she sighed, a tear collecting in her left eye, becoming heavy and trickling down her pale cheek, stopping at the corner of her lips, making her taste the saltiness. she looked at her figure in front of the mirror carefully, poking at the hard crust that formed at the corner of her lips, opening the wound and making it bleed again. she couldn't care anymore, nobody did anyways. what's the use of hiding it? she rubbed it roughly with the back of her palm, leaving a bloody trail down her elbow.
her vision swam. everyone looked. nobody spoke. zara, she was late again. when did she ever come in time? maybe back in history, when her brother hadn't graduated yet, but since when did people start caring about history enough to remember it?
she made her way to the corner of the class besides the window, not looking up, not speaking, her long untamed hair falling in front of her drooping head, making her look like a ghost. the teacher sighed, they had all got tired of her. she sat at her seat quietly and fell asleep, landing herself into the land where lived the worst of nightmares. the teacher continued their explanation of the merchant of venice.
she skipped lunch, spent her time in the library. i am a ghost, huh. an invisible one, perhaps. nobody can see me, yet all can feel my presence. everyone seems to make way for me, everyone seems afraid of me. she opened the book, her eyes swimming over the words, but not really reading
me, are you? You say you can read me, but can you? You can't. If you could, you would have known. You would have known that I get hurt every time I say no, you would have known that you hurt me all the goddamn fucking time" Aza screamed from the other side of the wire, hot tears streaming down his cheeks.
—"But how?" Zara asked, numbed.
"I don't goddamn fucking know. But you do. You are terrible, and honestly? I am done with you. When I ask you to change, you say you try, but do you? You don't."
—"I do, though."
"No, you don't. Honestly, I've had enough with your shit of a family, your mental health and trying to make you understand. I can only go so far, unless you want to live, no matter what I do, it's never going to help. You think of me as some trashcan, existing only to intake all your pain and give out all the happiness that exists within me. Look, I am not trying to hurt you—
—"Not trying to hurt me?" she mused.
— I am just being honest. Unless you stop telling lies, twisting everything I say and at least try changing, I don't see how having goddamn numerous friends and being popular will help. Bye. Don't call me."
Aza threw his phone. The screen cracked. He didn't care. Screaming, crying, raging, he hit his fist against the mirror. His subconscious screamed at him to stay with her, to protect her, to make her happy yet his rational mind whispered to him to break all connections with her, he was tired, he couldn't be the sole source of her happiness, that is not possible, he has a life too.
Zara smiled a numb smile. It hurt her cheeks. She walked over to the veranda in her room and looked up. "Twilight", she observed giggling, her giggles turning into a choking fit of coughs and she stopped
looking forward to everything that might contain in the illusion called life, where everyone was a pawn meant to be killed for the illusion's own evil desires. just like her. just like her dad. and maybe, just like her brother. her brother wasn't dead yet. maybe moving out was the hope he was clinging on to for all these years which kept him alive, and now finally, he's learning how to balance on that rope of hope.
here's your paper. i wonder how you score so good, considering the fact that you are.... the teacher trailed off, scorning at her. i just got to prove to people that she is cheating. one can't bag the perfect scores in every exam being like that, you know, the teacher whispered to the student in front of her, whispered loud enough for zara to hear and the message to get passed on to the entire school. it was the national news, of course.
—huh? she woke up, her finger cutting itself at the sharp edge of the paper, leaving a drop of blood on it. rubbing on it, she spread it sideways.
she sighed. she scored full marks. again. but she didn't care. crumpling the paper from the corners a bit, she shoved it carelessly down her bag. nobody was going to ask anyway. who was there to ask? maybe zane, but now that he was outside, he was living his life. she didn't want to ruin that by materializing her sorry self in his day. destroying was what she was born for, however, that was the last thing she wanted to
happen. Her mom was standing at the doorstep, bags in her hand, going away, leaving them all. That lady who braided her hair, that lady who slapped a guy who was looking at her strangely, that lady who was Zane's role model, that lady who was the Queen of the house, that lady who was their dad's true love. That lady today was leaving them all. Zane was crying, begging her to stay. But all she could see was how happy she looked. Everything else was numb to her. "She looks happy", she thought, "with that man beside her. But he isn't our father, who is he?"
