Callous

Chapter 19/Just a memory he was

Haya's POV

It's officially summer break.

Everyone's ecstatic. Children wander the streets with ice-creams in their hands, holding onto their parents' hands afraid to let go. People my age are cycling outside—literally at 9 in the morning on a Saturday?—while some teen girls are too endorsed in taking pictures to even notice how boys stop in their tracks to check them out.

And I have been watching all of this from my bedroom window for the past thirty minutes.

Finals went by super quick. I took a leave from school after the syllabus was finished and studied at home, mainly because interacting with people was the last thing I wanted. When it came to smiling, it was a sport I wasn't a pro at since. . .he left.

Pain sears through my chest at the thought of him. I place a hand to my chest and rub it there gently.

Since Aarib left, he took everything with him. My happiness, my smile, my emotions in general. I have been a wreck ever since that. He's a thief. He had no right to take with him what makes me human. What makes all of us human. Emotions. He didn't seem to have his own, so he decided to take mine.

I hate him for that.

But I don't hate him enough because even after three months of nothingness, I don't hate him like I should. How he deserves it. There's not one day that goes by without the memory of him. Everybody gets nightmares in their own forms. Some are afraid of the night, some have their biggest monsters with whom they have to deal with every day.

My nightmares come to me at night. When I get ready for bed, close my eyes, his face is all I see. And even if I shove away the picture of him, he ends up showing in my dreams. I thought of taking therapy, but I don't think that's what gonna help me.

A knock sounds on my door.

"You ready, kid?" Hassan asks.

With my gaze fixed on the road outside, I nod my head yes. I don't have the energy to move my head. That's another thing that happened to me. I almost lost all of my appetite. Mom had to force me to eat, but I just ended up vomiting all the contents of my stomach so she stopped. A month afterwards I started having something to eat. Yet still I am very weak.

"Okay. . .we have to leave. I'm taking your bag. Come down in a couple of minutes."

His heavy footsteps echo in my room. Once I am sure he had carried my bag out of the room, I get up and march towards the bathroom to brush my teeth once again because I don't think at the airport and in the plane I could.

I leave the brush back in the sink drawer as I already put a new one in my suit case—and how stupid of me. I never even told where we were going.

On vacation. That's where all of us—excluding mom who's going to Pakistan—are going. We will stay in Italy for a week before leaving off for turkey and then Pakistan. I wasn't really up for the Pakistan trip because that means I'd have to be super jolly and cheerful, both of the things I wasn't really feeling.

I grab my phone from the nightstand and shove it in my bag. Then I slung it over my shoulder and headed downstairs where there was too much noise.

"This house is becoming a fish market," I point out, drawing everyone's attention to me.

Mom's expression saddens when she sees me. Without wasting another second, her legs start moving and stop before me. She pulls me in her embrace and I close my eyes.

Just don't cry.

Please.

"I will miss you so much."