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...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
~ Daffodil (flower): Hope ~
I wake up feeling like my brain is splitting open.
I turn to the side and register the glaring neon 2:47 AM at my bedside table. Groaning, I push myself up into a sitting position, immediately massaging my head when the blood rushes to it.
It feels as if someone has taken my skull and pressed until the bones have cracked.
I shove the covers aside and stumble out of my room, steadying myself against the wall as I head downstairs. I have to pause multiple times to close my eyes, massage my temples, and take deep, heaving breaths to combat the headache.
Once I finally reach the kitchen, I rifle through the contents of the medicine basket and pull out migraine chewables.
I have a very hard time swallowing pills (I think I've swallowed a total of two pills in my life, and it took me way longer than it should have both times) so I have to resort to syrups, kids' medicines, and chewables.
Not as effective, but beggars can't be choosers.
Arafat used to scold me about it all the time. He said that most pills were rendered ineffective if I crushed them in water (which I tried doing to make them easier to swallow) and that most adult medicines came in the form of pills, so sooner or later I would have to learn to swallow them.
The two times I managed to swallow a pill, it had been because he sat me down for twenty minutes and instructed me exactly how to do it to make it easier. "Relax," he would say. "I know you're scared because you think you'll choke, but you won't. I promise. We chew and swallow even larger items on a daily basis without any issue." He had tapped my temple. "It's all in your head." He moved his hand to point at my throat. "There's no issue down here."
I told him that by the time I would need to swallow solely adult medicines, he would become a big shot doctor and would have figured out an alternative for me.
I sigh deeply, popping the pill in my mouth. I chew for a couple seconds, eyes roving around the dark kitchen.
The knowledge that Arafat and Aneela wanted to get married has shaken me to the core. On top of that, finding out after his death and being unable to talk to him about it kills me.
That, and the fact that he didn't get the chance to tell me the news himself before he died.
The sound of an engine outside the house jars me out of my painful thoughts. I head to the window, peering at the street just as a car drives by.
Isn't that...Mikaal's car?
I glance at the wall clock and am hit by a jolt of shock. It's 2:55 A.M. Did Mikaal just get home?
I don't know what that man does, but his hospital shifts are crazy. Even when Arafat was still alive, the two would often discuss their hospital shifts, and Mikaal's always sounded extra exhausting.
