched by so many bare hands that it had lost all the scent of its owner. It had not taken her long to recognize that the letter was from Zain. 

“We will stay in touch, right?”, He had asked her on the last day of college.

“No”, She had responded.

“Why?”, His face bore an expression of confusion and shock that almost made her laugh.

“Because this is it” ", She said in a tone of finality that silenced him. They didn’t look at each other again and she started walking away.

“I will write you a letter someday”, He called.

“Why?”, She asked, without turning around. She wasn’t going to look back. Not when it had taken every ounce of her strength to be able to walk away.

“To tell you if it works out”, He answered.

She took a deep breath and convinced herself to read the letter before someone entered the restroom.

Zahraa,

I have never written a letter before. Except for middle school when I was forced to do so. But I have never written a letter that was going to be sent across continents and received by someone I valued. I don’t even know why I promised to write a letter that day. I knew you didn’t want to stay in touch and I respected that. I respected your choice to end our friendship. 

I am married now. To Marya. Exactly how you predicted it. When you first mentioned it, I thought you were just teasing me about my crush on her but something about the way you said it made me realize that I did want to marry her. I didn’t just want Marya to be the first girl I liked in college and tell my kids stories about her. I wanted her to be the one who raised my kids with me. I didn’t want to go to a restaurant with her every Friday night but I wanted to bring her home - a home I had built for her. You know me. I am not the ambitious kind but when it came to Marya, I was. Even though she barely ever spoke to me in college, I did not give up. After you left for Islamabad, I thought to myself, “Would Zahraa want me to give up on the love of my life?” and the answer was simple. No. I reached out to her again to seek her help getting an internship at the engineering firm where she worked. I didn’t want an internship. I didn’t get one either. But we started talking and she started growing fond of me. You are probably laughing right now. How could she grow fond of me? I wish I knew. I often ask her what made her fall in love with me and she always says that she would never tell me that because if she did, the love might diminish. She is weird, isn’t she? Exactly the kind of weird I needed in my life. 

Our little girl, Ayla, who is almost three now (they grow up so fast!) is an exact replica of her mother. I will take the credit for that. When we were pregnant, I prayed to God to bless me with a daughter who was exactly like her mother - the same heart, the same mind. Zahraa, if you hadn’t moved to the US, I would come over to your house with my wife and daughter even if you didn’t invite me first. I know you would love them. Ayla is the smartest kid in her class. I may be biased but she does take after her over-achiever mother. Do you remember how we used to envy Marya for always getting the highest GPA in the first two years until we decided we didn’t care? I always thought I liked her because she was smart. Maybe I did. But I couldn’t love her just because she is smart, I love her because it’s her. Her lopsided smile. Her perfectly wavy hair that she always ties up in a bun just because she thinks they look messy. Her love for baking half-burnt cookies that I could eat for the rest of my life. Her sudoku puzzles that only she can solve. Her extra sweet cup of coffee that I cannot tolerate a sip of. The way she rolls her eyes at me when I compliment her. The way she goes silent when she is mad at me. Everything from her beautiful smile to her little quirks, I love all of it. I won’t lie to you. I always thought that I would love her less as the years passed. I would learn more about her, find things that annoy me about her, and start to get irritated by her sometimes but I never did. Every time we argue, we make up within the same day. And then, I look at her and realize how lucky I am to have her and how I would do anything to keep her. So I apologize. Again. I would rather be the one at fault than the one who lost the love of his life. 

You might be wondering why. Why am I writing this letter right now? Why am I telling you all about my life or mostly, just about my wife? I will tell you. Ayla had been sick for a week and I have been swamped with work as I had several deadlines to meet. Marya had work too but she knew that I was overwhelmed. The way she took care of the house for the week even on days I forgot to do the chores or cook, the way she tended to Ayla when I fell asleep on the couch working and the way she managed it all made me realize something. Marya isn’t just a woman I love, she is the woman I always needed in my life. Someone who would be there for me when I needed her the most. That reminded me of what you said in college. To quote, “Zain, love isn’t enough, there’s so much more to a relationship”. I think you were right. You always were, weren’t you? You would always say these deep things and I would never understand them but now I look back and it all makes sense. I had to write this letter and tell you how right you were.

Write back to me, please. I know you probably don’t want to. But maybe you do. I still don’t know why you didn’t want to stay in touch. I miss you a lot. I miss our friendship a lot. Tell me about yourself. The woman you have become. Tell me about your handsome husband who flew you away to another continent. Tell me everything. Tell me if we can meet someday. Ayla wants to go to Disneyland, we could meet there. Most importantly, take care of yourself. I hope you’re not as strict with your husband as you were with me and I hope he loves you more than anyone else in the world.

Your friend,

Zain.

The last line was blurry. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and reread it. She read the letter thrice. She read it until she was sobbing profusely and her head started hurting. She wanted to be happy for him, to remind herself that he deserved the life he had but she couldn’t. She couldn’t separate her best friend from the guy she had madly fallen in love with over the four years of college. The guy whose voice she had read the letter in. She remembered his voice vividly. The one she heard every single day for four years. Even when he didn’t show up to class, she would call him up and scold him for missing an important lecture. He argued that the lectures were a waste of time. He was often right. Yet she resisted. She just wanted him to sit beside her in class every day, copy her notes, and make stupid jokes that would get them in trouble. She still missed his jokes. She missed him. She was happy for him. He truly loved Marya.  Not more than she loved him but that wasn’t possible. No one could love a person more than Zahraa loved Zain. Her love was transcendental and brave. It didn’t fear losing and it didn’t selfishly desire to be loved in return. It existed even after all these years. It existed even when it shouldn’t.

She was snapped back to reality at the sound of her phone ringing. It was Sarim. Her husband. The man she was supposed to love. She wiped her tears, looked at her reflection in the mirror, reapplied her concealer, and practiced smiling. 

“Where were you? I want to introduce you to some of my colleagues”, Sarim asked, when she walked out of the restroom. Elena had left the scene and Sarim was busy on his phone.

“Sorry, was refreshing my makeup”, She replied with the smile she had just practiced in the mirror.

“It looks good. You look great with makeup on. You should put it on more often”, He smiled and grabbed her by the waist, “Come on, meet your husband’s friends now”