BROKEN

Faith

"He's alive right now, but there's no telling how long that will last." the doctor sighed.

"What do you mean?" my father asked.

"There was a piece of glass lodged in his brain. We took it out but he's still in critical condition. There was a lot of blood loss."

"Will my brother be okay? That's all I want to know." said Ammar angrily. His eyes were filling with tears.

"He's alive right now but we won't know until he wakes up."

"Will he wake up?" asked Abdirahman.

"We don't know" the doctor said. "Feel free to wait around here, I'll update you if anything changes."

We all sat down and I immediately began to cry again.

"Don't lose faith." my mother said. "Let's just pray that he wakes up."

"Let's go pray salah." my father said. He stood up and everybody except Ammar and Abdirahman followed also.

"Come on." I said to them. They both had their faces buried in their hands.

"That's our baby brother." Abdirahman said through tears. "We just lost our mom, we can't lose him too."

"Anything is possible if we pray." my grandmother said. "Let's go." Oddly enough they wiped their tears and came along.

---

We all sat in the waiting room when Ahmed came over to me and handed me his phone.

"Who is it?" I asked.

"Somebody wants to talk to you."

"Hello?" I said into the phone.

"Hey Warsan." a familiar voice responded. I would recognize this voice anywhere. It was Tasneem.

"Tasneem?" I asked.

"Yes. Ahmed told me about your brother. Just know that I'm making dua at home. I wish I could be there right now but I don't have a ride this late. I'll be there first thing in the morning."

I stood up and went out into the hallway.

"I thought you hated me." I said.

"We can talk about all of that later." she said. "When Ahmed told me everything, I had to talk to you. I called him right away. How are you right now?" she asked.

"I'm really scared." Yet again, I was about to burst into tears.

"He'll be okay, Warsan." she said in her reassuring voice. "Don't lose hope. You should probably spend time with your family though. I'll see you tomorrow morning. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

The line went dead and I went back into the waiting room. I handed Ahmed's phone back to him and he smiled at me. Hakeem looked at both of us in confusion.

---

We stayed in the waiting room for the rest of the night. Some of us fell asleep while others could not. I walked over to where Ammar and Abdirahman were sitting.

"Hi." I said. Ammar looked up at me.

"If I ever see that man again I'm going to kill him." he said. "All these years of emotional abuse and now he nearly killed my brother. He better hope the police get to him before me."

"He didn't deserve a son like Faisal." said Abdirahman.

"If only you knew Faisal as a kid." said Ammar. "He wouldn't leave our mom's side. He was the perfect son compared to us." he shook his head. "When he makes it out of this I swear I'm going to be the big brother he always wanted."