A/N : Trigger warning; self harm and gore.
Sat in a corner of the room, everything's reminding me of you, nursing an empty bottle and telling myself you're happier aren't you?
Ain't nobody hurt you like I hurt you, but ain't nobody need you like I do. I know that there's others that deserve you, but my darling, I am still in love with you.
But I guess you look happier, you do, my friends told me one day I'd feel it too, I could try to smile and hide the truth, but I know I was happier with you.
—————
~ A H M A D ~
—————
Love is an evil thing. It made me numb to every cautionary sensor of fearing the implications of my words and my actions. All I cared for was getting Jannah as far away from me as possible. All I cared for was not letting my presence in her life taint her soul more than it already has. All I cared for was sacrificing everything I have for her even if that thing be her love for me. All I cared for was protecting her even if that was only possible when I succeeded in sowing the seed of her hate for me, even if it would come at the cost of her eternal spite for me—which was ultimately what made love even more evil.
Love didn't care that all I did was purely for it's sake, that I had not only abandoned every one of my dreams and joy for it, but also every moral scruple of mine and used it as my only guide. It didn't care to consider any of those facts and decide to grant me a pardon and tone down the torture it's subjected me to. It still started a fire within me that gnawed at my soul and burned my heart to ashes. It still sucked the life out of me with a thousand needles everytime I remembered Jannah's pleas. Love still made these physical injuries Yasin has inflicted on me insignificant when compared to the emotional injuries it has so malevolently given me.
Which brings me to the fact that I had been wrong, Yasin wasn't nearly as good as an ass whooper as Baba was since after all the thrashing he had given me, I was still able to pull myself to my feet. Blood has been spilled yes, but unfortunately, I hadn't been rendered unconscious and left with any broken bones except the disfigured cartilage on my nose Baba had made me learn the art of easily resetting.
And now, as I lay here on my bed with a slightly swollen face and only a strip of a band aid over the bridge of my nose, I know I undoubtedly miss Baba. I wished he could be here just to give me what I deserved; a sound beating that would knock all the lights out of me and then maybe, finally I could distract myself with the pain of evil powers greater than Love's. But I was now here alone, devoid of my father's skillful mastery of inflicting pain.
I turn to the other side of my bed and though my left arm felt sore, I still placed the weight of my body on it and lay on my side.
"Can't sleep?" I hear Mama's soft voice from the sofa besides my bed.
Since the Haroonas had stormed out with the most priceless treasure on earth in tow almost six hours ago, Mama had been adamant on not letting me spend a single minute alone. She had forgone catching up on her own sleep and insisted on keeping a wakeful vigil over me. I had been hearing the faint sound of her prayer beads as she pulled at them and chanted supplications. I had wanted to do the same, to turn to my Lord and seek solace but I felt too ashamed, too unworthy to face Him after what I had done and after the wild and evil thoughts I have let to be running through my mind.
"I'm afraid so." I groan as I get up and lay my back on the headboard.
I feel Mama's hands behind me, arranging and fluffing the pillows till I was reclined at a more comfortable position. How I had managed to put her off and convince her to not rush me to the hospital was beyond me.
"Let me close the curtains, maybe you'd get to sleep better." Mama says making for the window.
Perhaps she had forgotten the fact that even if the light of the morning sun was pouring through my windows, it would do little to stop me from sleeping since it made no difference to me. The only thing that told me it was morning was the distant sound of the city's hustle and bustle and the slight warmth from the rays of the sun that peeked their way from my window. Light has no effect whatsoever on me anymore and now since Jannah is freed of the torture of being with me, that applied both theoretically and literally.
"No Mama, I think I'm better off just getting out of bed." meaning I had spent a full forty eight hours with zero hours of sleep.
"What's for breakfast?" I make sure to make my tone light as I limp to the bathroom.
