Changing Relations ✔

Chapter 15

My head started spinning as I looked around the room. Everything was neat and clean and in order. The smell of disinfectant awakened memories. Every corner I turned and I saw their pics, her photographs, video playing on one wall, in short it was a room full with them together.

There is whispering in the background here, or perhaps it’s talking I can’t make out which is coming from that video. A light, timed like my breathing, pulses. There are the smells of wood, of decaying flowers, of old things sequestered in this room. Glass jars, old shells, a baby blue polystyrene cushion which has her name written on it, dead flowers were there with many more things.

I lost my balance as I took a step back, I sat down on the floor with a thud. Right there was a pic of her with me, both of us giving some weird pose. I used to never look at our best photographs, always afraid that they would become worn, sun bleached or damaged. I was mistaken. These pictures are just conduits to my best memories, the ones that are not fantastic enough or traumatic enough to leave a permanent mark on their own.

Just then I heard her laugh, I turned and looked on the wall. Her video was playing, she was running in the beach and he was running behind her. I stood up and went up to that wall, with tears flowing from my eyes. I then went towards the table where there were letters and quotes written.

Dear love,
People are telling me
you are gonna say a yes
and
I hope you do
because you make me feel myself again
and I love the way your name sounds
and the way you look at me and turn away
thinking I would never know you looked at me
and the way you look so naïve
whenever I see you looking at me.
And the way you made me love yourself.

My insides crunched, I remember this letter, she was writing this letter on the day before they both got engaged. I took out another letter and opened it-

You have always that shy look young women often wear, but it was never morose.
Always behind those slightly pursed lips was a smile just waiting to be tempted out.
I liked you, no, scratch that I love you.
Sometimes you'd look my way and I generally pretended not to notice.
But when I did return your glances I didn't have to try to smile, it just came naturally.
In those moments you would blush ever so slightly and I'd imagine you being my girl.
But some people are worth the wait and you were one of them.
I didn't even knew that you'll say yes to my proposal.
And you just did...

A letter, that was all it took for the tears to burst my dam of restraint. I clutched the solid wooden frame tight in my hand, able to see a ghostly reflection of my face in the thin sheen of glass that covered it. I looked past my own dreary eyes and stared upon his face that had been caught in a moment of perfection.

It was the happiest memories that hurt the worst, they were the ones that cut me deepest. I focused in on his eyes, they were glistening with the twinkle of laughter that once were there when she was here. Now, all these pictures laugh at me. They reminded me of what I've lost.

I clutched her frame tight, pressing it hard to my chest wishing to feel her head resting upon them one last time. It was in this moment I realized that I no longer knew how I felt. I was totally numb, yet somehow in agony. I longed to be free of of these memories, yet I wanted these back more than I've ever wanted anything.

He loved her, he will always do. Why do you have to leave?? Why did you left?? Why did you left Hareem....?? Why??

The tears burst forth like water from a dam, spilling down my face. I feel the muscles of my chin tremble like a small child. My eyes drip with tears. My walls, the walls that hold me up, make me strong just... collapse. Moment by moment, they fall. Salty drops fall from my chin, drenching my shirt. Perhaps these tears will wash away the pain of losing my sister, a daughter, a wife, a mother.

I cried as if the ferocity of it might bring Hareem, my sister back; as if by the sheer force of my grief, the news would be undone. She was my sister, his wife, Adeel's mother. He came from back and tried to hold me back, to calm me, I could feel his own tears fell thick and fast but my hysteria was too strong, too wild.

I sobbed into his chest unceasingly, hands clutching at his jacket. He held me in silence, as my tears soaked his chest. A tiny lapse let him pull away, blinking lashes heavy with tears, before I collapsed again, my howls of misery worsening. The pain must have come in waves, minutes of sobbing broken apart by short pauses for recovering breaths, before hurling me back into the outstretched arms of my grief.

After whirling about, unable to look through my puffy eyes at the photographs on the wall, I tumbled out of his arms dissolved in the kind of despair that can take one's mind prisoner and never give it back. I press my head against the wall... I'm trembling. I can't-can't stop. Even as I press my hand against the wall it shakes, it trembles. It's raw, everything, raw tears, raw emotions. I can't stop... I can't stop. Why can I not stop crying?

Once again I sank down to my knees in the middle of the room, bathed in the dim lights of the room.

"Hanya" he spoke softly.

"Jij (brother in law)" I said.