Take off your Hijab (Rewriting)

But It's Too Late To Amend Anything!✅

Tired of feeling like I'm trapped in my damn mind,
Tired of feeling like I'm wrapped in a damn lie,
Tired of feeling like my life is a damn game"

Third persons POV

"You know how some dreams can be so dark and cloudy that, the moment you find yourself in one, you just know it's not going to be a good dream?"

"Have you ever wondered what it would feel like to hold your breath, not just for a minute, but for hours—without dying?"

"Do you know what it feels like to stand on a fragile bridge, knowing that one wrong move could make it collapse and kill you?"

That was exactly how Zach felt as he stared at the crowd—friends of his father, business partners, and others who had come to pay their respects. But it wasn't the sea of familiar faces that made Zach fall apart; it was the harsh reality that his father was now six feet underground. "Even though their relationship had always been strained, it didn't lessen Zach's grief; if anything, it made it worse. Now, it was too late to make amends, and the regret hit him hard, a relentless reminder of missed chances. Only now did he understand why Camila had urged him to let go of the past. But for him, the chance to fix or change anything was gone forever."

Zachary tuned out the murmurs around him, weaving his way toward the back of the room, desperate to escape the insincere smiles and empty words of sympathy.

Most of these people didn't care about his father—they were here to maintain appearances, to show face for the sake of their business reputations. Their hollow condolences felt like knives twisting in his chest. "I'm so sorry for your loss." The phrase echoed relentlessly in his mind, a cruel reminder of the emptiness it represented. Sorry wouldn't fix anything. Sorry wouldn't bring his father back to life. It was just a word—uttered without thought, devoid of meaning, a lifeless formality that grated against his grief.

As Zach pushed through the crowd, the weight of their insincere pity pressed down on him, their pitiful smiles twisting in his stomach like a bitter taste he couldn't wash away. Anger bubbled beneath the surface—not just at them, but at himself. How could he have let his father slip away without trying to mend their fractured relationship? Regret gnawed at him, a relentless companion. The opportunities for honest conversations, for vulnerability, had slipped through his fingers like sand. He had been so caught up in the resentment of their past that he hadn't realized how desperately he would wish for a second chance.

Only his sister and grandmother truly understood the depth of his grief, the aching void left by a father who had never quite been there for him. They alone could grasp the complexity of his emotions: the anger at the fake pleasantries, the bitterness that accompanied each forced smile, and the profound sense of loss that consumed him.

With every step toward the back of the room, he fought against the suffocating atmosphere, where every glance and whispered sympathy felt like daggers piercing his heart. Alone in a crowd of familiar faces, he felt invisible—a ghost among the living, mourning not just his father but the bond they would never share. The weight of unresolved issues pressed down on him, an unbearable blanket of sadness that wrapped around him, making it hard to breathe. In that moment, he understood that his father's absence was not just a loss; it was a stark reminder of his own failures, a persistent ache that would linger long after the hollow condolences faded away. The sorrow seeped into his bones, turning the memory of his father's life into a haunting melody of what could have been, a symphony of regret that played on a loop in the background of his heart.