The Last Prayer

Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

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Recap

And that's when it happened. When all of my shyness and fear was swallowed by confidence. Like the tide washing over the shore, I was brine with a new feeling. Words began spilling out of my mouth effortlessly, like blood rushing from an artery.

~

We both gushed and continued to gush useless words at one another. The smile across Yasir's growing larger and brighter with every word spoken between us. Me on the other hand, my smile was faltering. The tickling feeling in my stomach disappeared, my heart rate slowed, I felt nothing. My emotions came in extremes, my joy and love were true and unmeasurable, alongside that, my distaste and hate was akin.

I suddenly wanted the conversation to end. I would almost do anything for Yasir to stop talking. But it didn't end. It dragged on and on and on. The slight smile I had a few seconds ago completely vanished, and if the room was as dark as it was, he would've been able to see the annoyance radiating from my face. The words were no longer spilling out of my mouth like a waterfall, the words now felt more like vomit. Forced and irrelevant.

We were both so engaged into the conversation, that we hadn't even realized what was going on around us. Everyone has left the tables and had joined each other on either the dance floor or the line for food.

My eyes began darting back and forth as the lights began turning on, one by one. The grim expression on my face slowly becoming visible to Yasir.

"I'm hungry, I'm gonna go get some food. I'll be right back." I said quickly, leaving the table before he could say another word. As I hurried away from my destruction, I looked back at the table, and to my relief Yasir wasn't following me or looking after me, instead his head was bowed at his phone. The blue light illuminating his perfect features. I wanted to rush back and apologize, but I couldn't bring myself to do so.

I couldn't think properly as I lined up for food. Was this it? The end of Yasir and Alfiyah? Maybe I was wrong from the beginning, maybe this wasn't different from any of my other crushes.

I didn't go back to our table that night, like I had said I would. Right to his face, I lied. I couldn't help but regret and feel guilty for ever developing affection toward him, for ignoring the teacher that one day-

For everything.

~

Those three last weeks of high school, I stopped interacting with Yasir all together. Even in the classes that we shared, I would completely ignore his existence. I couldn't continue what I had started, I had no right to make him believe that there was even a sliver of a chance. Despite my desperate attempts to cut Yasir out of my life, people would still tease me about him. It was like the entire school had suddenly realized that we had an unspoken bond, but it was too late, that bond was broken. The connection we once had was like an old rope. Once sturdy and certain, but now twisted and ripping at the seams.

We never spoke or even made eye contact. But when our eyes occasionally locked, one of us would always turn away just as quickly as they had looked. Leaving the other one with confusion or pain rippling across their features.

We were on a roll, up until the graduation ceremony.

The day they had chosen for the ceremony couldn't have been more perfect. The sun was high in the sky and burning red-hot.

As I made my way to my seat, I felt a pair of eyes burning into the back of my head. The butterflies that were already flitting around in my abdomen from the excitement of graduation seemed to double in size. I didn't dare glance in back of me, not wanting to make the situation more awkward than it already was.

As the students piled into the auditorium for the ceremony, I heard my name being called from behind me. Reluctantly I turned around and searched for a familiar face to match with the voice amongst the crowd of alumni. My eyes fell upon Halima. Her hijab wrapped unusually neat in an intricate style. I waved back with a crooked smile. Just as I was about to turn around, another familiar face popped into view. My smile fell instantly and my entire being was filled with dread. He didn't look away and neither did I, it was like we were both daring the other to look away first, but we both had too much pride to let the other win.

We stayed like that for what seemed like hours, until the voice of the principle boomed over head from the podium, stealing both of our attentions. My heart aching every second of it all. The loud "Ba-dump" inside my chest echoed in my ears, blurring out the words of the speakers.

Not only was I nervous about graduating after thirteen years of schooling, I was nervous about having to look at Yasir again. I couldn't look him in the eye without the feeling of guilt washing over me. It wasn't my fault that I no longer felt the same way, right?

It all ended in a blur of firm handshakes and cheers. Before I knew it, I was on my way home with my best friend sitting in the seat beside me. My eyelids were heavy from all the eye makeup and fatigue of the stressful day. I was finally a high school graduate, I was "free". Until I started college again and began medical school eventually.

My eyes flew open as Halima nudged my shoulder roughly.

"Get up, we're home." Her voice sounding tired and dull. We assist each other out of the car and limp toward the front doors. Mom and dad help us through and just as I set foot into the house, I body forced itself into the direction of the couch and throws itself onto it. I feel the bounce of the cushions as Halima flopped onto the couch beside me.

Despite the amount of sleepiness I had, I couldn't fall asleep no matter how much I willed myself. My mind constantly flitted back and forth, from one thought to another. Before long, everyone was fast asleep and I was the only one still awake.

With an exasperated sigh, I pushed myself off of the couch and tiptoed to the restroom. I blindly searched for makeup wipes, when I found them, I rubbed the soapy tissues all over my face, removing the gunk and beauty. As I tossed the wipes into the trash, I stared at the girl before me in the mirror. Her round eyes swollen with darkened skin beneath them, her lips pulled up into a pout. I could see fine lines surrounding her mouth and above her brow. So tired, so wasted. Over the span of a few months, my youth was drained from my body, leaving me with a haggard and broken soul to deal with. It's all his fault, he did this to me. Yasir.

~

Long time no see! I'm so sorry for not updating for so long, I promised myself I wouldn't do that ever again but look where that brought me. Anyway, this chapter isn't that long, so I apologize for that, and there will be a lot of grammatical errors and misspelled words so if you find any please tell me so I can fix them. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoyed writing it! So basically, Alfiyah is back into her depressed stage because she no longer has a reason to be happy (before that was Yasir, I guess). Now that she doesn't like him anymore, she feels like it's all his fault that she's back in her "bad place" that the feelings he brought into her life at the reason for her to go through an emotional extreme (extreme happiness--extreme sadness). I hope this chapter made sense as well!

-Sumaya