Less Than Perfect

{5} Cloaked in Sorrow

Tanwir Sarker

Shallow, clipped breathing responded to my voice, small hiccups as quiet sobs begged to escape the dry lips of a girl who lost her voice long ago, a woman who forfeited her ability to feel human with her emotions. Chaos reigned the kingdom of darkness, clouding the sunrise to a brighter day, and the queen laid in a pool of her own blood, choking on her last words.

Kanza lost her way.

She didn't have to say anything for me to understand that.

"I-I," she tried to speak through her tears. "I'm sorry... I just..."

My chest clutched at the tone of her voice, a surprising wave of empathy reaching me. I never was the type of person who dealt with tears well. That wasn't my specialty, nor was I accustomed to making people feel better. Usually, it was the exact opposite.

I was the hurricane that took over an island. I was the chaos of a storm brewing. Those that surrounded me left with broken, shattered hearts, and my punishment for that was loneliness. It was what I deserved.

A wave of memories flashed across my eyes, the days my parents spent their wasted tears on me, the days my mother cried as she prayed for me, and all the days I hurt my own little sister. My own father begged to understand me, yet I always mutely walked away from him.

I was lost too.

"Did something happen?" I asked, cautiously.

"No," she croaked.

I was silent for a moment, letting her harsh breathing stretch the atmosphere and weave through the tense air. Laying in my bed during the middle of the night, I decided to catch up on my emails from work when my phone buzzed to life with her call.

Initially, I assumed Kanza shared a similar sadness like me, carried a heavy burden that matched mine, yet I could never confront her with it. Her life was her business, not mine.

However, a part of me longed to understand, longed to have someone tell me that everything would be alright. I wanted to share my burdens, but there was a barrier I'd created to protect the fragile walls of my own heart, to harden the tender wounds from ever reopening again.

Trust was not given easily. It was earned.

"Tanwir?" she whispered into the phone.

"I'm here."

"I'm sorry for calling you."

My brows furrowed. "Why? You're clearly bothered by something."

She sighed a shaky breath. "That doesn't mean I should... just never mind," Kanza trailed off, voice losing its careful edge as it softened under another onslaught of her turmoils, the seas rising as the storm darkened. "You wouldn't get it."

"I don't think you know me well enough to say that."

Another silence ensued between us. Although my tone was clipped, it wasn't a lie. She thought I didn't understand the pain of pressures and of cruel fate as if I hadn't faced my own set of disasters on my way to the present. There was a special type of loneliness that kept people up this late at night, one that many would deflect as being too irrational and sporadic, but to people like us, it was a prison we built for ourselves.

I wanted to taste the sweetness of happiness again, and I wanted to break the chains to my guilt. Like all things in life, I could never guarantee the longing I had to be like Damon or Ibrahim at this point in their lives.

"Ya Allah," she mumbled to herself, laughing bitterly. "I really am a mess, aren't I? Sobbing when I should be sleeping and calling my best friend's brother for no reason. How pathetic am I?"