Author's Note: In the last chapter, Mahmood's rage at his family for their actions during the Garden Party, culminating in Saria bearing the brunt of a violent beating, as she was used as a whipping girl for her brother's sins. Now, a week has passed, and we find that the roller-coaster of Saria's emotions are on a broken and shaky trajectory.
I do not condone the actions, thoughts, feelings and opinions of the characters in this story. They are merely a work of fiction and should be taken as such. I also do not own the Kite Runner or its characters, ideas, dialogues and plots. Those belong to Khaled Hosseini.
With that said, please enjoy this next chapter! Should you have any comments, please feel free to leave them. I would welcome hearing from my readers! I send love to you all!
Just once, I thought, as I flopped back on Assef's bed, staring blankly up at the ceiling, just once can I have a good day this week? Just one day where things go my way for a change? Where it doesn't feel like I'm gearing up for battle every time I step foot out of my goddamn bedroom? Just one day where I can breathe, where it doesn't feel like I need to struggle to hold onto the air in my lungs, where it doesn't feel like I'm a simmering pressure cooker that's getting ready to explode? It's all I ask for. Just one, single day. One day to allow my frazzled mind to heal from the trauma it has undergone... Is that so much to ask?
"Saria?"
Having taken notice of my melancholic state, Assef looked at me with concern written entirely upon his countenance. We hadn't spoken much on our journey home from school today - I was in no mood to engage in conversation, today had been nothing short of dreadful, and I did not even have the words to express just what a chore it had been. I could tell that my brother had a lot on his mind too - though what that might have been, I of course remained none-the-wiser to. Either way, just being in his presence was enough to offer me a minuscule level of calm. It wasn't much, I knew, but it was something. That was why I had taken to spending more time in his room as of late than my own - I needed the comfort and reassurance that only he could offer to me.
Assef moved away from the wall that he had been leaning against, kicking his school bag into a corner as he did so. He walked over to his bed, sitting gingerly down on the edge of it. "What's wrong, Liebchen?" he asked, placing a hand on my knee. "I know that something is, and I can no longer sit here and let you wallow." He lifted my hand, bringing my fingers up to his lips and kissing them gently before letting it fall back down to my side again. "Please, Saria, sit up and talk to me. Tell me what's on your mind. Let me know what's bothering you, so that I can try to fix it. Please?"
I hauled myself up into a sitting position, smoothing down the skirt of the light blue dress that I had changed out of my uniform into upon returning home. Another low sigh escaped from my lips as I brushed a stray lock of golden hair back behind my ear. Assef looked at me, patiently waiting for me to begin speaking. To tell him what was wrong, to share my troubles with him so that he might begin to help me fix them.
"It's just... just been a shitty day," I began, letting out a deep sigh as I leaned over to rest my head against my beloved's shoulder. He played absently with a few loose strands of my hair, while I found the words to explain what was on my mind. "I mean, for starters, I'm still dealing with all of Ahtrai's shit. Did you know she's started performing a fucking one-woman show where she re-enacts my freak-out over that damn lizard?"
"What?" Assef's voice was low, dangerous. I saw him glance to the shelf whereupon his brass knuckles rested. "That fucking cunt is doing what to you?!" The ferocity in his voice made a giddy shudder run through me. Oh, how I loved his protective streak.
Nodding, I balled my hands up into fists, my lip curling into a snarl as I answered my brother. "Yeah. You heard me point fucking blank on that one. She started it the moment that we went back to school. Gathered up a group of her bitch friends and spent at least ten minutes pretending to writhe and shriek on the tarmac, pulling these awful, grotesque faces that I just KNOW were meant to be a twisted caricature of my own fears. She follows me around for the entire length of our break-time, day in and day out, repeating this fucking joke that was tired and unfunny the first FUCKING time!"
Oh, my calm exterior was fading away now, ephemeral as mist. Disappearing into a cold, dark well that lay deep within the confines of my very soul. Even just telling Assef about what my newest enemy was doing was enough to make me want to rip the world into pieces. I wanted to grab a knife from our kitchen cabinet, hunt Ahtrai down, and carve her up even worse than I had done with Zainab. I wanted to bind and gag all of her cunt friends and force them to watch as the light drained from Ahtrai's beady little eyes. Wanted to see the look on her face when she would realise that she had messed with the wrong person.
As if the treatment that I was receiving from Ahtrai wasn't bad enough, Adia had given me quite a wide berth this week; making it clear that my presence was uncomfortable for her. I suppose I couldn't really blame her - word of my actions had spread like wildfire and I'm sure that ignoring me wasn't entirely a decision of her own making. But I wasn't going to bring this up to my darling, however. I figured that with time and effort, I would be able to restore Adia's faith in me. Assef would have no doubt wanted to hurt the dear girl. and while there was a time and place for such types of punishment, this, I knew, was not the time.
"I'm just..." I trailed off, staring blankly into the distance. "I'm just tired, Assef jan. Really tired. Sick and tired of having to deal with this crap at school, and then having to come home and pretend like everything's fine. To smile and curtsy to our parents, to sit at the dinner table with them and keep up this damn facade. As if Tanya didn't fucking beat the living daylights out of me! As if Mahmood didn't pin you to the fucking floor and make you watch."
I felt Assef tense against me as the horrific memory washed over him. He wrapped an arm around my shoulder, leaning his cheek onto the top of my head, a whistling sigh being sucked in through his clenched teeth. "I'm just... I don't know. It feels like I'm trapped in this damn house. Like everything is slowly falling apart and there's nothing for me to do other than just wait for the entire house to crumble into pieces, for us both to be... to be crushed under the weight of all this heavy debris!"
My beloved rubbed soft circles into my back, fingers gently playing with a few loose strands of hair that hung over my shoulders. "I know," he replied. "I know how you feel, my precious sister. It's been quite the stressful week, now hasn't it?" I nodded, and he continued. "But that's not to say that we need to let it continue. I rather think that it's high time we got away from this house, even if only for a night."
With that, Assef stood up again and extended his hand for me. I placed my hand into his larger one, and he guided me back to my feet, opening his arms to pull me into an embrace. "I want you to pack up an overnight bag," he said, stroking my hair. "Throw in a nightgown, a change of clothes, everything you'd bring if you were going on a sleepover." I opened my mouth to, of course, ask where it was he planned on taking me, but he pressed a finger to my lips, cutting across me before I'd even had the opportunity to speak. "I'll tell you in a little while where it is we'll be going, alright? I think you're going to get a kick out of this. And it'll be a chance for the two of us to get away from this hellhole. Now, go on, please. I'll meet you back in the hall when you're ready. Okay?"
