Perfectly Imperfect

~48~

So I changed my mind and I made the chapter pretty 😎😎♥️♥️

            Dedicated to __Soomayah ♥️♥️♥️

                               ~SOPHIA~

"Happy birthday baby sis."

I heard those words before seeing who uttered them. It was my sister, Stephanie, then it wasn't her.

I closed my eyes, my head shaking by itself and I could feel my eyes burning, like someone was pouring raw pepper on them, it hurt severally that I had to convince myself that even acidic burns couldn't hurt that badly.

I opened my eyes again, ignoring the sharp and raw pain but Stephanie was still there, it was Stephanie but it looked nothing like her. The person sitting on my bed was a smaller, thinner, skinner version of my sister. There was quite a distance between the door and my bed, and even though my sister was wearing an oversized sweater and joggers, I could see it, feel it even, what was left of her.

I closed my eyes and the only thing I could remember was that evening when I was ransacking her closest, looking for clothes to steal and stuff away till she had forgotten they were hers and how I had stumbled on those stupid and cursed papers, carefully tucked away in the deepest part of her closest, part she had thought no one would ever touch, those papers that only spelt doom for me and for the whole family.

I remembered trying a jacket of hers on and my eyes straying to the papers that she had tucked away, I remembered picking the paper, unfolding it, then dread filling my entire system as I read the forbidden words on the paper, forbidden letters strung together to create a deep and unfathomable hollowness in me.

I remembered sinking to the floor, feeling nothing but numbness and emptiness as I read and reread those words. Stephanie wasn't even at home that day; she had gone out to party with her friends. I should have known something was wrong when she suddenly became that energized to party, to travel, to do this but I did not know because to me, she was that big sister who something that terrible wasn't capable of happening to.

In my panic filled state, not knowing what to do, I had called the first person on my mind, Kunle. He was the only one I could think of, the only one I could talk to but no sooner had he picked the call than he started talking about a girl he now liked.

It took me a while to put a face to the name he kept mentioning, Aminah, Aminah, Aminah. I did nothing to stop him from talking about how infatuated and totally smitten he was with her, I just listened to all he was saying while staring at my sister's diagnosis while biting the inside of my cheeks to stop myself from crying and with my heart shattering into a million pieces in my chest, each pieces hurting too much as it shatters as if someone was actually cutting off pieces after pieces from my heart.

It was the first time I felt an emotional pain could hurt so physically.

Everything that happened from there, with my Stephanie, with the rest of family, with Aminah and Kunle had been a fucking nightmare that I've not been to bring myself to believe but now, my sister was on my bed, wishing me a happy birthday and even smiling at me. What for? What was she even doing here?

"What are you doing here?" I asked, my voice sounding nothing like mine, nothing like Sophia's.

Stephanie only shrugged, a non committal shrug. "I sneaked out," She replied, her voice laced with excitement. She was excited? What for? I looked at her, thinking about all those days before I stumbled upon those papers, the laughter and pure excitement that Stephanie always radiated, all the nights full of conversations and laughter on this bed, then how every single nights of the last six months has been a nightmare, thinking about her, thinking about her on the hospital bed and not being able to call the only person that I really wanted to call, the single person whose consolation I really needed.