What We Said Before The Silence.

It happened.

We confessed.

He told me he felt the same and then he said more. He admitted he had felt this way for a long time. I was completely taken by surprise. He was aware that he shouldn't be feeling this way. He took my husband as his own brother. He tried his best to remain loyal to him.

But Rafiq couldn't hold in what he had been feeling for me. He started liking me a year prior, but never gave me even a hint about it.

Until I went to Pakistan and fell for him myself.. and asked him myself.. and that's when he admitted to it.

The moment he told me about his feelings, I was overwhelmed with relief that he felt the same… but then reality hit me hard. I remembered that I was a married woman having an emotional and completely inappropriate conversation with another man.

Not just any man.

My husband's cousin.

I had been trying so hard to get closer to Islam, closer to Allah and then this happened.

The one thing a Muslim woman, a wife, should never do.

What's even worse is that my husband and I were planning to perform Umrah for the first time in our lives.. just two days later.

I couldnt believe the timing.

I didn't understand how is this happening literally two days before Umrah?

I felt so guilty.

I sobbed so much that night because of what I was doing. I wanted to be good in Allah's eyes, but suddenly, I felt bad in my own. I didn't want to betray anyone. I didn't want to betray my husband. I didn't want to hurt Rafiq's wife.

Still, I couldn't stop myself. I also couldn't stop Rafiq from feeling what he was feeling either.

After our time in Pakistan ended and we performed Umrah.. my husband and I flew back to the U.S. That's when I tried my best to cut things off with Rafiq… but we would always end up communicating somehow.

We texted every week. We got on calls ; late-night, mid-day, whenever we could find a moment. I’d leave the house just to hear his voice.

We talked about everything; jokes, memories, the future, our dreams.

And of course, we talked about us. In a hypothetical world.

All the while, I knew what I was doing was wrong. I was hiding something so big from my husband. I’d talk to Rafiq on the phone, then come home and step right back into married life, while my husband he had no idea.

The guilt tore at me.

The shame ate me alive because I let Allah down.

I did the one thing I wasn’t supposed to do. I crossed a line that, even if not physical, was emotional and real. That too- with his cousin.

Rafiq and I shared so many conversations. So many words…And so much left unsaid too.

It kept going like this for months.. until one night, everything changed between us.

That's when the silence came and my world shattered.

He pulled away...

And suddenly, even silence had a sound.

And it was heartbreak.

The biggest one of my life.