Dont hurt yourself like this...
Chapter 22
“ The acquisition plan is reasonable Tim, you need to let me finish my job.”
“ Eric my boy, I’m trying to save you from harming yourself. Clearly, you’ve gone completely insane after hearing your father take your name of his will.”
“ I don’t need him…”
“ Then why are you still taking his orders against Arylan?”
“leave…”
“Eric…”
“ I said leave!”
He tossed everything off his counter pulling a few strands of hair out… “ I'll show him, I'll show all of them!”
***
“ so you're going to keep your western name like Eric?”
“ I do have an Islamic name, just at my age it won’t be easy trying to get people to switch…”
“I get it, by the way…I heard you left your new practice.”
“It was getting boring.”
“you just started yet your so picky, my goodness.”
“ it’s not like that, I got a better offer.”
“in that case congrats.”
Arylan was bubbly in front of everyone, laughed and smiled, as usual, did her job as expected, but when no one was around her, she was her sad broken self. Not only was she grieving for her grandmother but also for her father whom she had lost without memory…she also had to accept the shocking discovery of having a sister and the hurtful truth of her mother being in her life with no fuss No rejection or complication.
She hardly remembers having her there before, so it feels like the first time to her…with all of that at the back of her mind, she just felt more and more alone…she felt like a nobody in a crowd, like a lost sheep amongst several heards.
“ I know you lost your grandmother, and your shook at your mother and siblings' arrival, not to mention the whole murder thing... So you trying to cover all that hurt and confusion isn't going to work when you're around me, ”Aiden said turning away.
“Your right about the first part... And if you think my excitement for our marriage is fake, your wrong, I've always been crushing over you since high school, I just hid it well, I thought about your small gestures, the huge dimples in your checks, and that absurd look you have when your hurting. I always thought that my roommate got you, so I gave up, I gave up knowing that even if I couldn’t make you mine…I most certainly will forever have you beside me even if it’s just as a brother.”
He smiled handing her a box, “ I wish I could be just as sure as you about letting go. You know, to be honest, you dont have to hide how you really feel or at least around me, in the end, you helped me grieve peacefully when my grandmother passed.”
“ don’t count my acts of kindness and gestures as favors you have to return…grandmother always said that if you want someone to always stay beside you, be yourself but always show them the best of you.”
It’s funny how Arylan only remembered grandmothers wise sayings after her passing, for someone as old and experienced as grandmother Biel was…it would’ve been amazing to watch.
***
“Why did you want to see me?” Arlyan said sitting down
“ Are you still mad at me?”
“of course I am, especially since you’re so stubborn about apologizing…get to the point why’d you call me here.”
He took out the pamphlet handing it over to her, “ I’m sorry…but I had to.”
Arylan gently unwraps the document skimming through the bold writing, “ you know I know nothing about business, get to the point.”
“Tell your mother that generations will be acquired by us soon, a take over to be exact.”
“I still don’t understand…”
“ she’s no longer the owner of your father's company generations,” he said standing up, “let's do this the easy way please…”
“ wait, ” she said grabbing him by the arm, “ how could you choose him over me after all I’ve done for you.”
“This has nothing to do with that.”
“ it has everything to do with it! Your backstabbing someone who’d give the world up just to see you smile over someone who doesn’t care if you're dead or alive…how could you!”
“Business is business…please don’t mix personal issues with work-related issues.
She watched him leave the restaurant, with his hands in his pocket…he had slowly become a monster, an Abdullah.
***
“ Are you happy?” Tim asked
“ Why are you still here?”
“was it really worth it, there was a point where you wouldn't even let a grain of sand harm her. And now…”
“Now what, I just want peace okay.”
“If this is how you plan on revenging against grandmother for choosing Aiden over you, it's sickening.”
“How, no one can love Arylan like me.”
“ you need to let her go, at least in this generation the good guy won. If you call this love then you're sick…it’s an obsession. And why the change of mind, didn’t you always openly show no interest in her, this is your doing, ” Tim said walking towards the door, “ don’t underestimate that Aiden boy, I heard he's never lost a case…this is also the last time you’ll be seeing me, so dear boy, take care. And remember I am just like a father to you, a version that loves you a lot more than the man you're trying to please.”
Tim walked out of the office with his luggage carried out by the men who guarded Eric's door.
***
Abdullah sat there in the interrogation room, the lights flicking on and off as the cop circled around him with his whip at hand.
“ you know nothing about this man..”
“ I never met him before, ” he said blankly starting at Haxels picture and then at the cop.
“how about these two?” the pictures appearing in front of him. The same response was given and after the questioning, he was set free, kept in a cell for almost 3days he was finally back into society…now with new blood in his hands, the blood of Biel…grandmother Biel. Still unaware of Yasmin's return he immediately went into hiding, thinking of a way to clear his name.
***
“ I told you I'll fight your case for you,” Aiden said standing up
“you don’t understand, why would I want to fight with my best friend, my brother…the only one I’ve always had beside me. I understand that the company is my father's legacy and that my mother worked hard to win it back…but I’m so broken.”
“broken by?”
“ I wished for as long as I lived to repair his relationship with his father…”
“Dont tell me you..”
“im not, but if it comes to such a point. I won’t hesitate.”
Arylans mother Yasmin standing behind the door eavesdropping on the conversation Aiden and Arylan we’re having.
“ There won’t be such a point, I know we'll win inshallah (God willing).”
She laid her head onto his shoulder staring into the sky…if only you could speak to the dead..maybe if her father were here, none of this would have happened, or if grandmother were here she'd cook a meal to solve their problems.