Two things make me forget all the worries in the world. One is baking; the other is solving a question paper. Once I am done with them, there is a surge of power in my fingertips, a flurry of feathers in my chest, an air of dominance that raises my chin high and a lightness that pulls my shoulders back.
When I was headed to my MCAT exam this morning, I was pale and on the verge of a nervous breakdown. How could I not be when I had woken up to find all my books missing and Baba shamelessly admitting to his crime saying, raising his sugar syrup chai at me, "Mena, calm nerves always do the trick." He sipped on his cup, making me cringe. "Take that from your father, you can thank me later."
Mama and Baba dropped me at the exam centre and I felt more confident; they were there with me and not with Hanaan. I return now with Chacha Ali Gul, watching the beautiful colours outside the car window. The sky is bright azure blue with cotton candy clouds. The leaves look greener to me and already I can see tents outside houses and in some gardens; the festivities of Eid have begun. There are thirteen days left in it only and soon Baba will bring over our goats for sacrifice too, tie them in our garage because Dadi will not allow them in her garden and it will be all about tending to them.
I have never been fond of animals, be that parrots, goats or even Hanaan's Anna Sofia. Nashwa and Hanaan have always been animal crazy and it makes sense, they're wild themselves.
Nashwa.
Her name doesn't echo in my mind because of the risk I have put her at, it collides against the walls of my skull because I see a battered old red Alto parked at an awkward angle at the end of my street. This wasn't the end we were supposed to enter through but Chacha Ali Gul took a different route because he had to buy some groceries first and as I crane my neck to look again, it is undeniably Nashwa's Laal, its front severely bruised and back dented in, paint chipping off.
What is she up to now?
I jump out of the car as soon as Chacha Ali Gul parks it in front of our gate. Had these been normal circumstances, I would have been in a hurry to call up Ainee and Faria and cross check my answers with them, then wallow over the ones we got incorrect. Had this been slightly crazy circumstances only whereby Nashwa had parked right in front of my gate, I would expect her to be sitting in the lounge, one leg over the other, back stick straight, sipping on her cup of chai, waiting to confront me. But she parked at the end of the street.
Nashwa-style.
I rush into my room first and don't find her there. I don't want her listening to the voice notes Hanaan left me, they're too personal, they're for me and they would most definitely make Nashwa melt over Hanaan. I don't want Nashwa standing by her side and not by mine.
I don't find Nashwa in my room so throwing my chadar and bag on my mattress, I turn to the kitchen instead where Baano is washing a pile of dirty dishes with her phone perched on the counter top by the wash basin, a drama streaming on it, an ear phone bud in her ear. I turn around and look about our lounge and not finding Nashwa, I accept the worst suspicion and head up the stairs.
No one else is home except Baano. Nashwa shouldn't be here at all.
I tip toe across Dadi's indoor garden and towards Baba's study. Sure enough, Nashwa is inside, sitting cross legged on the floor, hair in a messy bun and boxes scattered around her with files lying about. I forget the remorse of betraying her at the party. Every inch of my skin itches and I stand there looming above her, waiting for her to notice me.
She doesn't look up from the file in her hand. "Welcome back, Hana dearest. Let me pretend I care while I ask you how your MCAT went. Go ahead, you can start moping on the two questions you got wrong out of two hundred."
Before I can say anything, she adds, "Offer expired, I've changed my mind. I will not bother to pretend I care because really, I don't. Everyone's for themselves in this world; survival of the selfish."
Some of my anger dissipates. She's offended about the party. What happens when I tell her what more Zimal has done? I let out a shaky breath.
"Nashwa." I pull away the box she's going through. She pulls a different one. "Nashwa," I repeat. Not once has she met my eye, is she really hurt and scared? But I thought she didn't care— "Nashwa!"
Her eyes scorch me. "What?"
I flinch but quickly recover my air of pride. Reminder, Hana. You just attempted an exam and absolutely aced it too. Let that empower you. I place both my hands on my hips and look down at her. "You could not have waited for me to get home?"
"Why would I wait for you?" She crosses her arms over her chest, still sitting on the floor with her rainbow ankle socks. "Did you wait for my guidance on how to manoeuvre Mister Trouble away before you gave my name to him so yours would be left unstained? Did you wait to let me armour up at least, before you thrust me into the line of attack, without a sword too and ran away to leave me alone in your battlefield?"
I steal away my glance. I'm still here. I'm not running away.