I nodded, though I was still a little bit confused as to just what my brother's plans were. Still, I knew that he was almost as eager to get out of this house as I was, and what's more, he would never, ever, do me wrong. And so I removed myself from the safety of his arms - though I yearned for nothing less than to remain there forever - and made my way across the hall and into my own room. As I pushed open the door and stepped inside, I found myself wondering just what my darling could have planned for us today.
"Where is he taking me?" I murmured in German, walking over to my closet and opening the doors, kneeling down to remove the same rucksack that I had used for the disastrous sleepover with Adia. "Just where... where could he have in mind for us to go?" I tossed the bag onto my bed and quickly manoeuvred my way through the room, opening and closing drawers, rifling through my neatly folded clothes and deciding what I ought to take for this 'sleepover' that my darling was planning to take me on. Assef had told me to pack for 'overnight' which meant a nightgown and change of clothing for the next day. Bringing my index finger up to tap against my chin, I debated over which outfit I should bring with me.
After some deliberation, I opted to bring one of my favourites, a pretty cream dress with lace on the sleeves and hem. I placed it neatly into the rucksack, along with one of my pink nightgowns, a change of undergarments and tights, a hairbrush and the necessary toiletries. Once I had finished packing, I fetched a pair of shoes and a coat. Sitting on the edge of the bed, I placed the shoes on my feet and struggled into the coat, my fingers twitching as I did up the buttons. I stood up and tossed my hair over my shoulder, gathering the now zipped-up bag as I made my way back out into the hall where Assef was waiting for me, just as he promised.
He took my hand, squeezing it once as I looked curiously up at him. He too had a rucksack slung over his shoulder, no doubt having packed an overnight bag just as he had requested for me to do. "Ready to go?" he asked, and of course, I nodded. I had never been more ready for anything in my entire life. Assef smiled. "Good. Alright then. Let's get going, no time to delay." Once more, I found myself wondering just where it might be that Assef wanted the two of us to go. However, just as I opened my mouth to ask him this - indeed, before we had even gotten the chance to reach the top step of the stairs - there came the unmistakable creaking noise of our parent's bedroom door being opened.
"Fuck sake," Assef groaned, and I felt him begin to tense up next to me as Tanya stepped out into the hall. She looked... like absolute hell, there was no other analogy by which I could use to describe it. Oh sure, she still had brushed her hair and put on a full face of makeup, despite the fact that she probably wouldn't have been stepping foot outside the house, but... the effort that she'd usually have made for such things was not there. There was a distinct lifelessness in her eyes, her movements slow with each laboured step, as if moving at all was a chore for her.
She looked around, seemingly at nothing in particular, and I begged internally that she would just turn around and go back into her room - that she would not take any notice of us. But as always, fortune would not, could not, smile upon Saria Ahmed, and it took only a second or two before Tanya caught sight of her children, hovering almost frozen at the top of the stairs, both holding bags and looking to all the world like they were planning on getting the hell out of there. She took a step towards us, and it felt as though we were trapped, trapped with nowhere to go. I squeezed Assef's hand, moving so that I was positioned behind him.
"Where... where are you two going?" Tanya asked. Her words were slurred, as if speaking in and of itself was an effort for her. She had attempted to cover up the black eye that Assef had given her with makeup and concealer, but even then, and even with a week having passed, it was easy to make out the splotches of purple and yellow on her face. There was even a more "fresh" line of bruises along her jawline, and I wondered then if Mahmood had imparted his own brand of punishment onto our mother for failing to control her two unruly children all that time ago. I found that I didn't much want to think about this, however, and so I turned my gaze away from Tanya and looked up at Assef as he began to speak.
"Mother," he said, in one of his most charming tones of voice. "I'm taking Saria to spend the night over at Kamal's house. It's all been arranged. You see..." He looked down at me, gently ushering me out from my hiding spot behind him and placing his hands upon my shoulders. Glancing down at me, he continued to speak. "Wali is going to be there. It'll be the first time that we've spoken to him since... well, since.. you know.. And I thought, and Saria agrees with me, that it would be the decent thing to do for us to go over and apologise in person for what happened the last time he and his family were in our home. I know that Saria feels truly shamed not only for her actions but also for the crude and hurtful words she used when speaking to and of Wali. As her big brother, I feel it would be remiss of me to not help her in assuaging some of that guilt by offering her the chance to make some form of restitution to at least one of the people that she's hurt."
Tanya was somewhat taken aback by this. She cleared her throat, blinking a few times. "Oh, uh... well... I... yes, that is a good idea, son. It... It's long past, I mean, it's long past the time that the two of you apologised to Wali for the deplorable manner in which you treated him." Ah, there was the old familiar, condescending Tanya, back again. She looked down at me, an expression of contempt in her face that I tried to avoid replicating on my own. "You, young lady, have quite the atonement to offer. You are so very lucky that you didn't end up breaking Wali's nose."
Lucky, I scoffed internally, yeah, that's one way of putting it. Damn it, I wish I could have broken Wali's fucking neck! But rather than voice this to my mother, knowing that this would result in a scolding at best, I merely lowered my gaze in an act of false contrition. Tanya continued on before I could even open my mouth and offer any words of false apology. "And that's not even getting into the horrendous language that you used. Yes, it is high time that you made restitution for your actions." She looked at my brother. "Assef, I expect both you and your sister to offer a truly heartfelt apology to Wali, and to send words of the same to his parents. And..." A pause. Tanya's eyes glistened as she stared my other half in the eye. "Please extend my deepest gratitude to Kamal for his courageous actions on that afternoon."
She was, of course, referring to the way that Kamal had leapt into action, wrestling Assef off of her as he pummelled the cunt into the ground. Were it not for Kamal, Assef might well have murdered Tanya that day. He was certainly enraged enough. I wouldn't have given two shits had Tanya lost her life on that day (being beaten to death by her own son would have been far less than the suffering she deserves) but I definitely would have cared if my soulmate got into trouble for it. And it was for that reason, and indeed, that reason alone, that Tanya and I were equal in our gratitude that Kamal had stepped in to stop the fight; though for obviously vastly different motivations.
"I will be sure to pass on your thanks, Mother," Assef responded. He placed a hand on my shoulder, ushering me towards the stairs. Clearly he didn't want to engage in a conversation with the bitch any longer. Not that I could blame him one bit for that; I was of a similar opinion, of course. "Now, if you don't mind, I informed Kamal that we would arrive at his home by three-thirty and..." He raised his wrist, which held his golden, American-style watch, on it, and looked at the hands ticking away. "We had best get going now if we don't want to be late." Staring her right in the eye, Assef leaned down and pressed a kiss to the top of my head. "Come along, my darling Saria. We will be home at some point tomorrow, Mother. Probably late afternoon or evening."
