Chaos in the Canvas √

23 | insistence

"Don't call me that." In return to her outburst, Ibrahim replied with four simple words uttered calmly, looking at her with set jaw and Hemayal visibly sagged under his eyes before clenching her teeth and narrowing him up with her eyes.

"I'll call you whatever I want to." Hemayal replied, straightening her shoulders once again and looking at him squarely in the eye.

"Hemayal," Ibrahim began, uttering her name with such softness that a part of her heart melted but an even larger hated him this very moment so she chose not to focus on the former one for now. "We need to talk, please."

"No." Hemayal replied without so much as a second thought, setting her jaw in a hard line as she glared at him.

The crowd in the parking lot has visibly thinned by now, only the two of them standing by her car as the restaurant lights far away threw faint luminosity in their direction. If they weren't standing so close, Hemayal would have missed the way his eyes closed momentarily, as if asking heavens for patience before a sigh escaped past his lips and he looked at her directly in the eye.

"We will never be able to solve this if we don't talk." Ibrahim replied, reasoning with her now but what he didn't know was the fact that Hemayal left all her sane judgments behind her when Dadu dropped dead.

"Does it ever occur to you that I don't want to solve it?" Hemayal said, voice rising, eyes widening. "Does it ever occur to you Mr. Yazdani that maybe I don't want to see your face ever again, that I don't want you anywhere near me? Why do you keep showing up in front of me? I think I was pretty clear the last time we talked that I don't want anything to do with you. Which part of it didn't you understand?"

Hemayal took a deep breath after she had finished, cursing herself once again for not holding the thread of calmness but she was far too annoyed and hurt right now to care. When she wanted this man to be in her life, he was nowhere to be seen and now that she wanted him gone, he was always showing up one way or another.

What sick game was life playing with her?

"Why don't you want to solve it? Don't you want an end to this...whatever situation we have?" Ibrahim asked, confusion and tiredness in his voice now and Hemayal sighed.

"What I really want is for you to stay as much away from me as one humanly can. Is that possible?" Hemayal replied, eyebrows furrowing as the contagious tiredness in his voice now seemed to pass onto her.

"No." Ibrahim shook his head and Hemayal couldn't resist the slight roll of her eyes as she took a step back in annoyance.

"Well, restraining order isn't that hard to get." Hemayal replied with a straight face and saw as a muscle in his face twitched in amusement.

"You'll take a restraining order against me?" If anything, he seemed amused for some unknown reason that only fueled her anger.

"If I have to, yes. I won't hesitate for even a second." Hemayal replied, voice stern at his behavior and that obnoxious smirk that lifted one corner of his lips.

"Really?" He still sounded genuinely amused and Hemayal threw a dirty glare in his direction before taking a step forward, watching with sheer delight as the smile vanished from his face when she stopped mere inches away from him, so close that he could practically witness the loathe swirling in her eyes.

"Really." Hemayal hissed with clenched teeth and placed her hand on the door handle again, attempting for the second time to remove herself immediately from the situation but this time, too, he was quick; his eyes, however, still trained on her.

"It never occurred to me." Ibrahim sighed before taking a step back, putting the woman at a decent distance who seemed to be throwing daggers at her, if the fire in her eyes made any statement.