Accepting You

Chapter Six

Yusuf had a lot of experience with guilt.

He felt it whenever he tried to unburden himself to his family and added a few more sentences than they would've liked to hear. 

When he watched his mum wear her uniform and prepare for work, he would make promises with it. 

Whenever he dusted the house and swept a cloth over his father's radio, guilt would hum the ignored ringtone of his father's eldest sister.

Despite Yusuf's experience with guilt, he still didn't fully understand it.

Every time Yusuf thought he had gotten to know it, and believed that the feeling had become a mutual friend instead of an acquaintance, it would change its form or attach itself to another feeling.

Anger, sadness and anxiety tended to be the most common. They were also feelings Yusuf believed he was capable of controlling.

But this time was different. Something unfamiliar to Yusuf had attached to his guilt towards Asiya, and he was struggling to control whatever it was.

He didn't feel guilty about the staircase incident. It had been four weeks since then. Yusuf felt guilty about his aunt's words and how he had said nothing to combat them.

It didn't matter that Asiya didn't know about them. 

He knew. 

Sitting with those thoughts like he had sat at his dinner table with his aunt after she had spat out such rhetoric made him feel as though he had been an accomplice to her crime.

He could say something now, and he wanted to say something to Asiya. Something that could absolve him without implicating him.

He had thought about apologising to Asiya. If she asked why he was apologising, he could say it was because of the staircase incident, but then he would be lying. Lies led to guilt.

He had thought about being honest, but Asiya would probably hate him afterwards, and he didn't want her to. He didn't want her to believe he thought that way.

Yusuf inwardly groaned.

Whoever said telling the truth would set one free was wrong. 

It was mentally consuming. 

The truth just increased the distance one could fly. Lengthened the chains they were shackled with, giving the illusion of freedom while still keeping them a prisoner to it.

But he needed to say something fast because Asiya was becoming a distraction.

Yusuf lowered his gaze but found himself lifting it when Asiya was around. He would steal a look whenever she entered their history classroom, and he secretly searched for her as he pushed his way through the crowded hallways between his lesson periods.

His mind was so distracted it was becoming unreliable. It would put a mask of Asiya's face on other people's, making Yusuf want to go after them.

Asiya had barely taken a hundred steps around Yusuf, but she had already walked a thousand miles in his mind.

Yusuf opened the door to the sixth form library and gripped the strap of his backpack.

Asiya was in the library. Her eyes locked on her laptop screen. Her fingers tapping against her keyboard.

Yusuf stood at the entrance of the door. This was his chance to apologise and selfishly rid himself of the guilt that was following him.

His tongue had been burning to say something to her, but now that it could, Yusuf pinned it to the floor of his mouth, averted his gaze and walked past her to find a seat.