"But that's alright, Hana." She waves a dismissive hand in the air. "It's all alright because it never made sense for you to be fighting a war when you're not a warrior, you're a damsel in distress and that automatically makes me the knight in shining armour. How could you possibly stand strong in front of Waheed?" She scoffs. "You're Hana!"
Spikes prick at my throat. Mamu said the same thing to me. That I'm sensitive, fragile, stupid, Hana. I'm sensitive, sure, I think too deep, care too much, love too intensely. But I'm only fragile if I let them shatter me. Why is it such a bad thing to be fragile anyways?
I look back into her eyes, fearless. One thing I have learned in these few days from almost everyone who has intimidated me yet, Ahmad Mamu, Waheed, Doctor Amima, even Nashwa: it's that eye contact is the key.
I look calmly into Nashwa's eyes. "You're absolutely right. You are a warrior. I am just a damsel in distress—"
"—about time you realised it—"
"But," I continue. "I'm a damsel with basic codes and morals, like not intruding into someone's bedroom, getting into their closet and stealing a key from there. Really, Nashwa, if it were my room I would not have minded but you stepped into my parents' room and got into my father's closet. That's too many lines crossed there."
"Oops?"
I hold in the urge to pull all the hair off my scalp. "Nashwa, do you have absolutely no morals or manners—?"
"What can I say, Hana?" She rises to her feet. "That's right. I'm not morally guided like you because I had no parents to teach me basic manners. My mother died too early, father never loved me. Been surviving anyhow and survival doesn't come with a code of conduct. You do what you gotta do. If you're lucky, you'll learn it the hard way. If you're luckier—" she leans in, voice dropping low "—you'll be peaceful in your grave before then."
A shiver runs down my spine. Hanaan's voice returns in my head making it hurt. I wonder if she wishes she had died and not her mother that night.
Saying sorry is never easy.
"I'm sorry, Nashwa, I am. I should have defended you against Zimal. But you have to understand, I really couldn't hold my guard long against Waheed and I thought it would put him off my back for the time being, give Taha Muhummad enough time to remove those pictures while Waheed looked into you. He didn't have anything on you, no pictures, no contact details; he couldn't possibly hurt you—"
"Were you born just yesterday, Hana?"
The spiky lump in my throat makes my eyes tear and it's difficult to go on, it is but communication is the key. All this time what Hanaan and I lacked, what Nashwa and Ahmad Mamu lacked was proper communication, a heart to heart talk.
And she's right, the truth, the ugly mirror hurts so sharp, why didn't I think it through? How difficult could it be for a lawyer, for anyone, to get someone's details, find them in this virtual world, when all our lives are so publicly on display?
"I am sorry, Nashwa, for doing wrong by you."
"Is that supposed to make me feel something?"
"I'm sorry," I say one more time. "For assuming you encouraged Hanaan to make that account."
"And how do you know I didn't?"
Communication, I remind myself.
"Hanaan left me voice notes," I whisper. "When you pulled out her tablet from under the shelf, I quickly hid the memory card—" distrust colours her eyes "—and I listened to them after the party. She said a lot of things in it. She said you told her to make an account for herself and blog about her CP but I —" didn't let you complete your sentence that day and slapped you on the face instead.
To be slapped isn't something small. It's an unforgivable attack.
"You judged me too quick, Hana." She looks out the window at the blue sky that glares at me now. "You assumed the worst, quicker than you gave my name away to Waheed and it's not that you put me in danger, I'm not scared of anything, I have absolutely nothing to lose."
Her voice is quiet but she's breathing hard, her chest is rising and falling and it makes my own heart contract tightly in my ribcage.
"But you're not the only one to do so," she continues, voice tearing apart. "Your Mamu was quick to jump to his conclusion that I had something to do with all this." She rolls her eyes around at the mess of files by our feet. "But I'm just Nashwa, trying to help you out of the mess your sister put you in because somewhere in my chest here—" she points to her heart "—I feel guilty for tearing you both apart: Hana and Hanaan."
She looks away again, at the window outside. "And God forbid, if Hanaan doesn't wake up from that damned coma ..."
She laughs, voice strained and my own eyes sting with glass shards of salted tears. "I thought I had buried my heart, didn't give a care in this world but joke's on me." She laughs again and it reverberates through my bones. "I don't just care for Hana and Hanaan, I am also ready to take the bull by its horns for them. That Waheed bloody Qayser of course."
She clears her throat. "Remember when I said I'm good at crimes?"
I nod, swallowing the spikes away.
