WATTPAD FINALLY LET ME UPLOAD OH MY GOD! YES! Okay, so it has been quite a while so I want to thank everyone who has stuck with me. Please vote and comment so that I'm not disheartened by the lack of response lol.
"I know a lot of people complain about their family but there's something special about the idea that out of the billions of people in this world, only a few were written in your destiny." -- Ash
Even with the ten-year age difference between me and Harun and Zubair and Zaid, we’ve been a pretty tight knit family. My parents made sure the five of us were close despite the fact that we’re all at drastically different points in our lives. I mean, Juwariyah’s a mother of two twin boys, one of whom is autistic, for God’s sake. Zubair and Zaid are both finishing up their residency and my mother’s been poking at the marriage talk with them lately. And Harun and I are babies in comparison to them, just getting our feet wet trying to decide what colleges we want to go to (or college, if my parents have their way).
Even though now that we’re all busy doing our own thing, there’s this innate bond I feel with all my siblings—which, the older I get, I realize a lot of people don’t have. But the thing about having something your whole life is that you don’t know what it’s like to not have it, meaning you never truly appreciate the value of what you have.
My appreciation for family is basically through two people: my parents and Nathaniel. I mean, with my parents it’s obvious but the story behind Nathaniel is an interesting one.
I was fifteen when I met Nathaniel’s mom. Nate and I had been friends for a very short time back then—he spent most of freshman year harboring an acute dislike for me and Hamza because the two of us would banter incessantly in math class every day without fail. We became friends the following year—sophomore year, when Nate realized that I wasn’t as vapid and superficial as the girls Hamza usually surrounds himself with.
I don’t even remember the context of the conversation—I was at the Indian store with Juwariyah picking up some stuff for Mom and I saw a figure who looked like Nathaniel in the Chinese store next door. Juwariyah was taking forever, so I went by next door.
He didn’t see me immediately, and I was glad. Behind the counter, I saw a stack of boxes that a frail, middle-aged woman was trying to move herself. Nate came up next to her, and I’ll never forget what he did next, how he gently put his hands on her shoulders and took the boxes from her thin arms. How he moved them himself and allowed her tired body to relax for a minute, take a break from a rough day.
It struck me because for the first time I saw him as a man, not a boy. And when he finally noticed me and looked startled at the sight of me watching him intently, I found out why. Why he acted like a man when he was a boy in age.
“My dad ran out on my mom five months after we came to America.” He said it so pointblank that I didn’t know what to say or do for a second. After he caught me observing him help his mom, I flashed him an awkward smile and started browsing the aisles (or pretending to, because frankly, as a Muslim I have no interest in buying pork rinds or anything of the sort). He came over and we made conversation for a few minutes—awkwardly, cans of soy sauce enveloping us in the narrow aisle, the toes of our boots scraping speckled linoleum floors. And then he just said what I’d been wondering, subconsciously.
“My dad ran out and he left my mom to raise me and my little brother. She didn’t know English or anyone in America but she managed to start a business and built a life for us. So she has this shop and my brother and I help her out as much as we can.” He said the last part with a shrug, so unpretentious and casual and matter-of-fact like he was describing an extracurricular activity he casually picked up.
YOU ARE READING
Battered, With Love
Teen FictionThe story of two people with a love-hate relationship, brought together by a book.
