Broken Strings

C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F O U R

"So I tuck you in, turn on your favorite night light
To you everything's funny, you got nothing to regret
I'd give all I have, honey
If you could stay like that
Oh darling, don't you ever grow up."

- Never Grow Up x Taylor Swift

▼▲▼▲▼ ▼▲▼▲▼ ▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼

Anisha slowly opened her eyes, her eyes focusing on the clock. 5:46 pm. She still felt tired though. The four hour nap hadn't done a thing.

She still didn't have enough energy. She wanted to go back to sleep, again. The pain in her stomach was killing her, literally.

She needed to take another pill. 

She slowly moved but was confused as she felt someone lying next to her. Someone lying next to her, with their arms wrapped around her frail body, hugging and holding her with care.

"Mira?"

Anisha slowly sat up. She smiled softly and ran a hand through Mira's hair, brushing the hair away from her face.

Her smile quickly disappeared as Mira's sobs got louder.

"Oh Mira." Anisha looked down at her daughter, trying to understand why her precious heart was crying.

Mira got up, looking at her mother, teary brown eyes and wrapped her arms around her mother neck, burying her face in the crook of her mother's neck.

"Mira, honey." The way Anisha felt right now, it was painful. Heartbreakingly painful. Her heart felt heavy. She didn't want Mira to cry. She couldn't stand it when Mira cried.

"Oh Mira, what's wrong?"

Anisha picked-up the strawberry colored lipstick that Mira had been playing with. Was Mira afraid that Anisha was going to yell at her for breaking the lipstick? Or maybe for playing with her makeup without permission?

Mira slowly sat down on her mother's lap, rubbing her eyes. Then crossing her arms and looked up at her mother, waiting for her mother to scold her.

She had bright red lipstick smeared all over her lips and chin.

Anisha raised an eyebrow, smiling at her daughter's dress-up game. 

"I'm sowrry, Mommy. I bwoke the lipstick." Mira slowly mumbled, her voice cracking as fresh new tears slid down her face again.

"Oh Mira." Anisha held Mira's face in her hands, brushing away the tears. "It's just lipstick Mira. Nothing else. I break them all the time. That's nothing to cry about."

Mira nodded and then looked back up at her mom, her sobs getting louder again. 

"Aaron doesn't think I'm pwretty."

Anisha slightly parted her lips. Mira was crying because of a boy. Because of Aaron.

Mira sat on her mother's lap, crying and hugging her mother. Her nimble finger wrapped around her mother's neck and her face pressed against her mother's shoulder. 

Anisha let out a wavering sigh. She continued playing with Mira's hair, begging fate to spare her daughter from heartbreak, from anything close to what she had suffered. 

Who knew that at the age of eight, little Mira would get her heartbroken. But this was just a little elementary school crush. What about later on in life? When Mira would get her heart so broken, so torn apart that she would struggle to pull herself together apart but then Anisha wouldn't be there to hold her daughter like she was right now and whisper sweet words into her ear, promising that it would all be okay.