Delicious Ambiguity | the rainbow named trust

Chapter 12

N O T E

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The principles of self-destruction are painfully simple; fall in love.

Dedicated to Kassandra;

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Tears escape my eyes, faintly discerning what damage looks like, when a harsh tug of a hand pulls me away and the sudden movement makes me completely aware of my surroundings. I'm in a kitchen. What I'm wearing are clothes. The smell is of vanilla and exotic spices. The table has a bowl of chowmein. The man digging his fingers in my arm is Zaahid. My subconscious is taking careful, short notes in a school kid rule-follower voice. I feel, the past and the future are pressing so hard on either side that there's no room for present at all.

Zaahid has been a ticking time bomb. Always. No matter the size of irritant, its importance, his temper would hit the roof. He has a trademark move of a powerful punch straight to the jaw. No, he hasn't and I guarantee this, will not, lay a hand on me but I have had the unfortune to witness one of his victims almost get their tongue sliced in half and I once saw a hardly dented wall but his bloodied hand. Now, his muscles are bunching and are tense as rage sweeps through him. He shakes me swiftly, powerfully—rock steady. He is furious.

"What were you thinking?" Seething, Zaahid runs his hand through his hair and glares down at me, clearly wracked with indecision. "Now, move!" he barks at me roughly getting a hold of my upper arm and pushing me in front of him, running towards the sink. I have always wondered if he is a fan of winter or did Frost just suit his fancy because there is a cold burning to his rage. His eyes look murderous and that was how he showed power and air of supremacy.

"Where are you lost?" he hisses at me through clenched teeth while running the cold tap water on my hand. I blink up at him. Oh no.

"How are you this smart?" he snarls and once more sweeps his hand through his hair. I close my eyes, a bolt of pain lancing through and reopen them whilst taking deep breaths. I notice the calendar behind Zaahid and find it to read, 30th October, 2019.

"WITH A GLOVED HAND YOU OPENED THE OVEN AND WITH THE NAKED ONE YOU HELD THE BAKING TRAY!" Zaahid explodes, his eyes blazing with fury. A frisson of fear runs through me. Pressing his lips together in a hard line, he points angrily to the oven, glaring at me. His violence is in his words. Zaahid knows everything about me, every perceived flaw, every vulnerable topic and he knows where to not put the pressure. He would never twist a finger into a bullet hole, my worst memories, the times I had felt almost abandoned. I look down on my hand and see that all the fingers of my right hand are burnt. Dark red wounds splutter across my fingers and palm and the ice cold water is doing little to ease the pain.

"They—they left me," I mumble, finding it difficult to actually let go off the horrendous past. He blinks rapidly and stills, leaving my arm while he takes a deep breath. My eyes stay on the floor, all traces of humour gone, as they grow larger, burning into the wooden tile, wary and needful. That was all it took. The smallest reminder and in an instant if felt like my stomach had fallen thirty storey's and crashed into the steel roof of a truck. All the love that was cruely taken from me—given to the wrong people—has not found its way back. Loss is spiteful in those ways, when I believe I'm past it, those days it will punish me the most.

"What?" he breathes and adds, I sense an arched brow.

I take a deep, shaky breath. I feel a rush of instant heat, as though I have a fever. Energy thrums through my body. I have been a hoarder—of things, of books, of music, of sitcoms, of people, of sadness, of dark, twisted psychopath tales. On cozy winter days when I lay in bed all day with good literature and the house smells of chamomile and cardamom, my eyes are full of things no one else can see. Being a hoarder is also a curse—it's a poisoned chalice of Gryphons and Gargoyles—an end game. I never learnt when to let go so I held on even when I was bruised and wounded for things mattered to me, or didn't matter to me but bothered me in some vicious way and losing it would mean losing a piece of myself; so how would have I got to heaven?