After the death of her mother, Rya, a sixteen year old girl, sets out to find her father, who she had not seen in fifteen years due to her mom's paranoia and desire to protect her.
The two finally find each other again. But, danger is always lurkin...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
༞↣⇕↢༞
"I thought chimo was working for you Ralph." The words that left her mouth were premeditated. She had rolled her tongue quite a few times in her mouth hoping to be able to find some semblance of understanding. Of why he was dying. Why his own body was rebelling against him. But, that's the thing, nobody knows. Why these once normal cells mutated into cancerous ones. Why his body was so keen on attacking itself. These are things that science doesn't have an answer to. They say you get what you deserve, but what the fuck could her cousin have possibly done in order to be punished with an excruciating death? What could an eighteen year old possibly have done to deserve that punishment? All questions that she will never get an aswer to, that he will never get an aswer too, that his parents, his brother and everyone who loves him will never get an answer to.
"We thought it was. We really really thought it was." His words weren't tinged with bitterness nor anger, just sadness. He deemed it futile to be angry at the world, at everything when he was about to die very soon. He much prefered to have fun and have experiences and laugh and laugh and laugh. "For about a month, the cancer had stopped spreading, we had thought it was because of the chimo. That with time, the chimo would kill it completely. But... it didn't" He sighs deeply and pauses, as if deep in thought and then, "They realized I had micrometastases which basically is a tumor that's not detectable by scan or RMI. We did the routine blood check and low and behold, they found that the rate of proteins that cancerous cells released had gone up in my blood. We did other tests to check for sure if I had new tumors and it proved that I, in fact, did." He finished and shrugged a bit, as if he was completely unbothered. But Rya could see through his façade, she had grown up with him, had stuck by his side through thick and thin just as he had for her. So she envelopped him in her arms and whispered "Je t'aime" softly into the air.
They had rarely said those words to each other for an unknown reason. Although one could argue that Rya wasn't very keen on showing vulnerability and weakness even when it mattered the most. As for Ralph, it stemed from the fact that Lebanese men had rubbed off on him. How could they not? He spent his whole life there, surrounded by them, being taught by them. In lebanon men are meant to be strong and fierce, to not cry, they are meant to be machos and make themselves out to be happy all the time. If they attempt to talk about their feelings, their pain, their past experiences, they get shut down and labelled as a "louteh" {a Fem boy} . Thus why they had never been comfortable saying those words even if they did show them with their actions.
"Je t'aime aussi" And his shoulders started shaking and Rya realized that he was crying into her shoulder while mumbling "I don't want to die" over and over again. She tried to comfort him, she really did but keeping her tears and pain at bay was too difficult and so, she broke down too. They comforted one another as much as they could and rejoyced in each other's presence. She couldn't help but think of the futur, what it would be like without him. What would it be like to not have him by her side every step of the way. She thought about how hard his death will be on his mother, father and brother. If his brother would cope at all, she knew he wasn't as strong as the others, he was so young, merely eleven. She knew that this would ruin him. But she would be there for him. She would never let him forget about his brother or ignore the pain and never move on.
Rya and Ralph always had a special bond. They were best friends, brothers and sisters, cousins, all in one.
After a while, after all their tears dried and their frowns turned into small smiles, the both of them decided that they just had to go to the movies. It was something that they always used to do back in Lebanon.
And, because Ralph just lived to tease his little cousin, he had said, feigning whispering, right in front of Noah " Why don't you invite your boyfriend to come with us R?". Rya fixed him with a glare full of murderous promises but her face returned back to normal a second later, her cheeks flamed red and she looked down, embarrassed. It seemed to make Ralph enjoy tormenting her even more. Noah just stood there, too happy and amused to say anything.
"Je te jure que je vais te tuer ya khara" {I swear to you that I'm going to kill you, you shithead} Said Rya in a sweet voice to her cousin while Noah stood there confused at what was being said. Although he shrugged it off when he remembered why this conversation started in the first place.
"What were you guys talking about? Invite me where exactly?" He asked perplexed.
"We're going to the cinema. Do you want to come with us?" Rya asked. Noah's eyes widened a fraction in excitement, something that she found undeniably adorable.
"Oh god yes. It's been too bloody long since I've been." He smiled lazily and got from the couch while thinking about the last time he had gone to the cinema with his group of friends "Now that I think about it I think it's been a whole year since I've been there with Elliot and the lot." Noah sighed happily and went to get his jacket as they were still in december and the weather was horrendous.
°°°
A U T H O R ' S N O T E :
Pretty short part because it was just a filler update :( Sorryyyy for not posting as much as I said I would. I've been editing the other chapters one by one and adding as much information and stuff to them as I can so they can be more coherent and enjoyable to read. And omggg 400+ people have read this storyyyyyyy. It doesn't look like a lot but I never thought ten people would read this story but now I've got more than four hundred reading it AHHH.
If you could support me by voting and commenting on this book I would appreciate it a lot🥰❤️.
Ciaoo
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