Tanya nodded. "Yeah, uh, yes, that's... that's fine, Assef. You just take care of your sister, alright?" His eyes narrowed into slits as she spoke those words, a low exhale escaping from his lips. That fucking bitch! How dare she think it was acceptable to patronise my beloved like that? To insinuate for even a goddamn second that he wasn't capable of taking care of me. To pretend as if she was the one who was concerned for my own well-being, as if she wasn't the one who had practically whipped the skin off of me a mere week ago.
I turned away from the woman, not wanting to give her a second thought. I followed after my brother while he descended the stairs; grumbling under his breath with each step. As we made our way out the front door, I heard the muffled sound of our parent's bedroom door slamming shut once again. And good fucking riddance to you, bitch! I thought, while my other half shut the front door behind him. It must have taken all of his inner strength to not tear the door from off of its hinges. He took a huge intake of breath, attempting to calm himself, then placed a hand upon my back.
"Come on, Liebchen," he said, guiding me towards the front gates. "Honestly, the sooner that we get away from this fucking place, the better." Not going to argue with him in that regard! I skipped alongside my darling, clutching onto his hand, my rucksack over my shoulder, skirt bouncing away from my little frame with every step. Every step I took away from the house, the further we went down the driveway, it brought to me a sense of true and unadulterated joy.
As we slipped through the wrought-iron gates and out into the streets, I looked up at my darling, a smirk forming upon my lips as I asked the question that had been praying on my mind from the very moment that he let me know we would be spending the night away from home. "Assef?" I asked.
"Yes, Saria?" We spoke in German to one another as was typical for the both of us.
"I know for a fact that we aren't going to apologise to Wali," I mused in a lilting tone of voice. "That you only said those things in order to get the bitch-cunt off of our back. I mean, we'd both sooner throw ourselves into Qharga Lake rather than express any kind of regret to that son-of-a-bitch." Assef chuckled at my analogy, drawing me in close and ruffling my hair while I playfully rolled my eyes, giggling as I dodged away from him. "So tell me, where is it that you're really planning to take me? I mean... I know you might be planning to keep it as a surprise, but I'll be honest, the suspense here is absolutely killing me. I want, no, I need to know. Please, please tell me!"
Assef nodded, squeezing my tiny fingers gently in his own. He tapped my nose with one finger, grinning at me. "I knew that you'd figure out the hidden meaning behind my words, Liebchen," he said, "of course, Wali can go fuck himself. Quite frankly, I'm done with him. He forfeited our friendship the moment he showed you any less than the reverence you are owed." His eyes darkened for a nanosecond, his expression becoming almost monstrous as he said Wali's name. For a moment, I wondered if he had already sought vengeance against Wali for what he had done - though I didn't ask, not wanting to get into it. Assef and I continued to walk along the road, entirely ignoring everyone and everything else around us. In our own little world as we so often were.
"Yeah," Assef said, as we reached a section of the road wherein we could cross. He looked left and right, checking for any cars. Once it was determined that it was safe for us to cross, he began to lead me across the road. "I only made up all of that bullshit about apologising to Wali to appease Tanya. Didn't want to deal with her constant questions about where we're going. And, well, Kamal will be the perfect alibi, on the off-chance that Tanya or Mahmood do decide to ask about this in the future. I know he'll be more than willing to lie for me." There was a true confidence in his voice as he spoke - so trusting of Kamal's loyalty and friendship. It made me hope that, one day, I could achieve that same level of devotion from Adia.
"Sooo..." I trailed off. "Where, exactly, are we going?"
My other half guided me to a barren patch of land. He stopped for a moment, leaning down to place his hands upon my shoulders as he kissed the top of my head, pointing to a large hill in the distance. "Maybe you could answer that question for me, my beautiful and clever little sister," he said. "Come now, you must recognise this place, don't you?"
I did. Of course I did. Even now, writing these memoirs all these years later, this section of Wazir-Akbhar-Khan holds such a special place in my heart. Warmed the cockles of my dark and twisted soul in a manner in which there was not much else in the world (with the exception of the wonderful person stood beside me right now) ever could. I dug my heels into the ground, feeling the dirt and gravel underneath my feet. I tilted my head up to the sky, closing my eyes as a deep exhale was let out of my mouth. The memories, oh yes, the sweet, sweet, twisted and beautiful memories.
"Yes," I whispered, turning to face my brother with a huge grin plastered on my face. "Yes, I remember this place. Remember it well, indeed. The place where Zainab lost her life!" A childish giggle from my lips as I said those last four words. I grabbed onto my beloved's hand and leaned my cheek down on top of it.
Assef smiled, looping his arm through mine as he began to lead me along the path. How different it feels to be walking along this path now, I thought, different, and yet... so similar to what it was like before. A rucksack on my back, arm in arm with my soulmate. And at the same time - there was no knife hidden in my coat pocket. No plastic bags in which to hide a corpse. Nobody would lose their life on this day.
We continued to make our way along the winding pathway. Looking up, I could see the hill up ahead. I steeled myself for the trek that lay in wait. As we climbed up, Assef engaged in more conversation with me. "Tell me, my Saria," he asked, "do you remember what I told you, on the day that you so expertly ended Zainab's worthless life? About the house that we killed her in?"
I thought about it for a moment. Indeed, it did take a second or two for me to replay everything, every memory going by at about a million miles per nanosecond as I considered everything that my soulmate had said to me on that day. It seemed as if we had discussed so much on that fateful afternoon, what, pray tell, could he have been speaking about? I wracked my brain for an answer. And after a moment or so of thinking, it occurred to me just what he was no doubt talking about.
"You said..." I began, as we made our way up the hill, "it was when I asked you about leaving the cunt's body in the house. Because I didn't want you to have to drag her around even longer than was necessary. But you told me that it would be best to remove her to some other place, on account of the fact that... that since the house is abandoned, we could use it for our own needs, somewhere and somehow. Someday down the line."
We had crested over the top of the hill as I said those words, and I looked down at the brook that lay below. To think that only a few short months ago, Zainab was kneeling by that brook, caterwauling and just living her life. Just being a typical, naive and silly child. Just playing and having fun. With no idea, not an inkling in that empty head of hers that this would be the last day that she spent on this earth. It almost felt surreal to be back here again, to feel that rush of power flowing through my veins. I hope you made the most of your final day of freedom, you pathetic whore! I thought, glaring at the place where I had first noticed Zainab, imagining that she was still there. I highly doubt there's any nature or flowers where you are now. Plenty of heat, though, if you catch my drift.
"- chen? Liebchen?"
My other half was speaking to me. I must have zoned out, so engrossed was in the moment. I felt my face burn with embarrassment as I turned to look at him, contrition evident (I hoped) in every pore of my expression. "Forgive me, my Assef, I zoned out. So much to think about, to reminisce on. I didn't mean to ignore you, I apologise for that. What is that you were saying?"
