Hana & Hanaan | ✓

Chapter 23

"Which caused permanent scars to my sister."

"She'll recover. Life doesn't stop here and Hana knows it."

"Why must we always trust her to heal? Why can I not stop being painful, Dadi? For those around me? All this—" I point around us "—I appreciate it but really? You of all people should have been the toughest on me. Won't this make Hana hate me more? After everything I've done, this is what I get in return?"

When you're blessed endlessly despite sinning relentlessly, it is but an affliction from Allah. I wrap my arms around myself. It's hard to breathe.

Dadi sits down on my mattress and pats the space beside hers. "Come here."

"No."

"Hanaan."

"No." I shake my head. "You'll say things I know are right but will make me feel uncomfortable here." I point at my chest. "I don't wanna feel like that, Doctor Amima would not approve."

"Don't be a child."

"Well I'm hardly your age."

"Are you calling me old?"

"Ancient."

She wipes a fake tear away. "Only Allah knows these wrinkles are but from all the distress you cause me. You and your father both."

I sit by her. "Dadi."

"Mhmm."

My eyes sting and my heart twinges but I siphon strength from the twinkling decoration around me. "I don't know what to do with myself anymore. I don't want to just breathe through day and night, wake up again, repeat the process. I want to do something with myself today. Now."

"You could start with loving yourself."

I look away. After everything I have done? To love myself still?

But I steal a glance at her anyways because the prospect of that advice is appealing; I want all this agony in me to end. I've apologized and Allah knows I want to turn the clock back around, never give those pictures to Waheed, prevent all this from happening. But there's nothing I can do to undo it. So what am I supposed to do other than perish?

Dadi's face is like Hana's. Once I saw a photo of her from her early twenties. Both of them have chubby cheeks that tempt you to reach forward and pull at them. Both of them have eyes that disappear when they smile. Dadi's hair is now greying and though her skin is still creamy, there are wrinkles on her forehead. Although she shares her looks with Hana, she shares a mind-set with me. Because Dadi also wears silver-purple cat eye glasses.

So chic.

"Love yourself, Hanaan," she speaks softly. "And that does not mean you inflate your ego as big as your head—"

"—hey—"

"—but rather, look after yourself. Your body, your soul, your heart, your mind, your time. It is all an amanat from Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala. It is a trust that you must not waste nor abuse."

"I want a direction, Dadi," I whisper. "A focus, a purpose, a passion so wild it exhausts my body to the point I crash into darkness as soon as my head hits my pillow. Something that makes my heart soar to the seventh sky from doing something so fulfilling, the pain in my bones feels like bliss. Like Hana does when she studies for an exam. Like Hana when she works out and is sore from it the next day."

I catch sight of Dadi's hand and my own beside her, a stark contrast: hers is wrinkled, blueing veins visible under the skin while mine is still fresh flesh, smooth skin. How long until my hand turns like hers and I have done nothing in life? Nothing at all.