"Leave me alone, Dianne!" I protested, shaking my cousin's hand off my shoulder.
"Mirabel, I'm only trying to help. Think about it na. Your dad is dead and your mother is insane...!"
"...my mother is not insane...!" I screamed at her, raising my previously bowed head.
Still calm, Dianne smiled at me, "How long will you keep lying to yourself?"
"Stop!" I warned - more like pleaded - dramatically turning my gaze from hers.
"I'm only trying to help"
"Don't" came the response, "Please...leave me" I begged once again.
Dianne shrugged in surrender and stood up. She silently walked to the door. I felt her turn to get one more look at me, her distressed and depressed cousin. I just kept staring out the window at nothing in particular, shedding those thin, lonely stream of salt.
"Just think about it" she urged me one more time.
I frowned. There was no point thinking about it anymore. I had made my decision.
*****
Mirabel is everyone's favorite. Loved by God, decorated by nature, taken care of by Janet her mother and Collins her father, lusted after by men, envied by women and admired by children. Somehow, something from somewhere or someone takes her sunshine all she sees are dark and heavy cloud with no silver lining.
How does Mirabel handle her grief? Read Handling Grief to find out.
"I don't get it! Why do you keep doing this to me?!"
His words were wrapped in molten lava, hands in his hair, eyes closed tight. My heart hammered at my ribcage. I knew where this was going.
"You pull me in, then you push me the hell away!"
He shook his head at me in disgust. I felt a piece of me break at every disappointed word he'd said, the panic was rising through every crevice of my body.
"I'm done Al, I can't keep playing this game with you. I can't keep picking up the casualties on my own. I am tired, I'm just tired of trying to make you love me."
He let out in defeat and waited for my response. Alarms started going off in my head but all I could do was look down in shame. When I didn't say anything, he looked at me a moment longer and turned to walk away. Everything in me was screaming at him to stay but no sound would come out of my mouth. He was walking at such a slow pace I knew he wanted me to call him back. But as I opened my mouth to scream his name, I remembered something Amirah had told me a few weeks ago.
"Allah sends you signs to show you that someone isn't good for you and when you still don't let go, he makes them hurt you so that you have no choice but to"
I wasn't good for him so I let him go.
_____________
This is Alanna's story.
It combines the tragedies of her past, the trials of the present and what ties them together.
Buckle up because this is one hell of a story.