Cry of the Unbroken ✓

✒ B R I T T L E

Fun fact: originally this was supposed to 3 parts and 10k story. Then I started writing and it became 5 parts. Now, I'm finishing off at 7 parts and am at around 15k. 😅

TW: Mentions self-harm. Don't read what's marked between //  TW // if it makes you uncomfortable. 

♦

His earliest memory is of him sitting in his father's lap with the lull of recitation ringing in his ears, broken by the occasional puttering about of his mother in the kitchen.

Ahsan thought this was why his place of comfort lay in the recitation of the Qur'an. Every Ramadhan before Asr, his father would sit by the window in the living room and do his daily recitation. In the mornings, his mother would do her recitation and tasbeehat.

When his lost them both, he would turn on some recitation, put on his earphones, and burrow himself within mounds of blankets on the bed. If he closed his eyes, he could almost pretend the warmth around him were the hugs of his beloved mother and father.

(Until someone ripped the blankets off him, returning him to this reality which had not the comfort of parents.)

His uncle's family never understood why the first months after his parents' janaazah, his ears with covered by headphones. He couldn't stand a world which didn't have his father reciting in the background.

Ahsan's father was the youngest in the family, as such only he had the opportunity to study the full Alim course and graduate. His mother, while not having graduated, had enough knowledge to embed the love of Qur'an and Sunnah in Ahsan's mind. There had always been a little invisible barrier between them and the remaining extended family.

Ahsan never understood the times his father would burrow his head in his mother's lap to seek comfort after yet another fight of not attending a family wedding.

He understood everything when he began living with them.

A form of solace came in the evening maktabs. Surrounded once again by the lull of recitation, his heart could find calmness in the murky waves of the ocean of his life. They could never replace the hum of his father's baritone, nor the melody of his mother's tone.

But it was enough.

It was enough.

Until he lost even that.

♦

So, when he heard Kate leaving his room, he fished out his phone, plugged in his earphones and blasted on some recitation. When all else failed to give him peace of mind, his habit of falling into his safe haven returned.

When he woke up next morning, there was a tentative message from Masroor praying for his good health and an apology.

Ahsan ignored it.

Logically, he knew it wasn't Masroor's fault. The man had asked him repeatedly if he could ask a question. It was his own fault for getting too comfortable, too familiar and forgetting the dirt scraping underneath his skin.

Forgetting that someone like him shouldn't be associating with someone so untarnished and pure like his former maktab teacher.

So, he ignored Masroor's message and apology, and all the messages after that. Not that it stopped the man from spamming him. It was like the beginning once again, Masroor would drop random messages throughout the day about anything ranging from quotes to whining to a play-by-play of his job questing.

He increased the time spent in the bathroom, scrubbing his body raw, ignoring all of Kate's attempt to broach the topic. In the end, Kate started leaving him alone, giving him his own space. She left all his meals aside, prepped and ready to be eaten.