For my mother's sake, all the demons inside me had to be kept tamed. Or at least only released when she was no where to see them and hence, putting on a mask was necessary. It would be hard but I had to convince her that I wasn't in a dangerous psychological state not only because I feared her bringing up that dreaded topic of seeing the therapist but because I feared my pain spreading to her. I wanted to make her believe that I could be happy again even though I know that was a blatant lie.
"What would you like?" I hear Mama call out to me before I close the door to the bathroom and I was relieved that she decided to follow my suit, making her tone just as animated as mine.
"Uhmmm," I hold open the door, "Just anything yummy." and I close it with a bang, turning to the sink.
This is the part that I'd get to see myself in the mirror. This is the part that I would be spared just a bit of clearity as I look at my doppleganger in the glass and try to bore into the most deepest of my souls. This is the part that I'd get to talk to the man in the mirror and our colloquy would yield some kind of comforting assurance and a truce that would make me forget about finding peace with the blade in my hand instead. Something that would make me forget of searching for those powers mightier than love in the feel of my own blood on my fingers. But as I gaze ahead, in the direction I know the mirror was placed over the sink, all I see is stagnant, daunting darkness reminding me of the bleakness and emptiness of my soul. It laughs at me and cheers me on when my hands reach behind the counter for a Gillette shaving stick.
It was all I could afford now, after everything with as much as a pointy tip has been smuggled out of my room by my mother except this; something she thought was a harmless essential. I grasp it tightly, knowing that I was in need of it's true and innocent purpose since the bush on my face was growing out of control. I hold it even tighter knowing that I was more in need of a more sinister use of it. Knowing that the demons in me were rioting out of control and searching for an escape. Knowing that the only way to free myself of them was when I let them ooze out of me in a warm, red liquid. I hold it so tight that I hear the stick snap into two and I discard the handle part, taking hold of the head and crushing it to pieces.
I manage to slide out the three separate blades that were soon going to be my saviors from these demons and hold one to the skin of my elbow. A part of my body I know I could easily cover up with a long sleeved shirt and hide from Mama. All I needed was one single cut, nothing more and then I'd be free of this ever expanding cloud that carried a heavy rain. I just had to make a path for that rain of gloom to drain out of me, one little cut that Mama won't even notice would do that job and then, that'll be all.
The first smooth slide and the sensation of the sharp blade splitting my skin starts releasing a downpour of the red rain. It was the release I've been craving for since those foul words left my lips and traveled to Jannah's ears. I licked my lips in satisfaction as I felt the liquid rushing out of the cut but still, I feel hollow and I realize one little cut couldn't do this job. It was not enough to free me and satiate me and it was still weaker than Love's evilness.
I silenced the protesting voices in my head and the blade seduces me to go for the next cut. This time, I make sure to dig the tiny blade deep into the tender skin of the pit of my elbow and drag it up through my flesh up towards my shoulder. The protesting voices telling me to stop got louder but the coolness of the sharp metal between my fingers was too tempting.
As I made another artful stroke that left a trail of blood in its wake, I pray; For forgiveness, for salvation, for peace, for an escape, for anything. I felt disgust and contempt for myself to the core and the shame suffocated me. I pray to stop myself but again, the blade coaxes me.
It took advantage of my need for something that would finally defeat this pain in my heart and would justify the necessity of my behavior towards Jannah. I had lied, I had cheated, I had made her hate me and more woefully, I had hurt her and for that, I needed to hurt too.
But since the torment in my chest makes it almost impossible for any physical pain to get to me, the blade convinced me to keep on going till I reached even a single fraction of that amount.
Another deep digging through my flesh later, a rancid and metallic scent floods my nostrils and I breathe in deeply, savoring the fragrance. I placed a hand on the gaping wounds on my left arm that gushed out not only a thick liquid, but also all the demons that were trapped in me, except the biggest and most deadliest of all; their master, Love.
