Imperfect but mine

Chapter 8

Amaan

Tuesday, 02:00 pm

"I need to run," I tell her. 

"What?" Aina asks. She hasn't stopped crying since this conversation started. But I can't console her right now. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to do. This is all too much.

"I have to go for a run," I say and she nods. She knows me. She knows that running is my way out of stressful situations. Running always calms me and helps me focus. The adrenaline enables me to clear my thoughts.

I grab my hoodie from her chair and turn towards the door. But Aina's condition stops me from turning the doorknob. She looks devastated. I walk back and kneel in front of her. I cup her face and wipe the tears.

"Just 30 minutes, Aina. I need that time for myself. But I will come back, okay?"

She nods and I literally sprint out of her house. Her words echo in my ears.

"You were never in any juvenile prison."

"They had locked you up in a building."

"And they were abusing you."

"My uncle. And his friends."

Nothing makes sense to me. Why can't I remember anything? Did this really happen to me? If so, then why? Was I just at the wrong place at the wrong time? How will I ever prove this? Will these people ever get punished? How did I get to the orphanage? Didn't I have any immediate family beyond my parents? Why didn't search for me? 

I am so confused. Is there anyone who can answer my questions? And then, it hits me. Aina's aunt. If this story is true, she will know everything. 

***

Tuesday, 03:00 pm

I run back to her house and find Aina sitting in the same position & place where she was when I left. She stares at me and says, "I am so sorry. So so sorry. If there was a way to change the past, I would. I would do it in a heartbeat."

I sit next to her on the floor and say, "Stop. Please. None of this is your fault."

"Why does it feel like it is?"

I look at her for long and ask her, "Aina, where's your aunt? Can't we ask her?"

"No."

"What? Why?"

"She committed suicide a few days after that."

"What?"

She sighs and replies, "I know what you are thinking. It's too much of a coincidence, isn't it? The one person who knows about what happened to that boy in the annexe, died from suicide. Less than a week later." Aina looks out the window and shakes her head saying, "It was easy to trust everything when I was a kid. But now, no. It's probable they killed her too."

I think about everything once again. "Why do you think it's your uncle? That's a very serious allegation."

"Who else would it be? It was their house. Who else would have a lock and a key to that door? How would strangers just use a building for some criminal activity and the owner not know? That too, when he's a celebrated homicide investigator!"

"What? He's a - "

"My uncle, Ali Baksh, works with my father in the London Violent Crimes Task Force."

Woah... This is blowing my brain off. "How does your father not know anything?" I ask.

"You told me not to ask him to investigate your past. So, I couldn't."