Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is shattered
And the blue stars shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
"How was school?" Her mother asked amidst the scrapes of forks against plates.
"It was good." Her younger brother Ibrahim mumbled once he had chewed and swallowed his food. His mother had forced polite manners upon them from before they could even walk.
"And you Tasneem?" She could feel his stare upon her from across the table. It made her itch yet she didn't know if she could ever scratch it away. It felt as if she was itching from the inside out and nothing she did could stop it.
"It was fine." Her eyes flitted to her mother for an inch of a second before she looked back down at her plate.
"Good," thus, signifying the end of all conversation.
Should she?
She looked back up at him to see him looking down at his plate. She would never do it if his eyes were upon her.
"They had a memorial for Ashlynn." His fork scraped against his plate but she was not brave enough to look at him.
Her mother gently set her fork down before taking a sip of water. "That is not appropriate dinner conversation," she said stiffly. "You should know better."
"Sorry," she said softly. She could feel her legs shake as she looked at his hands from across the table. His knuckles had become white around his fork. He was so angry with her. She loathed that brief moment of bravery that descended upon her as a heavy cloud that wrapped around her yet left her feeling a bigger coward than before.
Sleep had found her.
It was a short, beautiful, dreamless sleep that had settled upon her as flowers upon grass. It was short and fleeting as the wind that carried those flowers away leaving only thorns in its wake.
He's here
Her eyes were wrenched open as his weight settled upon her bed.
She jumped back yet he halted her movements as he muffled her shriek with his big hand.
"Shh..." His thumb ran along her jaw, caressing it slowly. Every vein in her body seemed to dilate in fear, making way for the rushing blood that pulsated throughout her being. She had forgotten how to blink, talk, move as he continued to smooth his finger over her jaw.
"If I ever hear that name from your lips," He had moved so close he could feel her heartbeat, "I'll kill you."
She couldn't breathe. Panic settled over her as a heavy hand pressing over her chest. Her lungs cried out for the sweet kiss of oxygen as a starved lover would cry out for his beloved. She needed to breathe yet she didn't know how.
"Understand?" His lips were so close to her ear that she could feel the breaths he stole from her dance around her neck.
She was frozen in a moment of sheer fright as she felt his other hand inch closer to her on the bed.
"Understand?" His hand over her mouth seemed to tighten its grip as its owner shook her head causing her teeth to chatter.
She could only nod, her eyes never leaving him for even the split of a second.
"Good." He kissed her cheek leaving her feeling dirty and impure. "Go to sleep."
He stood up and walked away- and in that moment Tasneem knew that he meant every word.
He really would kill her.
Every moment of frozen panic seemed to return to its wretched owner as her body began shaking faster than she could comprehend. She couldn't see ahead of her; tears blinding her as they leaked out of her eyes cleansing her body of the fear and disgust and loathing that seemed to settle over her only seconds before.
Her own brother would kill her...
He would do more than kill her.
He would break her in every way and only when she lie there shattered, her every breath reeking of fear and helplessness begging to be released... Only then would he kill her.
...
What was wrong with her?
Riaz looked at the girl next to him, looking at a shell of who she was the day before. What had happened to her in the past 24 hours that seemed to have dug out her soul from the very depths of her heart only to leave her looking so lifeless?
He didn't know why he even cared?
She just looked so much like his mother that it almost frightened him.
Her eyes were lifeless. They were dead. They were only capable of sight yet not of understanding and this knowledge shook him to his very core. It could only mean that someone had stolen her life from her. Her pretty soul had been crushed like a beautiful, glimmering, free butterfly under a muddy boot.
It scared him yet he couldn't fathom why.
Are you okay?
He tossed the little square note onto her desk. He wanted to look away. Her vacant stare petrified him... but he had to look. He had to return the smile that she had borrowed him.
She looked down at the note as it grazed at her arm, shaking her head of the musty sense of emptiness that seemed to have overwhelmed it.
Was she okay?
Was she okay with being so deadly afraid of her brother that she found no peace in the darkness of the night? Was she okay with having the sweet release of sleep evade her for so many years that she had forgotten how it felt to dream unbroken dreams?
Her brother wanted to kill her.
He wanted to kill her.
Riaz could see it. He could see the tear that clung to her eyelash as she looked down at the note, trying so hard to understand the question. He knew it... knew it as he knew how to breathe.
She was just like him.
She was the broken toy that no one knew was broken till they saw the crack right at the bottom. They stood on the shelf as if they belonged with the others yet their eyes had been painted just a shade duller than the rest. They were seemingly perfect till they were picked up... and for so long he thought he was the only one.
But there she was.
Are you okay?
She looked at him yet all she saw was a reflection of herself.
Are you okay?
No, she was not okay.
Are you okay?
She shook her head.
Help me.
...
Never tell me that not one star of all
That slip from heaven at night and softly fall
Has been picked up with stones to build a wall.
Some labourers found one faded and stone cold,
And saving that its weight suggested gold
And tugged it from his first too certain hold,
He noticed nothing in it to remark.
He was not used to handling stars thrown dark
And lifeless from an interrupted arc.
You're a star, little bee. Don't let anyone mistake you for stone.
A/N The first poem used in this chapter was by Pablo Neruda called Tonight I can write the saddest lines
And Riaz's poem is a lovely poem by Robert Frost called A Star in a Stoneboat.
YOU ARE READING
Normal With You
Romance''Hey little bee.'' His soft, husky voice sounded close to her ear. ''Yes?''She looked up at him, smiling at the way he looked down at her. She knew what the others saw as she looked at him because it was the same thing she saw reflected in his dimm...
