We were 16 when we fell in love.
We were 18 when we got married.
And we were 19 when we got divorced.
I can still taste the lipstick you wore that night. I can still remember the way your skin felt when I brushed my fingers over your bare shoulders...
The sound of a ball getting pummelled on the soccer field was like music to her ears as she ate her lunch in silence. She ignored the 20-odd boys screaming and yelling in favour of listening to the simple thud of the ball as it was kicked into the air.
It soothed her for some reason and she was content to simply follow its movements as she took another bite of her sandwich. It was nothing but a white blur, flitting past her eyes and it took a minute amount of concentration to follow it but that was okay. She'd rather concentrate on its mundane actions that think about anything else at that moment.
Just that simple, white dot.
Nothing else.
It wasn't as if she even had anyone else around to distract her. No one to break her concentration with mindless chatter.
No one.
Just her and that white blur before her.
"Are you okay Neelofah?" her technology teacher asked as she sat down to monitor the boys.
"Just fine, Mam." Her lips tilted up fractionally as if to appease the young woman before her.
"Oh."
Please ask me again.
"Okay." She smiled down at Neelofah, suddenly awkward in the quiet girl's presence. "I'll leave you to it."
No, please don't go. Please ask me if I'm okay.
"Okay Mam."
"Enjoy your lunch Neelofah."
Don't go. I'm not okay.
"You too, Mam."
Please don't leave me alone.
Neelofah watched her walk away, only to look forward once again.
And until the bell rang, she thought of nothing else except the tiny white blur as it shot across the field.
Not her father crying like a baby as her mother begged him to go to his nephew's wedding. Not his adamant refusal to go to the supper at her uncle's house the night before.
Nor the unusual number of pills he had been drinking in the last few days.
Nothing.
Not even when he told her that he wanted to die.
Just that little white blur. And that was it.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Raees
He leaned his head against his steering-wheel.
It was so, so fucking hard to pretend that his dad wasn't going fucking crazy. He knew that he was depressed and he knew that he couldn't help it but it was so fucking hard not to want to rip his fucking head off when he kept begging Neelofah to just kill him.
