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Chapter 7

*unedited*

Aliyah sat up on the hard, uncomfortable bed, groaning as she rubbed the soreness in her back. She glanced around the dimly lit shelter that had been her home for the past six months, the walls bare and cold, the air thick with the scent of old food and disinfectant.

It wasn’t much, but it was something—something she never thought she’d have to settle for. She sighed deeply, her thoughts weighing heavily on her.

For the past four years, she’d been drifting from shelter to shelter, sometimes forced to sleep in alleyways or abandoned houses when the shelters were full or the nights were too dangerous. The instability had become a cruel norm.

She couldn’t bring herself to complain, though. She knew this was the life she had chosen, the life she had built for herself. It was her fault her decisions that led her here, one mistake after another. But even so, sometimes she couldn’t stop herself from wondering: What if?

What if she hadn’t agreed to his plan, the one that set everything in motion? What if she had left, run to her family, and told them about everything that had been happening the lies, the manipulation, the fear? What would her life be like now? Would it be different, or was this the inevitable outcome, no matter what choices she made?

She already knew the answers to the questions that haunted her. Her fate would have likely been the same if not worse.

If she had run to her family, told them everything, it wouldn’t have spared them. Her sister, her mother they would have been hurt, or worse, tortured, just as she had been.

She had no choice but to comply, to play the part in the twisted game they were trapped in. The thought of her family suffering because of her choices cut deeper than anything else.

But as much as it pained her to be hated by her family, that wasn’t what truly tore at her heart. The worst of it all.the ache she could never seem to escape was the rejection from her twin. Her other half.

The person she had been connected to since birth, the one person who knew her better than anyone. They had shared everything growing up, inseparable in their bond.

And now, to know that she was hated by the one person who was supposed to understand her more than anyone else it hurt more than she could ever put into words.

The emptiness of that distance was sharper than any pain she had ever known.

Even though she didn’t regret the decisions she’d made, she would have traded anything to see her sister heartbroken over a man rather than seeing her lifeless body lowered into the ground.

The thought of her sister suffering because of her choices was a burden she carried daily, but the alternative losing her in any other way would have been unbearable.

Honestly, she hated her "family." They had never once bothered to listen to her side of the story. Instead, they turned their backs on her when she needed them most, ignoring her cries for help and throwing her away like she meant nothing to them.

That betrayal, that abandonment, was what stung the most. It was a wound that had never fully healed.

"Mommy!" The voice of her seven-year-old son snapped her out of her dark thoughts. She looked up and immediately smiled, the warmth in her heart pushing away the heaviness that lingered.

"Hey, baby, where were you?" she asked, her voice soft and gentle as she reached out to pick him up, pulling him onto the bed beside her. His small body curled into hers, and for a moment, the world outside the shelter felt a little less cold.

"Look, Ms. Gina gave me ice cream!" he exclaimed, holding up his fudge bar with the brightest, most proud smile on his face.

Aliyah’s heart warmed as she smiled down at her son. Seeing him happy, even in the midst of everything, was everything to her.