Zane looked at her, eyes red and puffy, tears streaming uncontrollably from his eyes, staining his cheeks. "He looks crazy", she observed.
Her dad was standing behind her with that bottle in his hand, the kind mom and dad used for big celebrations. Like when her brother won a competition. He did not speak, did not cry, did not say anything. His large frame, looming over her, looked scary, in a pitiable sort of way.
Her mom kissed their foreheads, never once looking at the man behind them, never once caring about the aura of pain emitting from him. "Here's something for both of you. I promise I'll do everything written", she whispered, pushing two envelopes to them. Zane nodded, still crying. Zara walked away, for the first time, not screaming "Bye Mommy!"
Dear Zara,
You may think I'll forget you, but how can I ever? I gave birth to you, and my love for you will never fade. I promise to come to your twenty-first birthday, hmm? Till then, keep on calling me!
~Love, mom.
Dad pulled them both inside and closed the door. Without speaking, he went to his room and locked himself in. Zane tried to call him but the scream died in his throat, leaving him with choking sobs. She threw the letter beside her on the sofa, her eyes blank, glassy. She did not understand anything, yet she did, she understood everything, she understood the tension in the atmosphere, the frequent arguments— she understood them all. She looked dead, but she didn't know that yet. She didn't know she was going to be dead for the rest of her life, she didn't know that her mother hadn't meant anything she wrote to her.
She walked over to her brother and tried giving him a hug, but cringed inwardly as it turned out to be an awkward one. He patted her small head and walked away to his room. "So this is how it goes? Everyone going away, leaving me to guard the spot?" she thought painfully, feeling as if somehow, time had paralyzed her to the spot, forever.
She knew mom wouldn't take her call, but she called her anyways.
Sorry, this number doesn't exist.
"Just like mom, huh", she thought,
till she could no more. What did her mom look like? She didn't remember. All her friends were present, aarya was here, saba was looking the best, her pink hijab somehow brightening the shine on her face, her brother was here, everyone she needed was here. Why did she need her mom? She didn't. Her dad was already dead, and one can't expect the dead to remember you, nor you to remember the dead. And yet, even after all these realizations, somewhere deep in her heart, she felt a crushing pain at their absence.
She gazed at everyone, and her heart filled with the warm sense of security and love, never once filling the void of pain, though. Here was her family, everyone she loved, everyone she cared for, everyone who was there for her, everyone who had pulled her out and taught her to love, to fall in love and how it felt to be in love.
She smiled, her lips stretching to her eyes as she saw everything they had done for her. Her friends, who were of course broke, had bought her a cupcake with a small candle on top and made some paper streamers which they felt too lazy to paint. Her brother had bought for her a slightly larger chocolate cake, madhavi had given her a cadbury family pack and aarya had written a poem for her. What else did she need? When was the last time she felt so good? she asked herself, and now they were arguing about whose cake she should eat first.
She smiled to herself as she blew out the candles and, as she took a huge bite from both the cakes, happy tears pricked at the corner of her eyes. They all clapped. When did she hear people clap for her? When was the last time? She didn't care, she was happy at the moment, sad as well, though, but the sadness can be ignored, for now, happiness is what matters. Then why do i feel the crushing pain growing bigger, slowly turning into jealousy, jealousy towards those who have what i don't? she thought, her heart aching.
She didn't know, and maybe she cared, maybe she did not. But she would never be able to stop the tears of pain staining her pillows in the middle of the night, she would never be able to stop her mind from wandering back to the past, because when did people really forget the past?
They don't, they can never, the subconscious is cruel, she thought, eyes shut tight, tears flowing down like salty waterworks.
I waited for mom to come on my twenty-first birthday, too, but she didn't. So I kept hanging on to this thin string of hope, hoping she'd come on yours, if not in mine. It's supposed to be fun turning twenty-one, zane had whispered, a sad smile on his face, his eyes looking far away, far beyond the thin clouds that blanketed the night sky as it slept, unaware of all the darkness.
Maybe, she had whispered.
•
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•— this love is treacherous, but we travelled the seas after all. then my dear, why do you cry? what's the use of crying, my dear, when you know we are all going to die? don't you never think of how astronomical this is? getting sad when nobody is going to remember nothing, when time does a wondrous work of eating every shred of memory ever to exist. life is a fantasy, a dark one, but a fantasy still —•