WrongSufferedAtHands

5.

The nighttime was apparently getting balmy, the wind seemed soothing and cozy roughly equivalent to the winter's freezing air. It wasn't that unbelievably hot for Afiyah to sweat under the ceiling fan. But there she was, anxiously sweating as she awaited Sameer's arrival.

It was quarter past three a.m., and the howl of stray dogs shattered the silence of the night. She would shift and turn in her bed, pace all around patio, or even peer through the cracks of the door, praying he'd return.

When her father inquired about Sameer, Afiyah chose to lie once more. She shrugged off his queries, claiming that he had customers to see till midnight.

The mental anguish came to an abrupt end when Afiyah overheard the clicking of the latch, she scampered up. When Sameer tried to enter the room, Afiyah winced upon seeing a trembling Sameer, he was sweating with no restrains, his perms damped and draping over his face. Her breath was caught in her lungs as she beheld his ferocity. The way he peered down at Afiyah gave her cold chills. He had to cling to the door frame for stability, but he continued to wobble to the front.

Afiyah raced up to him and demanded to know whether he was okay. Sameer had broken down in tears while hugging her, and she had embraced him. His tears flowed down as if pearls dripping from a wrecked necklace. As she laid Sameer down on the bed, Afiyah's throat clogged and her eyes stung.

"She's gone," He tells her.

He mindlessly repeated that phrase where Afiyah kept on asking, "Who?"

"She'll never come back to me." He whispered one last time before falling asleep.

Afiyah was befuddled and wounded, and her heart wrenched as she stared at her once-smiling and upbeat brother, who was already in tears and appeared to have been broken to the core. She hoped to see that devoted and warm smile on his face once more.

As if an arrow effectively cutting through the wind, the weekend whizzed by. "What are you up to, Sameer?" Afiyah had asked him as they stood on the verge of the highway lane.

"Nothing, why are so concerned all of a sudden." He amused as he fetched something from his pocket that appeared to be a cigarette and a firelighter. The thunder of vehicles behind them seemed to be drowned out by the snap of the firelighter.

She didn't say a word as she studied him direct the flames to the cigarette's tip; the smoke blasted out like the clouds, fading into pure nothingness.

"You knew?" he said, smiling at her.

"I'm not stupid; I'm well aware of everything you're up to."

Afiyah suspected Sameer smoked since he reeked of tobacco every night, and her suspicions were confirmed when she discovered a burnt leftover of a cigarette within the trashcan. He was doing something crazy, she could tell.

"Can you tell me who she is?"

Sameer locked his attention on her, looking for an explanation to her inquiry.

"I absolutely cannot bear it when you come home in the dark and cry for her, who is she? Why are you so fixated on her? Why is it that she is the only woman that leaps into your mind when you lose your sensory perception?"

Sameer stared intently down at the meadow where they were standing. He expelled the smoke as he finished his cigarette, crushing the stub beneath his boots.

"She was everything to me... She is everything to me. I've never imagined a day without her, and yet here I am, totally broken by the awakening that she's gone."

"Where? Where did she go?" She wondered.

"She got married." He chuckled, a sort of sound that was tinged with agony. He lowered his head, but he couldn't conceal the salty tears that were welling up in his eyes. He appeared to be on the verge of shattering.