The Criminal's Love

Chapter 27

Just like a lot of other things in this world, the sun had a routine. It would rise and set. The rising and setting points could change slightly each day. Although that didn't mean it stopped rising and setting.

The way it was setting at the moment, if God wanted, it would rise again in a couple of hours.

It reminded me of my own fifteen year old self.

Five years ago, that one particular day had been the downfall of my life. That one moment I was trying to get eye contact with my sister while she was laying in her own pool of blood. I had thought I would never heal after witnessing that. I had thought I would never be able to rise again.

Today, when I looked back....I knew that I hadn't healed fully, and maybe I wouldn't either. There would always be a void in my heart. But what I also knew was that I did rise again. Even though the pain never went away and the scar was sacred in my heart. I came back to life...

It wasn't easy though. I fought so hard. It was one of the hardest things I had done in my life. To continue living without my sister. She was not just my sister, she was my soulmate, my best friend and someone who had always been there for me.

I remember all the feelings I had been feeling back then. The strongest one of them being guilt. I felt guilty about many things. Mostly about the fact that I never noticed what she was going through.

At times, I loathed myself for thinking she had the perfect life. Thinking she didn't have any problems going on. I was only used to her happy and smiling face.

Her committing suicide had proved me wrong. Even until today, I didn't know why she had done it. Nobody knew, not her friends my family no one.

I had tried to find out at some point, when the guilt had been too much to handle for me. As predicted, I hadn't found much. Her reason to suicide would always be a secret...

That had been one type of guilt I had felt over the past years. But the guilt I was feeling at the moment could make my heart stop beating. I was married to a man who had something to do with my sister. Something as much as a possibility of them being in love once upon a time.

Even though I didn't want to assume anything, I knew that was the only possibility explaining the picture. What other reason could there be for him to have her picture in his room?

It made me remember the first time we had met. He was at my house and our eyes had met, he had stared at me in disbelief and shock. Even then I had thought that it was strange that he was staring at me like he had seen me before.

Also, the incident with my bracelet. I had thought he had cared about my feelings hence the reason he went all the way back to get it. It made sense now that he only went back when he heard it was a gift from my sister...

Not to forget the moment we had at the beach days ago, right before Mikael had arrived. When talking about my sister, Walid had told me we had fought the same battles. He obviously meant that he had lost someone close to him, just like I had.

I didn't know he meant the exact same battle...

My eyes moved to my shaky hands. I pushed back the tears and finally stood up. A long time had passed, a lot of thoughts had entered and left. Many tears were shed but I finally decided on what the right thing to do would be.

I made my way towards the window and pushed it open, the wind making the pile land on the floor once again, just like before I had entered the room. I walked over to the pile and kneeled down. I felt tears form in my eyes but I pushed them back. I didn't want to let go of her picture, but I knew I had to.