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❝Once upon a time, a girl fell in love with her husband and made the stars realise that they'd gotten her soulmate wrong.❞
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It's a daunting thing, your first love. It's new, making you unsure and doubt whether it's love or just a mere...
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ZAYAAN AND I LEFT the cemetery soon after, bidding our families a pained goodbye. It felt like I'd left half of my soul behind when I climbed into the car, settling into the passenger seat which I now claimed as mine.
It used to be that way in Aden's car too. Whenever we went on road trips, or even a quick spree to the shops, I always rode shotgun with my brother regardless of who else we were with. We may have bickered like cats and dogs at times, but there was no one I trusted and believed in more than my brother. He'd always been there for me, especially when our parents weren't there. His name was the first word that I'd spoken, his hand was the first that I'd held when I took my first steps and he was my first best friend.
When I was younger, I used to picture Aden and I living in neighbouring houses when we were older, nurturing our own families but always being bonded in the way that only siblings could be. Especially siblings who depended on each other completely and viewed the other as both their freedom and family. Because Aden was my family, but in a way that I didn't feel caged or neglected when I was with him, and felt as if I could do anything I wished for with his support.
I used to picture growing a family with Logan, having a couple of kids, and having weekly Sunday lunches with Aden's family without fail. I used to imagine us being so happy that nothing could defeat us. I used to view the world as all rainbows and sunshine, where we could dance when the rain came out to play and wait for the rainbow that would inevitably follow.
But it all looked so bleak now. I'd taken off my rose-tinted glasses and learned that we lived in a world where there was so much corruption, crime and bloodshed that when it rained, it would only be a storm of blood that followed. There would be no rainbow. There wouldn't even be the smallest glimpse of sunshine.
My dreams had shattered into nothing. Now, Aden was dead and the only person I could picture being my family, let alone growing a family with, was my husband. He couldn't be more different to Logan even if he tried, and despite my overwhelming feelings for him, I had to separate from him.
There was no happiness. Only sorrow and heartache.
God, everything hurt so much. I just wanted to rip everything out of me — all the pain, all the oxygen, the will to survive through each day — and go and curl up into a ball in a dark, silent place. Where no one bothered me. Where I wouldn't be able to hear anything but my own pitiful thoughts.
When I saw Zayaan shift the gear from my peripheral vision, I turned to him, wanting to prolong this moment for just a little longer.
"Can you take the next left?"
"The left?" His eyebrows furrowed. For some reason, that brought me a flash of when I'd seen him throw his gun into the dash. They were illegal in the UK, but somehow, he managed to have one on him during precarious situations. The man sitting next to me was just so different to the one who'd interrogated and terrified one of Hosseini's men. "Do you not want to go home?"