Assef chuckled. "Oh, I could tell that you were off in your own little world, Liebchen. No harm, no foul. Happens to the best of us," he teased as we began to descend the hill, reaching the brook. Retracing our steps back to the scene of the crime. I was almost bouncing with giddy excitement. "Anyway, what I was saying, my beautiful Saria, is that you're right. I had been thinking quite a bit about that old, abandoned house. I know it's condition isn't quite up to the standard that we're used to but... when we were there the first time, I couldn't help but to think about what a godsend this place could be to us. As I told you way back then, we could use that house for our own benefit. Spruce it up a bit, do a bit of recon to see what needs to be done, you know? It looks habitable enough that we would be able to spend the night there, away from the prying eyes and ears of our parents. What say you, Liebchen?"
"That sounds wonderful, my brother," I replied, "a home away from home. A special little place for us to call our own. And you couldn't have picked a better spot, you most truly couldn't. But tell me..." Looping my arm through the crook of his elbow once again as we meandered along, taking our time, enjoying the 'scenic route', "because I must admit that I am curious. Tell me..." I grinned mischievously, a sing-song tone to my voice now. "Were renovations all that you were thinking of on that day? Because, uhm... well..." Turning to face him, I faked the puppy-dog expression of a poor, forlorn little sister. "I must admit it would be rather disappointing if that were the case."
But of course, this was little more than playful teasing between siblings, and my other half caught onto this right away. He jabbed me in the side with his elbow, grinning. "I mean.. what else was there to think about?" he asked, his brow rising. "Come on, Sar. It's not like there was much else interesting happening in that house, now was there?"
I made a show of pretending to be offended, crossing my arms over my chest as I turned away from him, though inside I was struggling not to laugh at our inside jokes. We had now reached the bridge where Zainab had run across in her futile attempt to escape from us. Assef was the first to relent in this little game. Placing both hands on my shoulders, he turned me around to face him, kneeling down so that he was on a level with me. He gave me a pointed look as he lifted my hand in his.
"You and I both know what or rather, who, truly captured my attention on that day," he said, lifting my hand to his lips and pressing a soft kiss across the back of it, the taste of his lips appearing to linger there even long after he had released my hand, letting it fall back at my side once more. "Who captures it always, every day, every moment of our lives together."
"As you capture mine, my dearest brother," I replied, feeling an excited rush coarse through my body as I looked at him in the eye. Assef straightened up, offering me his arm once more. I took it, and together the two of us continued to make our way across the brook. There was a spring in my step as I made my way over the creek, ascending the smaller hill, then across that patch of road. We were taking the same path that we had taken all those months ago - and how joyous it felt to return to the scene of the crime, to return with the one person in the universe who would ever truly know the joy that it brought me to be here again.
How clever of him, I thought, looking up at my darling as he lead me further along the road. To bring me to this place again. To see it for the perfect home-away-from-home that it could be. I know damn sure that I wouldn't have come to that conclusion on my own. But that's why Assef is such a brilliant soul, he always comes up with the best ideas. He truly is the best of us both.
We reached the bridge, clamouring across its rickety surface, now having to go one in front of the other in order to get across. I went on ahead, though this time at a much slower pace than before. Now, we had as much time as we needed to cross this bridge. As much time as was necessary for us to admire the scenery. How beautiful it was, too, the flowers, the sun beating down on the two of us, the blue sky with a few small white clouds up ahead. It was as if nature itself wanted to provide some level of comfort and reassurance to me. As if the sky wanted to smile down upon me, to tell me that everything would be alright.
Having reached the end of the bridge, I hopped down off of the remaining steps, wobbling as I did so. Assef, who was right behind me, flung an arm out to protect me in case I ended up falling over. But I managed to regroup and extended a hand to my other half, who took it, squeezed it once, and once more began to lead me along the path. There it was, up ahead, the old house that would soon become our second home.
It was just as I remembered it; the weeds, the overgrown front garden, the illegible graffiti painted upon the walls. I wondered who had painted that graffiti, and, indeed, where were they now? Probably some punk-ass little brats, no doubt. We made our way through the tall grass. Glancing to my right, I noticed an upended toy pram lying in the front lawn. Clearly something that I hadn't noticed before, so engrossed was I back then in the thrill of the chase, the hunt, the kill. Letting go of my soulmate's hand, I walked over to the pram. I bent down and picked up the small baby-doll that had fallen out of it. Quite an ugly thing, really, and I'd have described it thus even if it hadn't somehow lost an eye.
I dangled the toy by one arm, my face contorting into a look of disgust. "Creepy looking thing, isn't it?" I mused, gesturing at my brother with the doll.
He laughed. "I'm not surprised that it got abandoned, then, Liebchen," he said, then extended his arm for me again. "Now come, let's go inside."
Ever obedient to his wishes, I let the doll fall back into its place in the grass, kicking it away from me as I walked back to his side. Disgusting as it might have been, that doll was a reminder to me, as we pushed open the front door and stepped into the house, that a family had once lived here. Parents and children, people who had their own lives, who had walked the same halls that my brother and I were walking right now. Who had climbed the same steps that I was now climbing, Assef following behind. Who knew the ins-and-outs of this home far better than we ever did.
What would they think, I wondered, as each step creaked under my shoes, if they knew what their house had been used as the place for one child to murder another? How would they feel if they knew that a young girl had lost her life in one of their children's bedrooms? And what if they knew that the killer had returned to the scene of the crime? Would they be disgusted? Horrified? Or perhaps... perhaps they might feel that morbid curiosity that the human psyche often feels when learning of such twisted actions? Though I doubted that the latter would be the case.
"So, are we going to get started with our renovations?" Assef asked, as we stood in the upstairs hallway. I craned my neck back to look up at him, then shook my head.
"Not yet," I mused, pointing to the door that lead into the room where Zainab had died. "Soon, brother, soon. I wanted to go in there. To reminisce." Assef nodded and smiled, motioning for me to go on ahead. Pushing open the door, I took a deep breath and stepped into the room. A grin began to form on my lips, a soft giggle escaping from my mouth. "Just think, Assef, this is the last room that Zainab ever stood in. This is the place where she took her last breath." I crossed to the spot where I had pinned the girl down, getting on my knees as I placed a hand upon the wooden floor, running my palm along its smooth surface.
It was clean again, returned to its usual state. Not a hint of blood left behind. No indication that anyone had lost their life in this room. Just the abandoned remnants of a child who had once lived in these premises. "I still can't believe what I did in here," I said, drumming my fingernails along the wooden floorboards. "I think about it often, as I know that you do, too, my brother. I think of it on regular basis, waxing poetic about everything that took place in this room. But... it's always felt as though it was nothing more than a dream. Even with the knowledge of Zainab's body being found, even with the fact that we've planted the evidence on that scapegoat of ours. It still... I don't know... still didn't feel all that real to me. Like it was just some role in a school play that I'd been rehearsing for. But being here again, seeing the place where she died. Kneeling where I once straddled her quivering form, the look in her eyes, the tears, the way that she tried to fight me off. The sound of the knife as it was plunged into her skin. I don't know if I'll ever be able to describe what that was like, Assef jan. It was beyond all words, beyond all comprehension!
