Naila buried her under on her pillow, struggling to wake up. She could hear the ringtone still. The screen lit up with three missed calls from her mother and a string of unread messages she did not have the energy to open. Her chest already felt heavy before the day had even begun.
Naila rubbed her eyes and glanced around the silent apartment. Danish had already left for work. The silence should have felt peaceful, but somehow, with Danish, even silence carried tension. Like his presence still lingered in the walls after he left.
Naila slowly got out of bed and walked toward the kitchen. A coffee mug sat on the counter beside crumbs and yesterday's unwashed utensils piled up in the sink. He never cjamged. He never cleaned. Never noticed. And if he did notice, he acted as though it was naturally her responsibility whether she had a job or quit it.
She recalled the state of the kitchen every time she returned back from her night shifts. It never changed.
Her jaw tightened.
Previous conversations replayed in her head far too clearly.
"I'm making the money and taking care of all the bills, and you still want me to help you with chores? Why can you not do your part? What do you do sitting at home anyway all day? It's been a year since you quit the job, what did you do since then? Did you prepare for anything? No right? Then don't expect me to dot on you." Danish had always said this straight on her face.
Not shouted. Not angry. Somehow that made it worse. Casual cruelty had become his specialty.
Naila had stood there quietly, fingers curled tightly around the plate she was holding, swallowing words she wished she had said months ago.
Now, standing alone in the kitchen, she realized something that frightened her almost as much as it relieved her.
She was done.
Not angry. Not emotional. Just done. Done with him, done with this married life. The feeling settled inside her with an unfamiliar calm.
The water kept running as tears slipped silently down her face. Naila scrubbed the same plates in a hurry but her mind drowning somewhere far away from the kitchen.
Just twenty-four.
The number echoed bitterly in her head.
At twenty-four, other people seem to be building careers, travelling with friends, falling in love, discovering themselves. And here she is, standing barefoot in a kitchen, done with herself.
A shaky breath escaped her lips. She remembered herself at twenty-one. Fresh out of college, full of nervous excitement, secretly wanting to work for a few years before marriage. She had dreams once. Small dreams, perhaps, but they were hers.
Her parents had convinced her otherwise.
"Danish is educated." "He earns well." "You'll learn to love him." "Girls settle after marriage."
Settle. It still echoed in her head.
What a cruel word.
But she blamed herself. She fell in love with him. She fell for all their conversations. She believed he loved her too, despite their tiny fights before the engagement and marriage.
No one had warned her that settling sometimes meant disappearing piece by piece until you no longer recognized yourself.
Naila turned off the tap and gripped the edge of the sink tightly. Her eyes burned. The house felt suffocating.
Three years.
Three entire years spent adjusting, apologizing, shrinking herself, measuring her words carefully, surviving his moods, waiting for kindness that never lasted long enough.
And the worst part?
She had started believing him.
Believing she was useless. Too sensitive. Angry. Not good enough. Impossible to love properly.
A soft sob escaped her before she could stop it.
"No," she whispered to herself weakly, shaking her head. Because somewhere beneath all the exhaustion, beneath all the humiliation, a tiny part of her still remembered the girl she used to be. The girl who laughed loudly. The girl who wrote poems in college notebooks. The girl who wanted more from life than this silent misery.
For the first time in months, Naila allowed herself to think a dangerous thought.
Maybe this did not have to be her entire life.
Naila walked back to their bedroom. She stared at the bed, the invisible partition in the bed, she then walked towards the closet. She started taking out all of her clothes. She laud then categorised on her bed.
"I'm not going to spend another minute together with you," she declared. She carried the clothes to the guest bedroom. She opened the closet there, and took out all the bedspreads and items and carried them back to the bedroom.
The time ran fast and her stomach started gorwling again. That's when she checked the time. She forgot to prepare lunch. It was already four in the evening. Niala picked up her phone to order some food. She checked her bank balance. She did not wish to spend a lot as she was trying to save up all the money she ever made. She did not wish to break her fixed deposits either. She also checked her stocks she invested in. It looked like there is a marginal profit. She felt happy. "As long as it does not turn red," she smiled. Naila opened the food delivery app. She checked the restaurants one by one, looking for a good coupon. She craved fast food but since her gynecologist asked her to avoid fastfood completely, she hasn't touched them for the past year. "Today is a cheat day," she told herself. She looked for pizza. "And I miss pizza," she found her favorite place and ordered a medium sized pizza. She finished arranging her clothes and shifting all her stuff to the guest room. "Let me make a drink," she walked to the kitchen. She could sense feeling lightly dizzy. She had forgotten to take her pills too in between the shifting.
Naila started making cantaloupe milkshake. She walked to the living room and settled on the sofa. She switched the television on, opened Netflix and started watching a series. Half an hour later, her pizza arrived.
"Thank you," she said to the delivery boy and closed the door.
"You ordered pizza?" Her phone beeped with messages from Danish. "Don't you know you're not supposed to have any fast food?"
"Don't you have work?" She asked back ignoring the rest.
"I will come home early. We have to discuss something," Danish sounded serious.
"Fine," Naila replied. There was an unusual calmness after hearing it.
"What's for dinner?" He asked.
"What do you want?" She asked back.
"Anything," he replied. She sighed. She turned the television off. She ate the pizza scrolling her phone and vacuumed the whole house.
She opened the refrigerator and took out the marinated chicken. She began to prepare the bread that goes with grilled chicken. She quickly prepared the salad for chicken and waited for the chicken to reach the room temperature.
Danish did not reach until 7 p.m.
She set the table while the chicken was being prepared in the air fryer. She could sense what was about to come. But she chose to stay calm.
Exactly at 7.30 pm Danished knocked the door. Naila opened them. "Smells good," he said. "Is it grilled chicken? I'm starving," he smiled and walked to the kitchen.
"Yes it is," she replied following him.
"Let me take a shower. Took me one hour to drive home from work. Terrible traffic," he spoke casually and walked into the washroom with his towel.
Naila patiently waited for him at the dining. She grew slightly tensed, unable to bring herself to tell him she is no longer going to share the bed with him. She was afraid of starting a fight from her side.
"Let's dig in," Danish returned quickly. He settled down opposite Naila and waited for the food to be served. Naila smirked and placed the chicken and grilled veggies on his plate. She then handed him the salad and mayonnaise.
"What's the point of giving me the bottle, serve it on the plate," he said when she handed him the mayonnaise. She took the spoon and put a big chunk on his plate.
"Perfect," he said ans started having the chicken with the roti. "Why did you order pizza today?" He reopened the conversation.
"Because I wanted to," she replied.
"Did we not agree to not eat anything fastfood?" He tried to remind her.
"Once a while is fine," she said.
"What is the point? You resigned to take care of your health, and now you are going back again," he stopped eating.
"We will talk about this later," she looked at Danish.
"No we have to address the elephant in the room," he said.
"Now what?" She looked at his serious face.
He sighed. He moved his plate after finishing half his chicken, and sipped water. He took a deep breath then. "Let's not argue but listen to me carefully," he warned her.
She nodded. "Okay!"
"Naila," Naila's heart pounded really fast.