A walk on thorns

Chapter 1| The Melancholy

Anisha's POV

There’s a strange, hollow soundtrack that plays in the background of real life sometimes, almost like something out of a movie. It's a sound you can't quite hear, but you can feel it, a lingering, pensive melody swelling inside, like an orchestra whispering to you that it's okay to fall apart. And here I am, leaning into that sound as I stare at my reflection, running my hand over the faint and faded scars on my skin. Each mark is a story I’d rather not remember. Each bruise, each line, they’re chapters of a life that’s all mine and yet feels so far away from me. My fingers trace a scar on my lap, the one he left there with a screwdriver. That one was because I brought him his pancakes three minutes late. Three minutes.

A week. It’s been a week since he last touched me, and I don’t know what to make of it. It’s the longest stretch I’ve gone without his anger, and it’s a fragile kind of peace. I haven’t told him about the baby yet. The thought sticks in my throat, sharp and impossible. He’ll find out soon, though. Dr. Mas’ud will probably tell him, and I just pray he doesn’t tell Hajiya first. If Hajiya finds out, if she gets that smug look of "I told you so" on her face… it’s over for me. She’ll make sure of that. And the choice keeps looping in my mind, face him with this news or let him hear it from someone else? Either way, it feels like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff.

But that’s not even the biggest problem right now. Sabrina’s coming tomorrow. Sabrina, with her sharp eyes and her way of seeing right through me. She’s eighteen now, not a little girl who’ll believe a story about slipping in the bathroom. Maybe I’ll tell her I was in an accident. Yes, that’s it, I got in an accident. Sabrina’s staying for three months. If I’m lucky, he’ll behave while she’s here, at least enough to keep her off my back. She doesn’t need to know. She can’t know. Rubina, at least, will keep quiet. She always does.

Oh God, Rubina! I glance at the clock, it’s 1:30. I’m half an hour late to pick her up from school. My poor baby. I can only imagine the tears welling up in her big, trusting eyes.

I pull myself together, moving fast, ignoring the ache that’s become as familiar as my own heartbeat. But today, the pain feels different, sharper somehow. As I make my way out to the car, I feel something warm and wet trickling down my leg. There’s a fierce pain building in my lower abdomen, and every step takes more effort than the last. My eyes search the compound for Malam Hamza, the house driver, but he’s nowhere to be found.

I feel my strength slipping away. The pain only grows, gnawing its way through me with every heartbeat. Blood is seeping down my leg now, staining my dress. The thought of Rubina, alone at school, waiting for me, propels me forward. I can’t think, I can barely see straight. Somehow, I get into the car and force myself to drive, gripping the wheel until my knuckles turn white. The road blurs in front of me, and I nearly sideswipe two cars on the way. The pain is relentless, each second stretching into an eternity.

Finally, I pull into Green-City Hospital. Somehow, I force myself out of the car, but by the time my feet touch the ground, everything goes black. The last thing I remember is the feeling of blood-soaked fabric against my skin, the muffled voices around me as the world slips away.

And in that last moment, I hear it again, that silent, haunting soundtrack. Only this time, it’s a crescendo. A final note, loud and certain, like an ending.

Two and half hours later

The world around me was a haze as I awoke, slowly piecing together the sterile white walls and the distant hum of machines. I was in a hospital room, lying on a bed, my body feeling like it weighed a thousand pounds. The clock on the wall read four o’clock. My heart raced. Rubina must have been waiting, and dread washed over me as I thought of what might happen if the school had called Mukhtar.