Battered, With Love

Chapter 21 -- Enough

It's been too long. I'm looking at the last time I uploaded a chapter and it's blown my mind. I remember writing that at such a drastically different point of my life. I think I was still in high school. I'm in college now. This chapter is kind of inspired by my own feelings of going so long without realizing what broke and then trying to pick up the pieces and make up for lost time.

SUMMARY OF LAST CHAPTER: Eiliyah realizes the quatrain printed on the card that she got with the rose came from Rhys' print shop (Rhys is her twin brother Harun's best fraand). She thinks that Hamza (I hope to God I don't have to remind y'all who Hamza is lol) is responsible for it so she meets Rhys there to ask him about it. Turns out, Rhys sent her the rose because he likes her. She says she doesn't have feelings for him and a devastated Rhys asks her for some time and distance. She comes home only to find her entire family worrying where she'd been because none of her texts went through. In this climatic moment, she and her sister Juwariyah finally blow up at each other, releasing the years of difficulty and resentment in their relationship.

"We're so caught up in pursuing happiness, in attaining a perfect life. But maybe a happy life isn't a perfect life. Maybe happiness is being happy and loving life even in its imperfect state." -- Ash

            The rest of the weekend I don't want to do anything else. I don't want to face my family, not after bearing my true feelings and opening myself up to them. Is it a serious emotional problem to be averse to any form of vulnerability, even around the people who are supposed to see that side of you? I don't know. I don't want to think.

There are so many things that race through my mind, so many battling thoughts. I think about Rhys all day. I curl up in bed and scroll through pictures on my phone, every major event where we were photographed together. Every point our lives converged, every memory. He likes me. The thought sends chills up my spine as his pained grey eyes flash through my mind.

I love him. Not in the romantic sense, but in the familial one. He's family. He's taken my brother as his own, loved him as his own, and I wish that that were enough. I wish that love was enough, but one of the cruel truths of the universe is that it isn't. I don't feel the same way for him as he does for me and I wish, God, I wish that I could give him what he wants, I wish that some remote possibility of us existed.

Dad is the one who knocks first. He opens the door wordlessly and sits down at the edge of my bed. "Don't," I say, staring at the wall. I can't look at him right now.

"Your sister—"

I turn to him, my blankets covering everything but my face. "Dad, please, I can't right now, okay? I can't talk to you about her, I don't want to think about her, I just don't want to right now."

"Listen," he starts, placing his broad, strong hand over mine through the covers. "I know what happened yesterday is something that's been building up for a long time. But she's your sister. She understands what you've been through more than anyone else does. Your family is always here to help you, to listen to you. We don't want you feeling like we're against you or that we don't understand you."

I sit up, wondering if I even have the energy to do this now. "If you wanted to listen to me then you would have done it since our first conversation about college. Do you even know that Harun and I don't want to go to the same college? That we don't want to be treated like a pair all the time? We are two different people. He is independent, Dad. More than I am, probably. So why do you make me his babysitter? Don't you know how much it hurts him that that's how incapable you think he is? Don't you realize how much it kills me to do what you guys want at the expense of going against what Harun wants? Don't tell me anything about—" I stop myself. No. I'm not going to disrespect my dad right now. It won't be worth it. Instead, I continue with "I just...why do you look at me and not see me? Am I not—"