Epilogue B — Mercy Releases
Epilogue B — Mercy Releases
Three weeks after Makkah, the world resumed its normal cruelty.
Not dramatic cruelty.
The quieter kind.
The kind that arrived as Monday mornings and unread emails and the way the MRT never waited for you even if your heart did.
Aleem returned to AMD and slipped back into his role like a man putting on familiar clothes.
He fixed bugs.
He attended meetings.
He spoke in proper sentences that hid the fact that his chest still carried unspoken prayers.
He smiled when colleagues joked.
He nodded when Malek teased him.
From the outside, he looked unchanged.
But internally, something had shifted.
The old rule—the old prejudice—still existed like a scar.
But it no longer controlled him.
It had been exposed under the lights of the Haram and it looked smaller there.
Fear wearing a suit.
Aleem did not fight it with force.
He simply refused to let it become law again.
At night, he prayed.
Not long prayers.
Not dramatic pleas.
Just quiet prostrations where he placed his forehead down and admitted the truth.
Ya Allah, let my heart stay clean.
He did not pray for Almahirah.
Not because he hated her.
Because he had already released her.
Almahirah did not text.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Then months.
Aleem saw her mother once at a community event—briefly, from a distance—smiling politely, asking how he was, blessing him with gentle words.
But Almahirah remained quiet.
Aleem did not chase.
He did not ask for updates.
He did not request closure.
Because he had learned: closure was not something someone gave you.
Closure was what you chose when you stopped begging for a different ending.
Sometimes, in quieter moments, Aleem imagined her.
He pictured her ending the off-and-on relationship.
He pictured her walking into a life where she was chosen properly.
Not necessarily by him.
Just… properly.
And in those imaginings, Aleem felt no bitterness.
Only a soft sadness.
A clean one.
Like rain falling on concrete.
It did not erase the past.
It simply stopped the dust from rising.
One night, Malek came over with takeout and an energy that refused to let Aleem disappear into work.
They ate on Aleem’s couch, the fan humming, the TV playing something neither of them watched.
Malek leaned back, chewing slowly.
“You are different,” Malek said.
Aleem glanced at him. “You keep saying that.”
Malek shrugged. “Because you keep proving it.”
Aleem frowned slightly. “Proving what?”
Malek’s gaze sharpened.
“That you can feel something without turning it into a cage,” Malek said.
Aleem’s throat tightened.
He looked down at his hands.
“I do not know if I feel anything,” Aleem said.
Malek sighed as if Aleem was exhausting in the most lovable way.
“You feel,” Malek said simply. “You just finally stopped punishing yourself for it.”
Aleem swallowed.
They ate in silence for a while.
Then Malek spoke again, softer.
“You know,” Malek said, “sometimes mercy is not getting what you want. Sometimes mercy is getting what you need.”
Aleem’s eyes burned slightly.
He looked away.
He nodded.
Life continued.
The city continued.
And slowly, without Aleem forcing it, new people entered his orbit.
Not as replacements.
As reminders that the world did not end at one story.
There was a new colleague on his project team—someone transferred in from another department. Her name was Amina.
She was Malay too.
That fact would have triggered Aleem’s old rule once.
It did not.
He noticed it.
Then let it pass.
Amina was professional, sharp, quietly humorous. She spoke with confidence but listened with a patience Aleem did not expect from someone so competent.
They worked together.
They disagreed politely.
They solved problems.
And in those ordinary collaborations, Aleem noticed something startling.
He was not suspicious.
He was not scanning for betrayal.
He was simply present.
One afternoon, after a long meeting, Amina walked with him toward the pantry.
“You’re very calm under pressure,” she said.
Aleem blinked. “I am just used to pressure.”
Amina smiled faintly. “That is not the same thing.”
Aleem’s chest tightened.
Because it was true.
Being used to pressure could also mean you learned how to numb yourself.
But Aleem was no longer numb.
He was learning to be calm in a different way.
Clean.
Months later, Malek dragged Aleem to a small gathering—nothing grand, just friends eating, laughing, sharing stories.
Aleem arrived reluctantly.
He stayed for Malek.
But as the night unfolded, Aleem found himself laughing.
Not forced.
Not polite.
Real.
He realised the world had been waiting for him to return.
Not to romance.
To life.
At the end of the night, as they walked back to the car, Malek nudged him.
“You see?” Malek said.
Aleem frowned. “See what?”
“That mercy did not make you smaller,” Malek replied. “It made you softer. And softness is not weakness.”
Aleem’s throat tightened.
He looked up at the night sky over Singapore—clouded, bright with city light.
He remembered the sky over Jabal Rahmah.
Wide.
Unbothered.
He remembered his dua.
If she is written for me, let it return clean.
If she is not written for me, let it leave clean.
He realised now that the dua had been answered.
Not with a reunion.
With a release.
And release, he understood, was not emptiness.
Release was space.
Space for a heart that could love without losing itself.
On the night he finally threw away the old message thread from the Chinese girl—the one he had kept like a relic of rejection—Aleem felt something loosen.
He did not delete it out of anger.
He deleted it out of respect.
Respect for her.
Respect for himself.
Respect for the man he was becoming.
He stood by his window, phone in his hand, and whispered softly:
“Thank you.”
Not to a person.
To Allah.
Because Umrah had not given him a love story.
It had given him something rarer.
A heart that was no longer a wound.
And maybe, one day, love would arrive.
Not as compensation.
Not as fate’s apology.
But as a clean gift.
Until then, Aleem lived.
Fully.
Softly.
With dignity.