I rubbed the fingers of my wet hand together and feel the building friction between them as the blood begins to dry and turn gummy. I need to be free of this, it's still here ruining me from inside and I just needed to find a way to get it out. Perhaps the split skin provided too tiny a pathway for it to escape. It needed something much more accomadating to go out in a blaze of glory and then, the pain would stop. I didn't have Baba's expertise in this department and so I just needed to trust my guts and follow the blade. I know it couldn't squeeze its way out these minor little cuts, it needed to be released in a never ending flow of this red liquid that fuels it.
My fingers manage to hold the slippery blade tightly between them and position the piece of sharp metal to my wrist. When the blade dug in and made a horizontal slash, in that moment, my mind truly forgot everything. I experienced true freedom but then this time, the overpowering scent made the contents of my stomach churn and before I knew it, it was pushed up till it rushed out of my mouth.
I couldn't control it when a mix of liquids and solids spewed at a remarkable speed out of me as if my mouth was a watering hose. I finally spit the last of the awful taste out of my mouth and I begin to feel light headed. That in itself makes me realise how still, I hadn't done enough, the iron bars of the cage were still firmly in place around me and I needed to hack them open.
I didn't want Mama to see these cuts but like everything, the blade silenced those thoughts and it easily found its favorite part of my skin again. The sharp end starts splitting a different part of the skin of my wrist but with every deep and jagged drag, I feel my head becoming lighter, I feel myself becoming weaker and when another bout of powerful spewing overtakes me, I didn't even have the strength to position my head in the sink and I ended up throwing up the lumpy liquid of disgust all over my body.
With a vomit and blood drenched t-shirt, I feel myself falling to the ground and my only regret is the fact that when my good hand reached out for the counter to try and steady myself, it made all the items crash to the floor with me instead. The loud, clattering of chaotic sound they produced had no doubt alerted Mama and by the screams and the urgent banging on the door I'm hearing as I lay motionless on the cold bathroom floor, I know that yet again, I had failed in my act. And by the desperate squeezing in my chest as my heartbeat still chants one name over and over again, I know that love is even more evil than I could ever know.
—————
I turn my head around the house I've been absent for for close to a week now. I don't know what I expected, what I was searching for since no matter how I looked, the image ahead of me would remain dark just as the image within me had remained dark.
A week at the hospital as my body recuperated and drunk up three pints of blood was the extremities of hell I've put Mama through. I just don't get why she won't give up on me. Why she won't just condemn my case as the lost cause it is just like undoubtedly, all the hospital staff had done when I had been rushed to the hospital with yet another clear case of a failed suicide attempt.
I slump down on the couch in the living room, trying hard to not remember what had happened in this exact spot all those days ago. I wonder if now, Jannah has already been married. As the image of her being someone else's, being Faisal Ibrahim's, a dagger pierces my heart and instead for me to stop thinking about her, I go to wonder again if now, Jannah's hate for me has driven her to finally forget me; a feat I know I can never attain when it came to her.
I take a deep breath and exhale all those daunting images as I run my hand over my left wrist and feel the scars I had inflicted on myself but to no avail since here I am, still trapped with blood running through my veins, air in my lungs and sorrow in my heart.
"How are you feeling Ahmadi?" Mama leans over me and I give her a forceful smile.
Absolutely worthless and rotten to the core but still, I go on to lie through my teeth "I'm fine. Feels good to be back home."
Home. That word reminds me of the thought that has been on my mind and dancing on the tip of my tongue for days now.
"I uhmmm, Mama," I brace myself, holding my wrist with more force. "Can we go back home?"
"But we are at home, silly." her tender touch frees my left wrist from my grasp.
"No, we're not home." I brush her hands off mine, "I'm tired Mama, I don't think I can live like this anymore. I'm tired of being alone, take me somewhere where I don't have to be alone. You have a family, take me to them, please."
