Normal With You

Chapter 18

*The following chapter contains depictions of child molestation and rape. Please read with caution.*

The first moment that had shaped her path occurred when she was 3 years old. Her father had just left and her mother was plunged into darkness trying hard to forget everything.

Her older brother had been the one that had shouldered the responsibility of looking after Tasneem and Ibrahim all those years afterwards. He would drop them off to the daycare and pick them up on his way to and from school. He would feed them and change them and bath them. He would read them bedtime stories and play with them with them when their nightmares seemed only too real...

He was her hero.

She remembered sleeping in his bed, fighting with Ibrahim over who he would wrap his arm around when eventually he would sleep in the middle, wrapping an arm around each of them. He kept them safe from sleepless nights and rainy days.

He kept them safe...

He looked at their enjoined hands as she squeezed his hand once again. Her eyes were closed and her feet were tucked under her as she rested her forehead against her knees yet sleep had not claimed her. She didn't want to talk and that was okay. They craved their silent companionship far more than discussion and only they knew the comfort it brought to them.

"Hey Mum." He walked into the lounge softly, startling her from her position on the couch.

"You're here." She smiled, beckoning him towards her as she raised herself to a sitting position. He ignored her jerky movements and the little gasps of air as she straightened herself out before he knelt down beside her. He took in her scent, rosehip oil and Vaseline, as he rested his forehead against her shoulder. Her fingers trembled as they ran through his thick blond hair before she leaned back to look at him just a little more closely. He was so tall now that she still had to look up at him even though he was kneeling and she was not. And he was handsome. He was so handsome- he looked like his father except for the blonde hair and the green eyes. Those he got from her but his features were his father's. His handsome father's...

His hands engulfed hers entirely as he brought them to his lips but he was still her little boy.

He would always be her little boy who cried when the lights went out.

"I don't have much time Mum."

"Where are you going?" She looked down at him, only just noticing the duffle bag he had dropped by the door.

"I'm going to Cape Town. I leave at 2."

"Why are you going?" She asked, weaving her fingers through his hair once again.

"I can't stay here. I can't stay with him."

"Your father?" Her hands stilled, confusion clouding her eyes at his words. "Why?"

He smiled sadly at her. His father had brainwashed her into believing that he was everything and she was nothing and slowly over the years she had begun to believe it. "That's why, Mum." He shook his head slightly at her question. "After all these years, you're still surprised that I'm terrified of him."

"Terrified of him?" Her eyebrows knitted even further. "He's a wonderful man and he looks after you."

"He doesn't Mama." He took off his glasses, wincing as the dry skin of his thumb rubbed against his tired eyes. "Kom saam met my."

Come with me.

"Nee."

No.