Assef walked across the room, kneeling down beside me. He placed a hand on my upper back, and I leaned my head against his shoulder. He brushed a lock of hair back behind my ear as he leaned down to whisper into it. "I'll never be able to explain what it felt like to see you commit that murder. I mean, there's no way in hell that my feelings could ever compare to what it must have been like for you to commit the crime but..." Trailing off for a moment, my other half stared at the ground, perhaps memorialising the events that had taken place there. "To see you come into your own. To see the passion and drive that you had. How you wouldn't let anything or anyone stand in your way. It reminded me of how proud I always am of you when we go on a Just Because... only... this pride was at a tenfold, no, a thousandfold, increase."
Hearing his kind words, knowing how proud he was of me. Knowing that my actions had such as positive effect on him, that he thought of them with such fondness, it all made me feel more than I could say. I snuggled closer to him, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek as we nuzzled against one another, basking in the perfect light of his divine love. I swooned on my knees, butterflies fluttering in my chest. Oh, I could have stayed in this moment forever, never moving from the safety and warmth of Assef's touch and tender gaze.
But we needed to get down to business, and it was Assef who got us back on track. He got to his feet, dusted off his trousers, then held out a hand to me. I took it, allowing him to pull me back onto my feet. "Come, my darling," he said, rubbing his thumb along the back of my hand. "Let's go see what else this place has to offer." He smiled down at me, a gesture that I most eagerly returned, then began to lead me back out of that room and down the hallway once again. Assef certainly seemed to want to be the one taking charge of this moment - though I wasn't about to complain.
We left the Murder Room, and I chuckled to myself as that name came to mind, the door clicking shut behind us. How odd it felt to leave such a poignant place behind, though I knew without a shadow of a doubt that we would return in due time. Now, there was another task at hand, and I knew that my darling wanted to get down to business. "I didn't really bring anything of note with me," he told me as we stood outside the door to another room. "But I figured that today, well, today we could just tour the house and see what's here. What we can use to fix it up, make it a bit more hospitable. Once we've got that figured out, we can start making more routine trips here, bringing anything that we need from home, you know? Turn it into our own secret, special place, a world all of our own. Just for the two of us."
And what a beautiful dream that was! A place where we could go without anyone to bother us. No bullies, no annoying friends, no parents. Just Assef and I, our souls united in the hallowed memories of these halls. Assef opened the door to the second bedroom and stepped inside. This time it was the master bedroom, the one in which I remembered having changed out of my bloodstained dress all those months ago. Again, it felt strange to be back here - though not at all comparable to the Murder Room. I let go of my brother's hand and walked to the oak closet, throwing it open to see what might have been inside.
But apart from some old, moth covered jackets, and a broken hairbrush, there was nothing in there that could have been of benefit to us. I relayed this information to Assef, tossing the hairbrush back into the closet, hearing a dull thud as it hit the wall. "Mhm," he replied, and even though I wasn't facing him, I could almost hear in his tone that he was shrugging. "Yeah, I didn't expect there to be anything of note in the upstairs closet, Sar." I turned around once more, noting that while I was looking in the closet, he had made his way over to the large, double bed in the centre of the room.
He sat down, gingerly, hesitating. "Seems sturdy," he mused, in a low voice, speaking more to himself than to me. He placed both hands on either side of him, moving up and down slightly, testing the springs. "Yeah, this will be safe enough for us to sleep in. We can call this room our own, Liebchen, what do you think? That this will be our room?"
I beamed upon hearing those words. Our room. Ours. Just as the house would be ours; the idea of having a special bedroom in which to share with my other half made my entire body quiver with delight. Ours, oh how I adored that word!
Assef stood back up, running a hand through his blond hair. "Yes, this room will do just fine," he murmured. "Now come, Saria, let's go and explore downstairs. We didn't get much chance to do that when we were here the last time, did we?" I shook my head, and he continued. "But I suppose we should take this opportunity to see if there's anything down there that can be of benefit to us."
Eager to let him take the lead, I obediently traipsed after him as he made his way out of Our Room, and descended the stairs. He turned towards the open kitchen door, gesturing ahead of it. "Figure that we should take a look in here, Liebchen," he said, guiding me over there. "See if there are any utensils that could help." I just nodded, not saying a word, as my other half guided me into the kitchen. I stood leaning against a chair, fiddling with the sleeve of my dress, while Assef opened cupboard doors and drawers, removing from it several knives and a roll of masking tape. He picked up the tape, spinning it around on his index finger. "Could definitely use this," he acknowledged, placing the tape back into the drawer from whence it had originated.
I didn't respond, merely offering a shy smile being directed towards my beloved as he continued to mill about the kitchen. As I've said before, I was going to acquiesce to my brother's opinions on this matter. To allow him to lead me from room to room, as he was doing now, offering my opinion at times when asked for it, but allowing him to make the decisions. I figured, after all, that he would be the best person for the job. He seemed to have given this far more thought than I did.
As we entered the living room, and my brother nudged the springs of the couch with his shoe, murmuring about how we could make use of the masking tape to fix that - at least on a temporary basis - I began to feel as though there was a heavy cloud being placed upon my shoulders. While there may have been a sense of accomplishment, a thrill, at having returned to this house after all this time, the excitement that I had felt mere moments ago was slowly beginning to dissipate, leaving me with only the painful realisation as to why we had to be here in the first place.
Oh sure, it was good that my brother and I had found this place. Good that we would finally have this second home - this place where we could go to be ourselves. Somewhere special, somewhere with memories belonging only to us. And yet... as I hovered in the living room doorway, watching my brother do the necessary work, a little voice in the back of my head began to chastise me. Speaking words of cruel mockery, as it is wont to do.
We wouldn't have needed a second house if it weren't for the fact that our own home life wasn't so shit, I berated myself, if it wasn't for the fact that Mahmood and Tanya care so little for me that it was acceptable for them to use me as their punching bag. That's why Assef got you out of that house, Saria, and whether or not he'll ever admit that, you know it to be the truth. You're here because of how broken your family truly is, and there's no amount of time spent anywhere else that can change that!
The physical pain that I had suffered at my mother's hands had long since dissipated. Bruises could heal, and the ones upon my flesh were doing much of the same. And maybe I should be used to that. Corporal punishment was a regular occurrence here - something I hated but was, at this point, almost used to. It was the norm for the time period to spank children when they acted out. But what had transpired last week went far beyond the typical spanking, now didn't it?