She's silent for too long and since I don't have the energy to argue, I hope what she says when she finally speaks was nothing that would require me to. I hope just for this once she would say yes. I can't survive here, I can't survive in the place that only harbours not only Baba's nightmare of memories, but now more painfully, even Jannah's. Leaving this place might be the only hope I have to save and fix myself.
"Ahmadi..." Mama trails off and her tone ruins my hope, "I can't, please don't start with this now. You're not well so let's talk when you get better, okay?"
"Why are you doing this? I just don't get it. What are you running away from? Is it something to do with Baba? Please just tell me and if you can't, please just take me somewhere I can truly call home."
"Aren't I enough for you?" her tone is accusing. "Tell me Ahmadina, aren't I enough?"
I get up to my feet, deciding this wasn't what I had the energy to do right now. A week in the hospital had surely drained the life out of me both emotionally and physically.
Me and Jannah weren't meant to be, I wasn't only unworthy and totally undeserving of her, I was a plague to her and that fact is rubbed in my face every single second. I had thought that thus time, I would genuinely fund true happiness, my share of peace would finally be granted to me when Jannah enters my life but now, all I see ahead as well as behind me is a life devoid of light. I don't see yellow anymore, all the colors have washed out from my existence and it has never been more clear and painful to me that indeed I am blind.
Every single thing here reminds me of a broken dream, it aches my heart and I know that these trips to the hospital were going to be the norm if I don't get myself out of here but Mama still doesn't understand that. I never want to use this word when describing my mother but she is selfish and thinks only about herself since she still isn't willing to let me meet my family.
"Where are you going?" Mama takes a hold of my sleeve.
"Why do you care!?" I yell, shaking my arm from her grasp her. "Even if I go to hell right this very moment, what do you care? You'd even rather that wouldn't you since here you are, keeping me in hell!"
"No no habibi, what are you saying? Why are you talking like that?" she tries to soothe me, holding me by the shoulders but the anger that had built a thick wall around me didn't let her comforting words and touch reach me.
"If you care Mama," I hold her hands together and grasp them desperately, pleadingly "Then please, please take me away from here. Take me home."
She snatches her hands away and must've stepped backwards. I follow behind her, deciding it was time to make a compromise.
"I promise you Mama, I'll start the therapy immediately we get there. All I want is for you to take me to my family. I need to get away from here to forget Baba, please." I forego the fact that I wanted to leave more because of Jannah's remainders than my father's.
I couldn't say her name since for a week, Jannah's name had become a taboo. Mama fears uttering it since she wanted the memory of her existence to be erased from my life and I feared uttering it since I wanted to keep myself sane.
"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry Ahmadi but no, I can't... I just can't go there." Just like I thought, Mama still wouldn't budge. "If a change of scenery is what you want, we can go anywhere else you'd like. Back to Australia? Singapore? London? It has always been your favorite city hasn't it?"
"Why?" I didn't want to but that came out through gritted teeth and my jaw only clenched tighter when she didn't answer. "Why Mama, tell me why!?"
All I heard were her sobs and for the first time in my life, I did not rush to comfort her. I did not feel it necessary to wipe a single one of her tears, all I felt was an awful bitterness in my soul and I let my feet carry me away out the existence of the house. I turned a deaf ear to Mama calling after me and begging me to stop. I didn't stop until I was in the passenger seat of the car and Evan's was zooming me out through the gates of the house.
—————
The hiding place I chose to escape Mama is a place I know she won't ever in a her wildest dreams think of looking for me; a bar.
My watch tells me its a little past 5 pm just after I sit down at a table in the most secluded corner of the noisy gazebo. I fumble with the phone in my hand and switch it off completely. I'm just tired of the ringing of the device to the hundreds of calls Mama is giving me. I'm a grown ass man, I need my space especially after what had just transpired.
Though the concept was tempting, I wasn't here to drown my sorrow in intoxicating liquids, I was here because it was the only place I know Mama wouldn't look for me and so, I have more chances of being away from her for longer.
