Accepting You

Chapter Sixty

Beads of paint splattered from Asiya's paintbrush as it fell out of her grip.

Her phone had pinged. Her phone had pinged, and the sound had sent bullets of electricity raining through her heart.

Her phone had pinged, and Asiya had abandoned everything, including her self-respect, to answer it. She had sought it out like she was an addict, and it was her drug. She had left Yusuf's side at the painting table and skittered across the room to the peg where it was resting in her jacket pocket.

Her phone had pinged, and Asiya hated how her fingers twitched and trembled with desperation. How heat warmed through her neck and ears. Asiya hated how her heart felt like liquid and as though it was pooling at her feet when she shoved her hands into the lining of her coat and wrenched out her phone.

Her phone had pinged with an announcement that wasn't worthy of one.

Asiya fondled her phone between her hands for a few more minutes, as though the reply she wanted was still being transported through fragments of a technological atmosphere that she didn't understand.

She waited longer than she should've before she released her phone back into her pocket and returned to the table.

Now that notifying chimes were no longer pulsing through Asiya's space, there was enough room for her frustration to elbow into it.

"You okay?" Yusuf asked as Asiya loudly scraped her chair closer to the table.

"Mhm," Asiya sounded, but her mind was a busy hive, filtering through her feelings and spinning out thoughts she wished she could easily turn into plans and actions like well-oiled cogs.

"Did she reply?"

Asiya picked up her paintbrush, opened her mouth and then grimaced.

It had been over a week since Yusuf's confession. It had been over a week since Asiya had messaged Sarah and asked to chat. It had been three days since Olivia had visited home and bumped into Sarah in the shops, who was looking bright, and the flash of her phone screen with a call as she said goodbye to Olivia had glowed even brighter.

Sarah had made it clear she didn't want to talk to Asiya.

Yet Asiya still snatched her phone from its resting position whenever it pinged. She refreshed her social media apps as though the ever-turning wheel would eventually buffer into a profile picture of her old friend. Asiya opened and closed her messages as though her digital inbox was a door she had forgotten to leave unlocked, even though the other person had the key.

"I'll take that as a no." Yusuf's voice was flat. No different from the one he had used to voice his opinions and predictions on the situation previously. His predictions were also no different to the outcome.

"I just don't understand," Asiya confessed. "I just want to understand. I don't want an apology from her. I want an explanation. A reason. Why?"

Those three letters were claws in Asiya's heart, tearing deeper into it with every unanswered and unacknowledged second.

Asiya wanted to forget. Asiya wanted to move on, but how could she move on without a reason for Sarah's actions? How could her heart be expected to heal and forget the betrayal of someone who used to take up so much space in it without understanding why?

"It's out of your control. You can't make her give you an explanation."

"I know," Asiya nodded. But stubbornness was tucked in the corners of her words, and desperation mangled her voice.

Didn't she deserve a reply? Didn't she deserve to know why?

After all, it was her life Sarah had inserted herself into. It was Asiya's relationship that Sarah had tried to tear apart. It was Asiya's future Sarah had tried to erase.