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━━━ ONE family, made and unmade
The smell of polish had gotten suffocating, its metallic tang carving the onslaught of a headache into her temple. She had to open the window, letting the fumes of the broom polish and desperation waft into the open.
Raya relaxed her fingers, curving them into a fist and releasing them again. Her fingers were stained with the light brown of the polish, now resting on the immaculately white windowsill, paint peeling off its frames.
Just a window down was her sister's room━some artist's vocals blaring through the open window. It was the same song. Every time. She'd heard it so many times that she could have sworn that she had the lyrics tattoed into her memory and she could recall it anytime if she ever had to. It made her sick.
To drown down the music, Raya wandered back to her room. At the center of the floor, on the faded carpet, sat her broom━a Nimbus 1500 ━something that she used to be immensely proud of, something that she had saved for ever since she first came across it when it was displayed in Quality Quidditch Supplies in Diagon Alley, marveled by grown-ups and children alike. Like everything else, its splendor had worn off with time, replaced by newer models. Raya kept it, cursing herself for the tiny hint of jealousy she felt whenever she saw someone with a better model. So, she resorted to doing everything that could hide the tell-tale signs of wear.
The carpet, the tattered old carpet, was now spoiled with spots of light brown staining it. She had decided that she'd turn it over once the polish dried. She could imagine her mother's look of anger if she were to find out━her expression pinched, her lips reducing into a thin line.
The air around her slowly started getting cleaner, losing its heavy stench of polish. Outside, Aylin's vinyl still played. Every high-pitched note added to her frustration, and every metal sound from the guitar took a toll on her. The headache was getting worse.
She got up, closing the window a bit more harshly than she meant to. It shut with a loud slam, one that was sure to resonate around their house, especially audible to her mother, just below her room in the kitchen.
Now the stuffy scent of the polish lingered in the room and Raya decided to stomach it.
Around her, the room seemed to be closing in━with its walls of red, the paper peeling off here and there, showing the bare walls that were glamoured with an ornate wallpaper that was accustomed to her mother's taste━with its posters of Holyhead Harpies, dark green with an emblazon of a gold talon, wrinkled and contrasting with the red of the walls, a reminder of her mother's warning that it might look horrible. And it did. Their mother was never wrong.