"What can I get you sir?" I hear a squeaky feminine voice standing somewhere besides me. "A cold beer? Whisky or brandy? We're also doing a buy one get one free on a bottle of Guinness if you might be waiting for a friend."
As I was about to shake my head and dismiss her with a tip from my wallet, I hear a voice I know all too well answer her with a hearty chuckle.
"Indeed, he is and that friend is here." the asshole makes the table shake as he sat down heavily on the chair opposite mine. "We'll take you up on that Guinness offer but I'll also have some whiskey. They're two things I can't resist in this world, a good deal and a good drink."
I mutter a curse under my breath at my badluck but what was I expecting? Who would I run into at a place like this if not Khalid Yuguda?
"Never imagined I'd see you at a place like this," Khalid says nonchalantly, "Always feels good to catch the preacher not practicing what he preaches."
I didn't bother replying since I couldn't care less about what he thought of me. I let the minutes slip away hoping that he would get tired and just get up and leave but unfortunately for me, Khalid sticks it out.
"I didn't think you so shameless to be able to ever show me your face again but since obviously I was wrong," I leaned unto the table, "tell me, you just said you couldn't resist a good deal, so why'd you reject my cheque?"
I corner him with the only thing on my mind, wondering if things would go differently if Khalid had actually agreed and confessed, if perhaps now, I won't be in this foul smelling place in such a miserable state.
I hear the waitress place Khalid's orders on the table and when she's gone, I hear the hiss of a bottle of Guinness being opened and the low thump of it being placed on my side of the table. Great, now I have to share a toast with the devil but well, I was already immune to every one of Khalid's vices so this time too, he won't be getting to me.
From the satisfying belch he released, Khalid must've taken a long swig of his own drink before finally answering me.
"It was a good deal but not worth the cost."
"So you do care about your reputation that much?"
"It isn't about my rep bro, I don't give a fuck about what anyone might think of me except one single person, my wife."
I contemplate for a second and then laugh humorlessly, "Did you just say wife?"
"Yeah, my 'w' 'i' 'f' 'e'. Wife."
"You're married?" I don't know why, but I was shocked. "Well isn't that the news of the century. I really could never imagine you being married."
"Didn't your mom tell you? She attended the ceremony and everything, it's been barely a year ago." I heard the sound of the large gulps of his drink he swallowed down his throat.
"Yeah okay," I realise Mama must not have told me because of how irritable I get whenever she brings up Khalid. "Congrats mate. Good for you." was the best I could offer him.
"Thanks and don't you want to know who the lucky lucky woman is?"
"Who?" I continue to indulge him. At least he was helping me get my mind off things.
"Zara Bashir."
"What?" my voice was low as my eyes widen and I feel nervous all of a sudden, "Quit fucking with me." I shake my head.
"Well I can't even show you our wedding pics or anything since you're blind now but dude, take it or leave it, I'm married to Zara."
He married the girl he had forced himself on? Well that was indeed a noble deed and he had just climbed down a step on my hate ladder. But I still can't stop doubting the possibility of that being true and if indeed it was, why didn't he tell me sooner? Why didn't she still know the truth? There was a probability that if I'd known about it, things wouldn't have turned out as drastically as they had.
"Zara Bashir?" I press with even more disbelief.
"The one and only."
"You married her?"
"Exactly ten months, three weeks and five days ago."
"How?"
"We went to the mosque, my waliyy gave the dowry, her waliyy accepted and the Imam recited the Fatiha for us." he continues answering nonchalantly but I was the least bit amused.
"Listen Khalid, I'm serious. Why didn't you tell me this sooner?"
"Uhn, maybe because you didn't give me the chance to. You didn't let me explain myself at your party, you hardly even gave me the chance to speak then when you asked to meet me and offered me that cheque, you clearly were interested in breaking me up with my wife."
I hang my head low, letting the info settle with me. "So you're telling me Khalid, that you married Zara but she still doesn't know the truth?"
