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...
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I wish, I wish, with all my heart, to cause no more hurt, to anyone from my part.
Please, Allah. No more pain.
Returning home does not seem so redeeming to me. I should have stayed at the hospital a little more, away from Hana, away from the place where I sat and caused her destruction, the place I no longer want to breathe in. As Chacha Ali Gul —my Pakistani Albus Dumbledore—opens the car door for me, I step out, small careful steps. I nod at the plants in the garden. Dadi probably plants them to make up for all the oxygen I waste.
I am back home but what do I do with myself?
Hana discards her chadar and tote bag in the lounge. "I have some kitchen chores to take care of while Mama's at the hospital with Mamu. Give me a few minutes, okay?"
I shake my head at her. "Don't leave me alone, Hana. Not with her."
Dadi's grin is wicked. "You can run but you cannot hide, meri jaan."
Hana bites back her smile and turns away to the kitchen. I turn back to Dadi who has disappeared. Just as I'm about to ask her if she has learned invisibility spells while I was away, two warm and delicate hands cover my eyes and I stumble backwards with the loss of my vision. Dadi helps me stay on my feet and her floral perfume fills up all the crevices in me.
If my Dadi was a fictional character, she'd be a dryad: lady of the trees.
"This is assault. Let me go."
"Hush." She leads me forwards while I hold out my arms to feel about me in case she's planning to throw me into a rucksack and toss me to the trash truck. "There."
She lets go and when the colours return, the breath in my lungs is knocked away.
I stand before my room, the doorway entirely curtained with pale pink and golden ribbons swaying gently with the wind. Dadi parts them for me and I stumble inside, the magic around casting a mesmerising spell on me. My entire room is decorated with buntings, balloons, garlands and confetti. Fairy pink and golden shimmers. Taped to one wall, golden foil balloons spell out: welcome back.
I really shouldn't have come back.
"Ismat behen." My voice quivers. "I thought you only did this sort of thing for Hana?"
Dadi looks at her work with pride. "Don't get ahead of yourself. Hana is still and will always be my favourite child."
"Then why?" I turn to her, my heart squeezing in my chest so painfully. "Why do all this for me when you and I and everyone else knows what all I have done?"
