Sisters torn apart by the fragility of the heart, how can love possibly hurt so much?
Hana Junaid decided two years ago, distance would make her younger sister Hanaan more independent but Hanaan's love and yearning for Hana during this time has drow...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Cruel is too scarce a word for this world.
The sun has risen in all its glory outside the curtains of my room. The birds are chirping and seeking sustenance for themselves and their young. The earth continues to revolve on its orbit, not the slightest bit of change, hindrance or impediment came about after my catastrophic night.
The tide rises, the tide falls.
I squint up at my wall: the poetry pieces stuck on it with floral washi tape but this once this poem does not make my heart move in awe, it stings like salt on a wound, antiseptic on open flesh, like the burn of green chillies on your skin if you're not careful when cutting them. And ya Allah, it doesn't go away.
I turn on my side, exhaustion seeping into my bones, a slow ache spreading from my heart to the tips of my fingers and my toes until my entire skeleton is throbbing. Her mattress is empty, her pillows and duvet untouched, undisturbed, no scrunched up face drooling in sleep. I used to think she dreamt complex plot twists hence the face and the creased forehead but I never found out. I never asked. And now she's not sleeping across from me anymore.
It's been four mornings waking like this. The last time I saw her sleeping was the day she bled to unconsciousness.
Hanaan.
I rip off the covers from my body, the dim light in my room from behind the curtains gives away the time; it must be well past morning. I check my phone, it is indeed past noon. I stumble towards the bathroom, head heavy, hungover with echoing laughter and hooting, body throbbing with eyes ravishing the clothes that clung tight to my chest and hips last night. I don't turn on the light in the bathroom. I don't meet my eyes in the mirror. I let the faucet run to drown the jeering catcalls but too soon, the guilt of wasting water hits me hard in the chest where dry branches poke about in my ribcage, nausea, humiliation and a maddening infuriation come along uninvited. I turn off the tap and hold my face in my hands.
Deep breaths, Hana. Deep breaths.
Did I deserve all that? The images of me photoshopped and engraved in Waheed bloody Qayser's mind? The privacy of mine violated like that? Pictures out in the open for strangers to stare at? Did I deserve it, the way he looked me up and down at the party last night? To be called out by him, flattery that offended me, made me feel assaulted, transgressed? And then to be pushed into a public pool and made a show of in such a vile crowd?
I draw in air.
No room for regret. No space for sympathy. I am the victim here but I will not endure the pain others have brought to me. I am Hana Junaid and I will not allow just anyone to make a public show of me. Be that my own sister or a stranger with selfish intentions. I will not allow it.
It takes a lot of strength to come out of the bathroom looking alive and unperturbed as though nothing at all happened last night, as though I didn't for once feel unsafe my by Mamu's side as he drove his midnight blue car at a speed above one twenty kilometres per hour, skidding past red lights, speeding across the trucks that reign the roads at night, his knuckles on the steering a ghastly white, jaw clenched so tight. He was angry, he was fuming and throughout the journey, he was also spitting bitter words at me.
