Sevgilim & Hayalim

Chapter 2

It was quite a day. Erum felt like she had seen the sunlight for the first time. Why shouldn't she? She had been sleeping for two whole years. And haven't seen anything too.

She was sitting in the car which Enayat was driving. Her gaze was out on the far-stretched fields. The greenery was also feeling new to her. The clouds were beautiful. It felt as if they were welcoming her.

Just then, a truck passed by their car, and in a second, the memories of that night came back rushing.
The headlights.
The hit.
The big jolt.
The hard pavement.
The warm blood.
The figure.
And the words.
'Both of you were burdens.'

Erum felt a sudden headache. The words started ringing in her head. Her heart raced rapidly. Her breathing came out in shallow gasps. Her body sweating.
She can't breathe.
She can't move.
She can-

"Erum? Are you okay?!" Dua who has been holding her hand the whole time, immediately looked at her and spoke.
Erum didn't responded, she gripped Dua's hand and held it tightly.

"Is everything alright?! Should I pull over??" Enayat asked looking back through the rear mirror.

"I-it's fine.." Erum finally spoke, her voice barely audible, "I'm alright."

"Are you sure?" Enayat spoke, her concern clearly visible.

Erum nodded slightly.

Dua squeezed her hand gently, her concern not entirely masked by Erum's attempt at reassurance.

"You don't look alright," she whispered, her brow furrowed as she glanced at her friend's pale face.

Enayat caught their exchange in the rearview mirror, her knuckles whitening as she gripped the steering wheel tighter.

She slowed the car, her voice firm but kind. "We're stopping. Just for a moment."

Without waiting for an answer, she pulled to the side of the road, the vast fields stretching out on either side of them, offering a kind of quiet Erum couldn't seem to grasp.

The car came to a halt, and the silence inside felt heavy.

"Erum..." Dua started, her voice tentative. "You don't have to hide it. Whatever it is... whatever you're feeling, we're here."

Erum swallowed hard, her eyes still fixed on the clouds, her body rigid. She wanted to say something, to let them in, but the words stuck in her throat like they always had.

She was never good at sharing her pain-especially not this pain.
She was a resilient woman.
A strong woman.
A woman who could face any storm without breaking, who always knew how to pick herself up after every fall.

That's what everyone saw when they looked at Erum. She was the one who held it all together, the one people leaned on when life got tough.

Her smile never wavered, her voice never trembled. She was always composed, always in control.

A pillar.
A force.
A survivor.

But inside, the weight of it all was suffocating her. Every hardship she had endured left another scar, and those scars were starting to feel too deep to heal.

The memories of that night-not the headlights, not the hit, not the pavement but the words, the words spoken by that figure she had no idea of-weren't just flashes in her mind; they were wounds that hadn't stopped bleeding.

She was supposed to be stronger than this.
Stronger than the fear.
Stronger than the pain.

Yet, here she was, feeling fragile, like the woman she had always been wasn't enough anymore. And that terrified her.