Eighteen-year-old Hayat Amanullah has it all: a loving family, a carefree life, and a future at the Ivy League school of her dreams. But her perfect life shatters when her oldest brother suddenly dies in a car accident. The tight-knit Amanullah fami...
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~ White periwinkle (flower): Pleasures of memory ~
I end up being a coward and submitting the Rallie application with my old essay about flowers.
When I read through it once more before hitting the submit button, I scoff in disbelief at how the girl in the essay is nothing like me. She's passionate, excited, and full of life. Her love for her passion oozes out of the words of the essay.
So contradictory to today's Hayat Amanullah.
Once I'm finally relieved of this application burden, I shut my laptop lid and rub my eyes. My gaze falls on the window overlooking the terrace, sunlight streaming across the wooden planks.
Before I have time to overthink it, I pull open the sliding door and step out onto the terrace.
And then I remember why I always avoid coming here.
The place has become a graveyard. Wilted flowers, old soil, cracked plant pots. The plants in the greenhouse have lost all their color and luster, drooping over from being neglected for so long. The wicker lawn chairs are cracked in some areas, threatening to fall apart.
I fold my arms and sigh.
Once, the first thing I used to do every morning was take care of my plants. After brushing my teeth and praying fajr, and right before eating breakfast. I would skip down the stairs and spend half an hour outside tending to them. Sometimes sweat would bead at my forehead, and I would have to tie my hair back in a bandanna and wipe the back of my hand along my brows. But I wouldn't stop.
Because those plants? They were my lifeline. My pride. My comfort. I know not many people were as lucky as I was to have barely any worries in the world and be able to dedicate all their free time to a purpose which meant so much to them. Which is why I never took it for granted. Always carefully watered my plants, tended to them, bought new soil and plant pots to change up the look every now and then. I even bought cute little frames related to flowers and gardening, which I hung all around the terrace. I also stuck cute, corny gardening-related Post-It notes to clippers on the clothesline, which extended from the entrance of the terrace all the way to the far end of it.
And since I insisted on taking care of the garden all on my own, sometimes during a trial and error phase flowers would wilt. But if they weren't environmentally harmful while dead, I wouldn't dispose of them. I would keep some of them — like roses — in my journals and books, so that every time I opened them I would be reminded of how hard I worked and it would bring a smile to my face.
God, I was so damn proud of that garden. And everybody — even if they knew nothing else about me — knew this. That's why, oftentimes Ihsaan would sneak out to the terrace and write something stupid on the Post-Its or mess with the plants, which earned him cries of protest from me and scoldings from Arafat. But God, he loved getting under my skin. So the more I protested, the more his eyes lit up with mischief. And the more Arafat tried to coax us two into not ripping each other's heads off.
Thinking of that Ihsaan now brings such a searing ache to my heart that I'm forced to clutch my chest, gasping for breath.
Ihsaan was the most goofy, irresponsible person I knew. Arafat worked at the clinic and was set to become a doctor, so Ihsaan always teased him about being the family favorite and the apple of everyone's eyes. It was a joke, obviously, since the two brothers were incredibly close and my parents never discriminated amongst us, no matter what we all decided to do with our lives. But nonetheless, Ihsaan decided his role in our family was to be the clown who made us all stumble over our breaths with laughter. The son who whispered jokes in my parents' ears all the time, distracting them from whatever they were preoccupied with and making them shake their heads or chuckle merrily. The brother who made Arafat and I either howl with laughter or gang up against him to teach him a lesson.
But this Ihsaan? This quiet, secretive Ihsaan who doesn't want anyone to worry and takes his responsibilities very seriously and treats me like an adult?