Physical chastisement I could handle, I'd suffered enough pain in my short life to know how to shut the memories away in that deep, dark well inside myself where I would never have to think about them again. And yet... I wasn't able to do that now. Oh, I had tried, believe me, and I was trying right now. Trying to make myself feel better, to remind myself of how powerful and great I truly was. To remind myself that this was the home wherein I had murdered someone. That I had within me the power to control the balance of life and death, and who other than God had that ability?
But it's hard to feel good about oneself when one is used as nothing more than a scapegoat, now is it? That was the word that kept running through my mind, repeating over and over, as if on a loop. Scapegoat, scapegoat, scapegoat. That's all you're useful for, just to be used and beaten. A pathetic scapegoat, a replacement. Nothing more than the glue meant to keep your broken family together, and you can't even do that! Worthless, Saria, is there no better word to describe you? Stupid, worthless, SCAPEGOAT!
"No," I moaned, shaking my head rapidly as if to clear the barbarous words from out of my psyche. "No, that's not true, that's not who I am. It can't be. I'm more than what my mind is telling me. I must be. But... but would this have happened were it not for-?" Trailing off, I doubled over, hands on my knees, a low whine escaping from my lips. The thought that burned now in my mind was too brutal, too painful, for me to even think about. "No," I whimpered, feeling a trickling sensation begin to form upon my cheeks. "No, no, it's not true. It's not, it's not. It fucking can't be. No... nooo..."
Assef, who was in the middle of inspecting an armchair, tensed upon hearing my whimpers. I could see his back go rigid as he heard the sadness in my voice. He turned to face me, so fast that I didn't have the chance to duck my head away before he noticed the tears beginning to form on my cheeks. Within a nanosecond, he was at my side, taking my hands in his and looking at me with that expression of concern that he so often wore around me. That expression that I now reminded myself I didn't deserve.
"What's wrong?" he asked. I didn't answer. What was there to say? How could I respond to him? How could I tell him that I had gone from being genuinely excited and happy to be here, to utterly hating myself in less than twenty fucking minutes? He'd think me crazy, and rightly so. Biting my lip, I looked up at my other half, trying to blink back the tears that were now threatening to fall once more. I attempted to turn my head away from Assef, but he wasn't going to let me get away with that, now was he?
Gently taking me under the chin, he bade me look at him directly in the eye. You don't even deserve to do that, said that horrid voice in the back of my head, which caused yet another sob to be wrenched from out of my throat. "Saria, please..." Assef whispered, rubbing his thumb along my cheek, wiping the tears away as they continued to fall. "Please tell me what's wrong. I'm not just going to stand here and pretend as if you're not crying. Please, my dearest, tell me what it is so that I can fix it. Are you hurt? Did something happen?"
I felt so numb as my brother started to inspect me, to look me up and down, searching for any signs that I might be in pain. He turned me left and right, back and forth. How much like a rag doll I felt, being moved to and fro like this. Bringing my hands up in the space between my brother's chest and mine, I disentangled myself from his arms and stepped away, crossing my arms over my chest as I turned my back. Not because I was angry or upset with my darling, of course, not at all. But it was easier for me to speak when I didn't have to worry about how I was coming across.
I wiped my nose on the sleeve of my dress. "I'm not hurt, Assef," I said, trying to prevent my voice from shaking as I got those words out. "Just... stressed, that's all I am. It's nothing to worry about. I'll be fine in a minute, just give me a second or two to-" Alas, I could go no further before my other half cut across me.
"What? Do you expect me to just let you bottle up your feelings? To ignore the fact that you're crying and that something is clearly bothering you?" He whirled me around to face him once more. "No, Saria, no. That's not happening, I can tell you this for a cold, hard fact, right now. Do you really think that I'm going to let you fester alone in your misery? Come on, dearest sister, you know me better than that."
He took me by the hand, leading me out of the room and up the stairs. I was utterly numb as I trudged along behind him, not allowing a single word to fall from out of my belaboured lips. In my current state, I believe I would have allowed myself to have been thrown out the upstairs window. Would have welcomed it, in fact. But of course, that would never be the option that my brother had in mind.
Instead, he lead me into our new bedroom, closing the door behind us. He motioned to the bed, indicating that I should sit down. Still entirely dazed, moving as though anaesthetised, I did as he asked, lowering myself down onto the bed. Assef sat beside me, reaching over to place a hand upon my knee. "Saria..." He took my hand in his, intertwining our fingers together. "Please tell me what the matter is, Liebchen. Please." But no matter how much he begged, I couldn't take it upon myself to answer his question. Couldn't get the words out of my mouth. How could I? How could I look my brother, the one true love I had in this world, in the eye, and tell him that I felt like a burden? Tell him that I felt as though I no longer had a place in the world? Tell him that the voices in my head were screaming at me again, calling me all manner of horrific names, berating me for the sole mistake of having existed in the first place?
"I know something is bothering you," Assef continued, not even taking a moment to draw breath. "I can tell that you're down, I've known it all day. Oh, sure you've tried to hide it. Tried to smile, to laugh. To lose yourself in the memories of this place. That's part of the reason why I brought us here - I thought that perhaps reminding you of your capabilities and strengths would bring the light back to your lovely blue eyes, but even in your happiest moments today, I can tell that there's something eating you alive from the inside out. So tell me what it is, my dearest, tell me. How can I be expected to help if I don't even know what's tearing my little sister apart?"
I sighed. "It's nothing. I'm just being stupid, you shouldn't worry about me."
But Assef just shook his head, not letting me go any further in that self-debasement. "Don't," he chastised. "Don't call yourself stupid, Saria. Don't try to write off how you feel. If it bothers you, then it's worth talking about. I want to help. Won't you let me? Won't you tell your big brother what thoughts are circling around in that head of yours?"
Tears began to stream their way down my cheeks. I let them fall, staring numbly at my lap as I tried to gather up the courage to speak. "It... It's just..." I began, figuring out how to explain everything. Assef was so patient with me, rubbing his thumb along the back of my hand, his fingers gently playing with my own. Looking him in the eye, I somehow found the courage to fight through my mind, to share my troubles with him.
"I've been thinking a lot about what happened last week. About everything that took place. All of the suffering that we were both forced to go through. Suffering that could have been prevented if I weren't so fucking stupid! Every time I close my fucking eyes, I see them, those guests, standing there, staring at me. Staring and making a goddamn mockery of me in one of the worst moments of my life. All of them, standing there and not doing a FUCKING thing to help me! I mean... for crying out loud, I'm not asking for much, now am I? Just for someone, somebody out there to have shown a bit of compassion to me!"
Assef opened his mouth to speak, but now that I had begun to talk, it didn't appear that I was going to stop anytime soon. In fact? My voice began to rise, louder and more ominous as harsher words flowed like a string of obscenities from my mouth. "I mean, goddamn it, Assef, god fucking damn it, I know that I'm the last person in the world to chastise anyone else for their lack of empathy, but come on! Not one of those fuckers even bothered to ask if I was okay! Not one of them! NOT ONE!"