"Nope!" he pops the 'p' as if what I had just said was a joke. "Not as long as I'm alive."
"If that's what it takes Khalid," I straighten my jacket before leaning into the table. "I would have killed you long ago but you're lucky that I'd rather live the lie too. And I must say, you outdid yourself on the complete asshole part."
He chuckles, not knowing that I meant every single word of what I just said. "Chill guy and I'm sensing that this evening calls more for a scotch than a sissy Guinness. Waiter!" Khalid calls out to order more drinks when there was still a full, untouched, bottle in front of me. He had probably downed his while I was nursing mine in disgust but I won't hide that it did start tempting me.
The squeaky voiced waitress arrived again and after Khalid placed his order of two glasses of "scotch on the rocks" I told her to take the bottle that was starting to look dangerously attractive away with her.
"You being married, I thought things might've changed but old habits die hard, yeah?" I let a smile graze my lips.
"Old habits never die, if you ask me."
"Typical." I nod my head, feeling my tolerance for his bullshit starting to wear off.
"This is something not even Zara can part me from I'm afraid."
"So you've been taking life two glasses of alcohol at a time?" I refer to the two orders of heavy drinks he's just made.
"One actually, the other's yours my man." he answers and that plan to just get up and leave was starting to get more tempting. "I've been trying to be nice and mannerly and all that but man, I can't hold it in anymore. You look like horse shit. Maybe you can't see it since you're blind but you seriously need a hit. And oh wait, I just rhymed." he laughs at his unintentional rap.
My hand unconsciously travels up to my chin and sideburns and I feel how dire my need of a shave is but like everything else, I don't care.
"Thanks for the compliment princess but no thank you." I relax into the back of my chair and I hear the sound of the short tumblers being placed on the table.
"You know man," Khalid's amplified voice must mean he leaned unto the table. "I always wanted to tell you this but never really got the guts to do it. I feared that you might call it quits on our friendship when I told you but now since I've got nothing to lose—you already wanting to murder me, our friendship being in pieces and all that—feel almost obligated to tell you this Ahmad. I feel it as my entitled right to share this secret I've been battling to bury in the depths of my heart with you."
I couldn't help being affected by the tension he had created and found myself craning an ear to him, being eager to hear what he was going to say.
"You've got one hell of a hot Mama." Khalid's words lead me to an annoying anti-climax. "You know, if I had arrived into this world twenty years earlier, she would have been my Zara. But too bad, I arrived too late and she ended up with the reincarnation of Hitler for a husband. But come to think of it, Hitler is a compliment, Dracula would have been a more appropriate title for your old man. Mufti Abbakar Sambo alias Vlad Tepes, the Imapaler." Khalid finishes with a chuckle before I hear the sound of his scotch being swallowed in large gulps.
I wasn't at all irked or disturbed by anything he's said. Perhaps it was because when compared to the longer line of this emotional torment of Jannah's spite for me, his words about my mother and the memories of my father are a very short, insignificant line.
"Still not enough to tip your scale?Wow, then the level of shittiness you're experiencing is close to incurable but luckily for you," I hear him slide the glass tumbler to me, "here's the elixir of life sitting right in front of you."
I remain with my hands folded across my chest. Maybe it was for control maybe not, but as Khalid went on, I maintained that position.
"So this girl, Asiya Haroona. Is she the reason why you look like crap?" and so he's located just the perfect place to pull my heartstrings. "And yeah, I heard about that little plot twist. I don't know what caused it but I sure am thankful for it. You took up the blame and I heard even repeated the same mishap on said girl. Poor Jannah. Though I always knew she never liked me, my wife cares for her so a little part of me does too. But oh well like I said, again, it's nice to catch the preacher not practicing what he preaches." a smirk must've been dangling on his lips at that. "Her wedding to some Ibrahim guy is this Saturday, you know that right?"