"Well guess what?" She tucks the loose strands of her curly red hair behind her ear. "Crime Investigator Nashwa Ahmad has returned to her vibe. If Taha Muhammad thinks he can be a private investigator, is Nashwa Ahmad any less?"
Right. Taha Muhammad. Nashwa's competition.
"But I can't go all the way getting a degree in criminology, Hana." She shakes her head at me, trauma in her eyes. "I took sociology as an extra subject in our first year at college and it completely rendered my brain dysfunctional. I love myself too much to allow me that pain again, it's torture to memorise facts, statistics, and sociologist names and their references. I don't have Hanaan's memory, that is just one talent I am short of."
The corner of my mouth twitches up. Nashwa is back to me.
"Yet anyhow—" she does a fabulous hair flip "—I do have a sharp eye for things that don't make sense and mind you, I am still bothered by the fact that Taha Muhammad and Yahya Afaaq are twins. Sure their bond is lovey dovey but that's just it. You know me, I'm an expert at twin psychology because of Uzair and Huzair." She looks meaningfully at me, mentioning Haala Mami's eight year old boys.
"We met Taha and Yahya just once, Nashwa, and you've taken them to your heart—"
"There's something wrong there, I tell you, Hana. I wasn't Fortune Teller for no reason, perhaps that was just Allah's way of showing you all I have the psyche in me. I have curly hair and an attitude, are those not signs already?" She holds both her hands in the air and I realise there's no point in arguing with her.
"But before I uncover their mystery," she iterates yet again. "Family first."
The thing I call a heart in my chest tugs so strongly I want to take her in a hug. I decide against it, not wanting to disrupt her mojo.
"Firstly," Nashwa says walking around me in a circle. "We found Hanaan's tablet under the shelf, broken. It's not an iPad so it's not so fragile like your heart to crack apart from a single fall, it's sturdier than that. How did it break and in this room too?"
She arches a brow at me and the gears in my mind begin to turn too. She continues, "I remember the broken screen no matter how awful my memory may be. It had a linear dent, as though—" she stands by a shelf and pretends to hold a tablet in her hands. She smashes the pretend tablet against the edge of the shelf and releases her hold on it. "Boom! That's what Hanaan did."
I peer back as intensely in Nashwa's eyes.
"Which makes sense because—" Nashwa continues walking in circles around me and I wrap my arms around myself, feeling small. "She didn't fall until the stairs. We should have found her tablet there if it had slipped from her hands then but we found it here instead. Why would Hanaan break her own tablet?"
The centre of my brows throbs with pain but I dare not even blink in case I miss something. Nashwa is making too much sense and unlike the last time when we were here, I am not envious. I am grateful for her.
"I went back to Hanaan's chat with Waheed from the screen recording I made and noted down the file name. He said he wanted Jahanzaib vs Gul Aran case and when Hanaan asked for more details, he said that would be written on the file just go and look for it." Nashwa stops behind me and I feel her too close to me.
She whispers in my ear, "No such file exists."
Goosebumps rise all over my arms. "Nashwa," I breathe out. "Stop being dramatic and say it already, you're making me dizzy."
She scrunches her face in distaste. "You owe me a lot more than an apology, Hana. Some applause for my dramatic flair would be a good reciprocal. Haala Mami threatened to kick me out of her house if I dared pursue theatrics as I so passionately wanted to when I was seven so—" she leans in closer so her eyes are just inches away from me and whispers "— let a girl live her dreams."
I push her away and step back. These wide eyes, dramatic phrases whispered in hushed voices, it's not just Nashwa's style, it's Hanaan's style too. And it tugs at my heartstrings to stand firm against the rush of memories, all the times Hanaan used this trick to emphasise her point — I draw in a ragged breath — I miss her. I miss Hanaan.
"Get to the point, Nashwa."
She eyes me at my sudden coldness. "I looked through enough boxes and enough files to know your father does not tag his files with names, he tags them with dates; the date of case filed, the date of final hearing. Each and every one of them."
I never did pride my father's organisational skills.
"Which is berserk," Nashwa asserts. "Totally insane and illogical for him to do so but then again crazy runs in the family through and through. But it's also nonsensical for Waheed to ask for a file that does not match with any here at all. He was thorough, he said it was an important case, has a detail he needs, your father wouldn't keep it at his office and that he already checked. He ought to have known the real title then, how was Hanaan supposed to find the file otherwise?"
As always, Nashwa is right.
