Humsafar .

twenty three

Chapter 23.

Sorry just isn't good enough. 

"Life happens, disappointments happen, people screw you over, you screw people over. You love yourself, you hate yourself. It's a constant battle but it's life. If you don't fight for it, are you really worth living?" - Me

Hassan x Anaaya.

It wasn't untill the dawn of the day that Hassan and Anaaya boarded their aircraft. It had been a long day, with Hassan worrying about his little sister and calling his assistant every five minutes, yelling at him to book him a flight.

Anaaya hadn't seen him so frustrated before, the frown lines on his forehead were constant, not even an inch of relaxation on his face and rightly so, his sister had gone missing.

Hiba, his sister kept telling his family that Rania hadn't been missing, she had escaped. Half of her stuff was gone, what possible explanation was there for that?

His family had refused to accept that Rania would do something so absurd, even Hassan had completely denied it, telling Hiba to shut her damn mouth.

Anaaya felt guilty.

Her conscious reminding her that she knew who Rania had ran away with, a little bit more than the others.

Hassan sat beside the window seat, his eyes focusing on absolutely nothing as he recited a few verses of the Holy Quran, praying for his sister.

Anaaya made a quick prayer too, her hand enfolded around Hassan's. He looked at her.

"I don't understand how can she just, go missing." He said quietly.

"What did Aunty say?" Anaaya asked him, he turned to look at her.

"I don't know, mama said that she went out with her friends and then never came back." He inhaled a deep sigh after that.

She could see the stress on his face, feel the tension oozing out of him.

"Hey, she's gonna be okay, don't worry." She whispered, holding his arm and trying to comfort him with the only way she knew how.

"How can I not, Anaaya? She's my youngest sister, I've not loved any sibling as much as I love her. If something happens to her I-" He stopped, not even completing his sentence.

She realised how family oriented he was and how much he cared but at the same time, she felt rather scared. What if Hassan didn't understand her? She wanted to tell him about that day, but she didn't know how he would react.

"Nothing will happen to her, okay? You have to stay calm," She said instead. Hassan sighed.

"I don't even understand how, she always goes out with her friends and always comes back on time."

He replied.

"Did they call the boys and girls of her circle? I mean they must know something." Anaaya started off, genuinely concerned about Rania at this point.

What if Hassan and his family was right, what if she hadn't ran away? But Hiba clearly said that Rania's clothes and wallet and her golden hoop earrings were all missing.

He looked at his wife with a confused stare.

"Boys? She studies in an all girls school, there are no boys. And the girls said that she left for home even before them."

The delusion of people, thinking that a girl couldn't talk to other boys if she studied in an all girls school.

Anaaya wanted to play around with the topic, just so she could tell him everything with an open mind.

"Hassan, she's a seventeen year old girl, she must know some boys too." She responded and continued.

"I mean maybe she had someone in her life, a boyfriend or something, like I mean I-" Hassan looked at her with raised eyes, frowning at her words.

"If you know something Anaaya, spill it out." He told her.

He was a lawyer, he knew when people knew things and when they didn't. And Anaaya's nervousness clearly showed she knew something important.

"Just promise me that you won't react, okay?" She tried to say but he wasn't having it.

"Anaaya, Just f*****g tell me." His voice was calm but it also screamed anger.

She inhaled a deep breath.

"Okay, so remember when you went back to London and aunty told me to pick Rania on my way back from the airport?" She questioned, he nodded remembering that day clearly.

"Yes. What about it?"

"Rania insisted that we eat something because she was hungry. We went to this place and I ordered my stuff,"

"Get to the point." He said exasperated, she rolled her eyes.

"She ordered her meal and excused to go for the bathroom. When she didn't return I went to look for her and I saw her with a man, they were kind of intimate-I-" His eyes widened and a wave of surprise took over him.

"How intimate?" He asked, Anaaya gulped.

"They were kissing, Hassan." His knuckles turned white. Even imagining his seventeen year old baby sister, kissing a man was disgusting to him.

And his own wife hid that from him? He didn't even know how to feel about that.

"And you didn't think of telling this to me until now?" He enquired, the fury in his voice was easy to spot.

"I didn't think it was important, I mean-" She got interrupted by him again, the flight attendant came by, serving them their drinks.

Hassan didn't take anything, Anaaya got hold of an orange juice, she gulped it down her parched throat.

"I mean, at that time it didn't seem important to me." She completed. He looked at her in rage.

"What Anaaya?! You spot my fuckin sister with a man and you dont even mention it to me? Are you dumb?" His  voice was much high pitched than what she was used to, even the flight attendant looked at them with

"Hassan calm down," She whispered telling him to not make a scene. Hassan scoffed.

"Calm down? My sister is missing and this might be the reason why and you-" She interrupted him before he could finish his sentence.

"She begged me not to tell you, I was new and had no idea what to do. We weren't this comfortable with each other and I didn't want to sabotage any new relationships." She explained, it wasn't the fact that he didn't understand her point of view, he did.

But he also wanted her to to not lie to him, to not hide things especially things as important as this one.

She had a choice to make and she made the wrong choice.

Hassan was also angry at the fact that his sister had been seeing someone under his family's nose and nobody seemed to know anything.

Their family always had strict rules. If you liked someone, you had to tell your family, not have a secret affair instead and embarrass them.

Hassan wasn't against his sisters dating but he knew that hiding an affair always meant either your relationship was just a casual fling or the person wasn't good enough to meet the family.

And seventeen was too young. Why was she having an affair at seventeen?

"It was her personal matter anyway, you have no right to be mad at me." Anaaya remarked after a while.

Hassan rubbed his hands on his face and then glanced at her.

"I'm not mad at you, I'm just shocked at her audacity of having an affair and disappointed at you for hiding it from me." He responded. Anaaya gulped.

"I'm sorry. I really am," She apologised.

He shook his head at her.

"Sorry just isn't good enough sometimes, Anaaya."

"Hassan-"

She wanted to say something but he had already turned his back on her.