He shouldn't have done this, he shouldn't have mentioned Jannah, I have been relatively in control and now, because of him, I feel the little amount of that I have slipping away. The reminder that she and this whole world would do better without me starts nagging my thoughts and I didn't even know when I let my fingers grace the chilled short glass tumbler in front of me.
"But I just have to know, how did she manage to entice you this much?" Khalid continues, making my fingers grasp the glass tighter, "I mean we've schooled together for more than a decade but you never knew she existed, what changed so suddenly? Was it your blindness and her babysitting the blind business or what? Or was it just the fact that she's now mad hot? But if it's that, how'd you know since you can't even see and stuff? Though whatever it is man, it must hurt like hell, you know, watching her marry some other guy."
My mind grows vacant as the lump in my throat gets too large to swallow. My mind doesn't even register my hand lifting up the glass to my lips, and the action feels uncontrollably. I take gulp after gulp and much to my dismay, the burning liquid finished in just five seconds and left that lump still stuck in my throat.
"Now we're talking!" the triumph laced in Khalid's tone was unmistakable but not even that was enough to stop me from craving for another dose of the liquid just to see if it could dissolve the lump in my throat and loosen the tightness in my chest.
"Waiter! Refill, please!" he orders again and the routine repeats itself as I down more glasses than my light and intoxicated mind can possibly count.
All that happens afterwards goes by in a haze and all I know is that I wake up to find myself in my bed. I don't know if it had been days or hours later but the massive headache that strangles my brain leaves me tied to my bed, looking for fragments to make up the pieces of my missing memory.
"Ahmadina?" Mama's voice reaches me, of course she must be keeping another vigil.
"What happened?" I rub my fingers on my temple.
"You came back home drunk." her voice was pained and mournful.
Great. Now even the likes of Khalid Yuguda could influence me. Proof that my soul was at the weakest and lowest it can ever be. Proof that I wouldn't last two more days without attempting another escape from this world.
"What time is it?"
"12 pm."
"Meaning I have to pay the debt of three prayers? To be honest, not as bad as I thought." the headache was still hacking my brain to pieces as I drag myself up to my feet.
I felt ashamed, a deep contempt for myself burning within me and I wonder if I am even deserving of standing before my Lord. I reeked of alcohol and sin and filth and I know no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't scrub myself clean of this guilt. But then I remember that the Lord I would stand before was One whose well of mercy never runs dry, of One whose love purifies the most tainted of souls and I feel just a bit better.
"And I realised you were right." Mama makes me stop in my tracks.
"Right about what?" I turn back to to her, hoping it was what I thought it was.
"You need to leave this place Ahmadi." she walks closer and before she doesn't say anything more before placing two rectangular leaflets in my hand.
"What is this?" I feel the coated papers, my hopes were starting to be realised but I didn't let myself conclude just yet.
"Your ticket home."
"We're going to Egypt?" I ask breathlessly, in too much of shock and excitement but the plane tickets in my hands confirmed it and though conscious of my unpleasant scent, I just had to envelope Mama in a hug.
"Thank you, thank you Mama and I'm so sorry for everything I said. I'm sorry and I can't tell you how happy I am to finally meet grandma and grandpa again. I just dont want us to ever be alone again." for the first time in forever, my heart felt alive.
Mama stays silent and after a while, she breaks up the hug and places yet another paper in my hand. It's thicker than the other two and figure that it was an envelope containing a letter.
"What is this?"
"When you arrive home, give it to your grandma and ask her to read it to you." Mama sounded almost sad and I wondered why she just said when I arrive instead of when we arrive home.
"Okay... but what is it?" I ask again since her last answer wasn't all encompassing
"It's the reason why I can't come with you."
A/N
Long and emotionally draining chapter but still, I absolutely enjoyed writing it. Hope you did reading it too.
Lyrics from the paragraph up above is from my number one favorite Ed Sheeran song that contradictary to its name, is one of the saddest songs I've ever heard, "Happier."