I angrily punched the bed, once, twice, three times. "And then I have to fucking go to school and deal with Ahtrai and her cunt friends bullying me. Fucking bitch! Why did Mahmood and Tanya have to invite her? WHY? Do they just enjoy making my life a misery?! I've told you about how she makes a joke of my pain, but God, my brother, I couldn't properly describe what it feels like to go to school and deal with that kind of SHIT every fucking DAY!" I let out a low, keening whine, my chest heaving up and down.
My brother wrapped an arm around me, drawing me in close as he kissed the top of my head. "Don't blame yourself for what happened, Saria," he whispered, tucking a stray lock of blonde hair behind my ear. "Don't blame yourself one bit. What happened on that day was Wali's fault, all of it. He is the one who teased you with that lizard, even knowing that you were upset. I mean... come now, he saw in your eyes how frightened you were!" The fury in my darling's voice was palpable, his words coming through clenched teeth in a growl. "But you needn't worry, Sar, because I swear to you that I WILL make Wali suffer for what he did. I will flay the skin from off of his body and make him fucking eat it. Haven't I told you already that you will have justice for the suffering you went through? And if you want me to beat the shit out of Ahtrai and her friends, then I'll do that, too. Just say the word and whatever gruesome vengeance that you seek will be yours."
He's amazing, I thought, looking up at my darling brother who was so eager to spill blood in my name. So willing to stand up for me. So willing to take those risks, to do whatever it takes for me. He's the best brother in the entire world, and you don't deserve him, Saria. You know that you don't! Why can't you just admit that to yourself? Why can't you admit what an unwanted freak you really are?!
"But it doesn't even matter who's fault it was, now does it?" I ground out, wanting to scream and shout and beat the entire world into a bloody, broken pulp. "My fault, Wali's fault, Ahtrai's fault, who gives a fuck?! Certainly not Mahmood or Tanya. No! It didn't matter to them that I was scared, it didn't matter that I might have needed a parent's comfort. No, all they cared about was the fact that we had "shamed" the "community". Because that's the only important thing in the world. What people think of us!"
"Saria-" Assef tried to hug me, but a voice in my head told me that I needed to get away. Needed to stop him from touching me, to protect him from being tarnished. I disentangled myself from his embrace, leaping from the bed as I began to pace back and forth.
For someone who hadn't want to share my feelings, I was now talking at about a mile a minute, spilling words upon words, hiccuping through my sobs. "The way that Mahmood just... just lost his temper. Nearly tore the entire kitchen apart and for what? Just because his daughter had a neg... a negative reaction... to being scared? I've never seen him act that way and it scared the living shit out of me, it really fucking did! And his punishment, dear God, his punishment... I expected some retaliation for what we did but never in my greatest nightmares did I imagine..."
Hands balled into fists, I dug my nails into the fabric of my dress, wanting to collapse to my knees. It was taking everything I had to remain standing. I continued to ramble on. "The bruises will heal, I know, they've already started to. But the mental anguish, that will remain for a long time. Perhaps that will be there forever. Perhaps the pain never goes away. How could it? When my own father used me as a scapegoat, used me to punish you."
Seeing the anguished look written across my darling's face, I hurried to reassure him that I held no malice towards him for what had been done to me. "And I don't blame you for it, Assef, I don't. I know that you carry the burden of being the reason I was whipped, but it was not your fault. It wasn't. I hold no hatred for you because of it. If that's what they were trying to do, then... then they're more fucking stupid than I thought. I need you to know that, Assef. I need you to know that I don't hate you for what happened, I never could. There's only one person in this room that I hold any real hatred for, and it is NOT you."
But despite my reassuring words, the pained look on my beloved' face only served to worsen, though I couldn't quite understand why. But then it hit me that I had just admitted to hating myself. I sniffled. "Don't tell me I'm wrong to think of myself in this way," I said, before Assef could even get the words out. "It's not going to work. How can I not hate myself? How can I not feel any less than self-loathing when I was the one who bore the true brunt of our parent's rage. It was my flesh who got the business end of Mahmood's belt, it was me who lay crumpled in Tanya's arms, pleading with her to let me go. Me who she used as a way to gain her husband's forgiveness. It... I didn't matter to them, did I? I didn't matter one bit! I was nothing more than a fall guy. Just a way for them to fix their own problems, even if doing so caused me pain. Even though I was begging her to stop, she just didn't care. Her own daughter, her little girl, and she didn't care..."
Pacing back and forth, I swung my arms left and right, aiming at some invisible foe. I tugged on my hair, screaming in frustration. There were words on the tip of my tongue. Words that were choking me, burning my insides, words that I knew would destroy me if I didn't find some way to let them out. I had to find the courage, even if it killed me, to say what had been on my mind for some time. Staring my darling right in the eye, I spoke through choked moans.
"And I wonder..." I gasped, "I wonder... would they have done the same thing to Sami?"
There it was. There were the words that I had choked on. The words that had burned rings deep within my stomach from the very day that I had learned about my lost brother, the poor little drowned child that nobody bothered to tell me about. The forgotten Ahmed, the catalyst for all of the abuse and torment that I have suffered through within the walls of my house. The poor, misfortunate little boy who could never have imagined that his simple act of going outside to play in the family pool would have such far reaching consequences not only for his parents and older brother, but for the little sister that he would never get to know.
I turned my face away. Couldn't look my brother in the eye. Couldn't see the expression on his face. I already knew the pain that Sami's death had caused him. I didn't want to see the suffering that I had caused just by mentioning Sami;'s name. But who else could I talk to about the anguish in my mind? Who else but Assef would understand what I was going through?
"Assef?" I asked in the tiniest little voice, barely above a whisper. "Am I... am I a replacement for Sami?"
The air seemed to be sucked right out of the room as I got those words out. I could almost feel the breath leaving my darling's lungs as he hurriedly spat the words out. "No, no, Saria! Dear God, of course not! Don't you even think that for a second!"
But I just laughed. What else was there for me to do? It was as if bitter tears were no longer enough, now they must be mingled with high-pitched, broken, shrieking laughter that must have appeared to my soulmate as if I was losing my mind. The laughter and the tears were one now, because how could he say that? How could he be so blind? Did I need to spell everything out for him? To literally spell out the pain that I was suffering? Spell out the truth that I had now come to understand beyond all else.
