ON HOLD The perks of being a Hafizah

Broken

Amatullah's POV

"Can I take my hand out now!" She said turning around.

I almost suddenly achieved to co ordinate a successful response of placing the box back into her bag.

"Urm no no. You have to keep it for 10 minutes" I said hesitantly blinking my tears back.

"What on earth are you on about. One second you are like 2 minutes the next

10 min and why the hell do you look like a bull just charged at your tummy" she said studying my face.

"Nothing nothing ghadar. Look at your hand for God's sake and keep it under the tap" I moved her hand under the tap and made her concentrate at it in order to divert her attention from me.

I turned back around and picked up the glass of water and shakily picked up the tablets.

"Wait" I spoke to her while taking a tablet out of the packet.

I popped it into her mouth and placed the water next to her lips to drink.

"Bro I can drink it man" she said.

"well bro that is you left hand, there is no way I am making you drink with your left hand now drink" she looked at me rolling her eyes.

"' 'Kay mom" she said drinking the water from my hands.

"Zahra, what was the tablet for?" I said acting as if I had no clue.

"Don't act like you didn't just read the packet" she said knowingly.

"Yeah...urm...ur I did read it. But like..." I said unable to correctly reply.

"But like steroids are used for all sorts of stuff right? Well apparently, I have to have them to help me increase my muscle strength as I have sclerosis" she said casually.

"That's aweful" I said.

I couldn't help it any longer and my emotions for the better of me.

I leant into her and grasped her in my arms and hugged her tight, holding into her existence, her endurance, her entity.

The very essence that makes itself heard; her soul her conscious, in the process of curing, or not curing for that matter.

I held her because it felt as if I couldn't let her go.

She was too close to me. I couldn't let her to slip from my hands, her very existence gave me comfort but her unknown, almost primitive state of ignorance on her state of health made it even more so upsetting.

It broke my heart.

And almost instantaneously......

It broke me into tears.

I began to sob on her shoulder uncontrollably, silently but yet still uncontrollably;

I sounded like a boiling kettle.

"Amatullah!" She said patting me.

"Why on earth are you crying for God's sake Amatullah! It's only sclerosis, look your cousin has it too! Sometimes

I forget your older than me. Come on ladoo" she said hugging me with one hand.

I let go unwillingly and looked at her.

"No no no! It's not that!" I said wiping my eyes through my niqab.

I lifted it up and wiped my face with the arms of my abaya.

"What? Please don't talk morse code to me" Zahra said.

"What? Morse code?" I said to her confused.

"I don't know but tell me" she said shaking my arms.

"Nothing!" I said leaving Zahras grasp and made my way to attending the dishes on the drying rack.

I picked up the ladle and began examining it.

"Someone doesn't know how to clean" I pointed at the spot of dirt on the ladle.

"Amatullah stop changing the subject to avoid what you don't like" Zahra looked at me concerned.

"Amatullah!" She spoke sternly.

"The more you try to hide your feelings inside the more it's going to hurt." She said searching my face at the little tears that held on into the tear duct.

My mind whizzed with thoughts and regrets and I couldn't get myself to stay silent.

"The more I try to hide my feelings the less people I hurt with my feelings. Why should they matter to people? Being serious, my pain demands to be felt by myself. I'm on a roller coaster that's only going down and right now....right now at this moment in time, the pain and the sorrow is enough to be blocked with me.

Zahra,

you need to stop worrying about others. I have been too dependant. I'm a vase on the edge on a table inevitably going to fall and you know what, I have put myself on that edge. I have made myself dependent on things that I shouldn't be dependent upon and like the base on the edge of the table, I'll break....I'll break into a million pieces and can't fully be fixed again. That's that's the problem Zahra! That's what it is. The problems is that I keep putting myself on the edge of tables. Through my attachments I have become dependent on my relationships to fulfil my needs. I let it define my happiness, my sadness, my fulfilment or my emptiness, my security and even my self worth. And so, like the vase Zahra.....

Like the vase that if placed where it wil inevitably fall, through these dependencies, I have set myself for disappointment. I set myself to be broken and look at me" I pointed myself.

By this time tears were streaming down my face, and what was left was a red eyes, drained out Amatullah....hurt, broken and full of guilt.

And what I did next was uncoordinated, unintentional.....