"And that got me thinking perhaps Waheed wasn't after that file, he was after something else." My blood curdles at her words. "Either he was playing a bigger game or a smaller lustful one. He didn't say anything when you agreed to come over to the party to give him the non existent file. Hanaan hadn't yet revealed the file name controversy. He did mention in his last few messages that he and Hanaan should meet someday in real."
Don't say it, Nashwa. Please don't say it.
"What if all this time, he was just after your body?" She says it, no shame, no modesty holding her back. Her eyes go over me before looking away out the window again. "You are a beautiful woman after all."
I look the opposite way, towards Dadi's indoor garden. If I didn't hate my oversized body, all its curves already, I absolutely loathe it now for becoming a man's fantasy and the cause of my sister's distress. I look at Nashwa, she's small; shorter than me, flatter than me, slimmer than me, her chest is small too. And I wish suddenly I was her. Or I didn't have this body. If only I could peel away this skin off me—
Deep breaths, Hana. Deep breaths.
We have to love ourselves to be able to survive.
I'm only fragile if I let adversity shatter me. Just because I am beautiful in some way, I cannot be blamed for another man's lustful needs and desires. No way.
It's difficult to scrape away the thorns in my throat. "Do you think Hanaan had realised that?" I hear her sobbing in my head from her last voice recording: is this going to be my suicide note?
Nashwa's lack of response is a very strong response.
"Nashwa."
"I don't think Hanaan fell, Hana. I think she jumped."
My lungs don't pull in air, the pressure outside crushes my ribcage in, I clutch at my chest, some way or the other, I am the reason behind Hanaan's pain. I pushed her to commit suicide—
Nashwa doesn't look sympathetic, pitying or consoling at all. Her eyes are still bright with fervour. I am grateful anyhow because the mirror I see is just a brick wall and I remind myself to be just as invincible.
But it hits anyhow in an engulfing sea water wave.
Hanaan was already having blackouts in the trauma. She finally crawled up to our father's study. She chose me over our father. She chose to save me from humiliation over our father's potential career failure.
I shudder, my chest trembling as I draw in a breath. And when she realised Waheed was just after me physically, when she realised I couldn't be saved, she didn't think herself worthy of living either, she couldn't think she herself could be saved then. She jumped to possible death knowing suicide is haraam in our religion, that she'll go straight to Hell—
I force my lungs to draw in oxygen.
Oh, Hanaan.
Nashwa starts putting the boxes back in their place.
"And just so you know," she speaks without turning. "I didn't come uninvited, I was at Karachi University early morning today. Went there for one last tour with my Mamu and Mami before enrolling in and then your Dadi called saying she wanted to meet me."
She turns now, clapping the dust off her hands. "At first I thought, being the cupid she is, she had found the perfect match for me, young love forever together but it wasn't so. She wanted to give me some pictures she had of my mother and ... your Mamu."
I notice the delicate golden chain glittering in her slender neck. She started wearing it after our Matric result as we started college. Mama told me it was Zarminah Mami's and that Haala Mami must have passed it over to Nashwa.
Ahmad Mamu's dark past comes to mind that I just uncovered yesterday and I wonder if I should tell Nashwa, but there's also Zimal's actions yet to be revealed upon her.
I ask her instead, "Can I see those pictures?"
"Sure anytime. I gave them back to your Dadi."
"What? Why?"
She shrugs. "What was I supposed to do with them? Mope over them and then wipe my heart's tears and snot with them? My mother's gone, resting in heaven hopefully and my father may not even exist at all for me. So what's the point?"
I imagine her saying all this to my Dadi. "Nashwa. How can you be so heartless?"
She laughs now. "My heart. Might catch me a boy someday." She winks and I hold back my frustration, the urge to slap some real sense in her.
She flicks back a strand of her curly red hair and smirks at me. "Does that frustrate you, Hana? But I'm only feisty and furious as my mother used to be."
I look at her in incredulity. "No, Nashwa. Your mother wasn't feisty or even furious. She was cool and composed, completely chill. Your father was absolutely macho and reckless—"
"Hold it right there." She raises a palm in my face. "Your Ahmad Mamu in his black suits and blood red ties is old news, Hana. No one talks about my mother around here. Haala Mami has only one thing to say and she's never told me anything else. Be like your mother, Nashwa." She imitates her Mami, holding a hand on her supposedly swollen belly. "Punch back harder, take no crap and stomp all over."
My eyes widen. Could Haala Mami really say that to Nashwa?
I shake my head at her. "No, Nashwa. No. Just yesterday I asked my parents. They told me Mamu's loss was great. Your mother kept him in check, he was passionate at loving her but she kept that balanced too by playing hard to get—"
Betrayal sparks in her eyes. "You're lying."
"Why would I?"
Her body tenses. I see every fibre in her freezing. When she has taken her moment to gather her wits, she wraps her chadar tight around herself, grabs me by my wrist and pulls me down the staircase, fast and furious. I don't get to say anything as she pulls me to my room, wraps me in my chadar and pulls me out of my house and to the end of the street where she parked her Laal.
She curses not at her Haala Mami but at the dishonest deceitful duplicitous aurat she is and it hits me again. How can Nashwa be so disrespectful to her Mami like that even in her anger, I could never—
I am reciting all six kalimas as Nashwa thrifts through narrow streets, across speeding traffic and outrunning traffic wardens that don't bother coming after her as though knowing it's Nashwa Ahmad.
We reach her dark and dank apartment complex in no time and again she is pulling me by the wrist all the way up to her apartment on the tenth floor, not patient enough to wait for the elevator. She rings the doorbell nonstop twenty times before Haala Mami opens it, cursing under her own breath. I look at my feet and see a flower bouquet by the doormat. Red roses wrapped in silver foil.
Who's sending flowers at Nashwa's place?
Haala Mami has a hand on her swollen belly again. Anytime now. She catches my eyes first and I stop chewing my bottom lip raw. Her eyes shift to Nashwa's infernos. She rolls her own.
"What is up your problematic brain now?"
My eyes widen. If Nashwa is fired up because of the lies she has been fed, Haala Mami is high on baby hormones and this may just get chaotic— I put a hand on Nashwa's arm, give it a squeeze and speak instead, "Dadi showed Nashwa some pictures of her parents and she wanted to ask—"
"Not you, Hana." Haala Mami throws me a look full of disdain. Her eyes are back on Nashwa, her double chin tilting to scrutinize her further. We are still standing at the door, Haala Mami has not yet let us in. "I didn't raise you to cower behind others. Speak to me yourself, Nashwa."
Ya Allah.
I'm thinking if I should make a dash for it, call the local police first, two ambulances and also fire brigade, then my parents to deal with the collateral damage here.
Nashwa pushes, she actually pushes past eight months plus expecting angry Haala Mami and pulls me along into the apartment. I don't get a chance to take in its messy appearance, perhaps Nashwa did fire the maid after all but that's not what matters now.
"This is my Mamu Jaan's flat." She turns and says to Haala Mami. "I will not wait for you to invite me in."
Haala Mami bares her teeth. "And your weak hearted Mamu Jaan, my very dear husband, takes no decision without my consent and approval first, do you ignore that for your own bliss or need I impose and demonstrate my authority better?"
To Him we belong and to Him we shall return.
"Authority?" Nashwa laughs manically, throwing her head back. "Like all those politicians you curse at the news, what do you call them? That's right. Back stabbing, double faced liars, just as yourself."
Nashwa's gaze could scorch Haala Mami to coal but Haala Mami is Haala Mami, she is made of fire-resistant material.
Thank God the boys are at school otherwise this would have been messier, the twins would be taking sides, mocking the other and twelve year old Zaid would record this on his phone to post on his YouTube channel later: Mai hoo Zaidi aur mere ghar walay fasadi.
"Sticks and stones may hurt my bones," Haala Mami retorts back. "But your words just bounce off this belly of mine, Nashwa. Spit the problem already."
"You lied to me!" She seethes, her entire body shaking. "You lied to me my entire life, telling me my mother was a furiously stubborn woman, that I should be like my mother and punch people back in the face if they dare even say my name with a tone—"
"I did, yes. So what?"
"So what?!" Nashwa shrieks. "I had a right to know my mother the way she was, to choose my own character—"
"So you could be trampled in this cruel world like your mother was?" Haala Mami's voice booms around us and echoes off the walls. "So you, Nashwa, devoid of your father's love and protection, blessed endlessly with his resentment, could be soft like this little white mouse of yours?"
When I realise she has referred to me, a pang hits my chest. I'm not a mouse.
"Just look at her." Haala Mami's eyes are on me and I feel exposed, naked, despite the chadar cloaking me. "Soft, tender, kind and generous, heart out for everyone, but touch her once and she'll crumble to dust. She's hurt right now just because I called her a mouse. Do you honestly think, Nashwa, she will make it past much in her life? You'll wait by the bus station in the heat to go to your university, would she be able to do the same and not prefer her own car? You think she'll slap a tooth off a pervert's jaw when he wolf whistles at her? Or she'll just go home and cry into her blanky instead?"
I feel called out already. I feel insulted, too many people have called me out on my sensitivity and it's not okay with me. Am I really so weak? Would I really not make it past my twenties as Mamu said? Is my future a hollow empty harassed shell? Like this cold carcass I am now?
Nashwa is also looking at me. Why doesn't she say something?
Is this how she felt when Zimal black mouthed her to Waheed?
I hate myself. I hate me. Why didn't I slap Zimal for saying those awful things?
"But she can afford to be so," Haala Mami continues. "Because unlike your poor orphaned head, Nashwa, she not only has the protection of a father firm in courts but also your father. Your father who wouldn't put a hand on your miserable head in concern when you were three crying for your mother and crying for him to take you in his arms." She shakes her head, pitying.
"I took you in Nashwa, I clothed you and fed you as my own, I did not let any man or woman say a word against you, not even my mother and sisters whom I now keep a distance from because I hold you dearer to me than I hold them. Because you, Nashwa—" she points a finger at Nashwa's chest "—don't even have your own Mamu Jaan's protection over your head. Allah had to give me a husband with a heart softer than Hana's and a blood pressure problem. I identify the snakes at his office for him, I protect him despite him being a man and trust me, a man is needed in this society, he is. Allah Himself made man the protector of women and I will not have any feminist try proving me otherwise."
Nashwa's cheek is streaked with tears and I haven't ever seen her sob before, not when I slapped her, not when she mused about Ahmad Mamu to me in the car back from his office. But she's crying now. A hiccup escapes her mouth and she wipes at her tears. I don't see hurt in her blazing brown eyes. I see terror.
"You are a forsaken sheep in this slaughterhouse, Nashwa. I have done my best to protect you but if you think you do not need my protection, then I will gladly shed your burden off my shoulders—"
"Stop, please!" I don't know where my voice comes from, perhaps from the memory of Nashwa defending me in Ahmad Mamu's office or perhaps from the care I hold in my heart for Nashwa because she is not forsaken, she is not!
Haala Mami shakes her head at me, I reach over to Nashwa's wrist, pull her out like she pulled me out of my house because this is all I can do. I'm not as strong as her to talk boldly against an elder, the way she talked to Mamu, to Yahya, to Taha Muhammad.
I'm not Nashwa, I am indeed timid, fragile Hana. But I will not let anyone crush down Nashwa the way this world so often crushes me.
I push her into the driver's seat of her car and sit beside her in the passenger seat. Nashwa lets her forehead drop onto the steering wheel, as she clutches it, sobbing and crying out and my heart wrenches in pain to watch her curled body shuddering under such turmoil, such distress.
She keeps muttering under her breath: I'm a forsaken sheep in a slaughterhouse. No father, no Mamu, no protector over me. Forsaken sheep. I'm a forsaken sheep.
And now I have put Waheed after her too.
All those things Hanaan said about Nashwa in her voice note that I didn't feel so heart touching, they hold my heart in a clenched fist and I may just become a heart patient myself in these few days.
But oh, Nashwa.
She takes her time to calm down, to get over the storm, to go through it first. She tells me she'll take on my Ahmad Mamu now, right by his horns, she's in the aura, the stars are aligned for her. I don't know what to say so when she puts the keys in ignition, I tell her, "Maybe she wasn't talking about your mother as in Zarminah Mami."
"What a blasphemy!" Nashwa sniffles, nose deep red. "Did your Mamu have a side chick, Hana, and I'm his child through her instead?"
I don't bother to roll my eyes at her attempt of using sarcasm and dark humour to cover up for her own fragility. "Haala Mami would tell you: Be like your mother, Nashwa. Punch back harder, take no crap and stomp all over."
I laugh, my own tears in my eyes.
Nashwa's eyes widen and she laughs with me. "Did she not just do that to me?" She wipes away a stray tear, catching onto what I mean. "She wanted me to be like herself." She is shaking her head and sobbing again. "Like the mother she has been to me this whole time."
I smile back at her through the pain. "Not so forsaken, are you?"
But why? Why is it always the ones who love us that hurt us the most?
let's agree on two things: Nashwa is LOVE and Hana is unlikely to live with hurting someone, she will ALWAYS make up for it. yes, your two favourite boys make an appearance next chapter although if they end up paving their own paths in life and beyond, do NOT blame me XD that's all im saying, woops.
p.s: i live for rainbow socks but sadly, i don't own any *sniffles*
all the love, 𝓂𝒶𝓃𝒶𝒽𝒾𝓁.