"Please don't lie to me, Assef," I laugh-sobbed. "If you can give me anything, then give me your honesty. You've never done me false before, big brother, do not do that to me now. I'm the replacement sibling, there's no fucking point in denying it. I exist only because Sami doesn't. Hell, even our names sound similar. Sami Abdul Ahmed. Saria Adelah Ahmed. The same letters. Even the same pronunciation... almost. And I was born the year after Sami died. Just the year later. Fuck, did Tanya even take a minute to grieve before she went and got herself knocked up again? Oh, how disappointed she must have been to learn that the child she gave birth to was a girl and not the new baby boy that I just know she was hoping for!"
My knees buckled underneath me, sending my trembling body careening to the floor with a dull thud. I lay there on my side, curled into a ball, high, wheezing, gasping sobs escaping, tears pooling onto the wooden floorboards. Assef leapt to his feet, rushing over to me. He dropped to his knees, reaching out, wanting to hold me in his arms. I felt his gentle hand between my shoulder blades, and I turned around to face him, wheezing and sobbing. "I know I'm Sami's replacement! I know that I am! I've known from the moment that I found out about him, twelve years too fucking late! I only exist because our brother doesn't anymore, and that's why it's so easy for our parents to hate me. THAT'S WHY IT WAS SO EASY FOR MAHMOOD AND TANYA TO USE ME! BECAUSE I DON'T MATTER ONE BIT TO THEM! I DON'T MATTER TO ANYONE! I'M JUST A PATHETIC, WORTHLESS, SCAPEGOAT!"
I was broken beyond all comprehension. Pathetic, worthless, useless, stupid, scapegoat Saria. The unwanted child. The unloved child. The child that shouldn't ever have existed in the first place. Oh, I loathed myself. How I loathed everything about me.
Assef sighed, wrapping his arms around me. "Alright," he said, "alright, you come here. I'm not going to let you lie here in this puddle of self-hatred. Come on, up you get." He took me under the arms, guiding me to my feet. I struggled upright, leaning against him for support. Dear God, couldn't I just run a knife through my throat and end this misery once and for all?
But I merely allowed my brother to guide me to the bed, sitting down and pulling me into his lap. I tried to wriggle away, to run from the painful conversation I knew was coming, but he tightened his arms round my waist and held me firm against his chest. He buried his face in my hair, breathing me in, rocking the two of us back and forth. "Oh my love," he whispered, pressing his lips against my head. "My beautiful sister, my darling Saria. Light and love of my life. You've asked for the truth, and that is what I will give to you." Gently pulling away, he took hold of my tiny hands in his own and made me look at him in the eye. "But I ask only that you listen to me, okay? I ask that you provide me with the chance to get out what I want to say. Alright?"
I nodded.
I could tell that it was a struggle for my brother to speak. I could see the gears turning in his mind, wondering how to form the words that would offer me the comfort I so desperately yearned for. But would he provide false comfort, or would he be honest? What choice would he make? More to the point, what choice did I want him to make?
"Things were hell in the days following Sami's death," he started, "I've told you about how Tanya reacted on the day we lost him. How she screamed louder and longer than ever before. How I have that scream burned into my consciousness, so much so that even now, all these years later, I can scarce think of only one sound worse." He gave me a pointed look and I knew that he was thinking about my screams from the beating last week. The sound of the belt whipping me. "I didn't really understand it, death had never touched me before. All I knew was that we had gone to that hospital as a family of four, and now, in the middle of the night, we were leaving as a family of three."
And then a year later, we became a family of four again. Yeah, I know. I thought the words, but couldn't bring myself to say them. Assef continued on. "Things were so different from then on, Saria. It was... it was like the light had been drained from our home. From us. I remember seeing our parents begin to argue more. They had their first real fight two days after Sami passed away, if you can believe that."
I almost wanted to smirk at those words. Yes, I could believe it. After all that I'd seen and known in my life, all that had taken place mere days ago, how could I not? I could almost imagine it, the vitriolic hatred spilling forth from the mouths of these two grieving parents. Could see them screaming at each other, maybe even throwing things, the slamming of doors, harsh words being tossed back and forth like a serve at a tennis match. What would that have been like for my brother? To have seen our parents fight like that? To have had nobody with whom to talk regarding the loss that he was suffering from? I felt my eyes water again, this time for his pain and not my own.
But my darling must have believed the tears on my face were for my own agony, for he tenderly wiped his thumb under my cheeks. "Easy," he whispered, "easy, sister. Take a breath. You're safe. I'm right here with you. It's all going to be okay."
Nodding, I motioned for him to go on. I needed to hear the rest of the story, no matter how painful it would be. "There was so much bitterness, so much hatred," he sighed, "that first fight was only the beginning. They would get into arguments over the simplest matters, regardless of whether or not I was watching them. It was like they didn't care about that, didn't care about me anymore. The only important thing going on in their lives was the child they'd lost, not the one still living. Not the one still grieving for his own dead brother, who he had loved just as fervently, if not more so, than those two did."
Those words made another surge of agony work its way through my tiny body, this one more gut-wrenching than the last. Oh, I knew that Assef loved Sami, of course I did. Did I expect him not to care for our lost brother? Was I truly so much of a monster that even hearing that Sami mattered to him was causing me to burn green with envy? And yet... hearing that made me want to cling tight to my other half, to remind him that I was here, and his. Eternally his.
"Every day felt like I was walking on eggshells, Saria. Though I couldn't have explained what it meant. What sense could a four-year-old boy who had just lost a brother make of the constant, day in, day out, arguing and hatred that our mother and father threw at one another? How could I possibly hope to understand that everything in our lives would change, that the loving, kindhearted, open and loving mother that I had once adored was now fading away into the ether, never to return. And that was how we lived for many, many months after Sami's death. Showing one face to the outside world, and showing another behind closed doors. Then... one day, Tanya and Mahmood sat me down, and told me that they had big news..."
Assef's eyes were shining as he recalled this day. "They told me that Tanya was pregnant again. That I was going to have a new baby brother or sister." And she yearned for a boy, said the voice in the back of my head. And when she failed to get that, she turned the daughter she didn't want into her pretty and perfect little porcelain doll. "She smiled for the first time that day, Liebchen. For the first time in a long, long while. During the months that she was pregnant with you, it felt... It felt like she had become an entirely different person. That she and Mahmood had the light brought back into their lives. As if there was some levity brought back to the family."
"What do you mean by that?" I asked, tilting my head to one side. I wasn't able to hide the scepticism in my tone, but if Assef noticed this, he was gracious enough not to indulge it.
"I... I can't say for certain," he said, "but like you, part of me wonders if perhaps Mahmood and Tanya believed that having another child would somehow help to ease the pain of the one that we all lost. That perhaps, through welcoming you into our lives, we could begin the arduous process of healing."
It was only what I had been telling myself since that fateful day in the attic. "So I am a replacement," I whispered, laughing bitterly. "How lovely. Are all of Mahmood and Tanya's children currency to them? All so easily replaceable? What if I died? Hmm? Who would you all use to fill the void that I left?!"
"Don't." Assef's voice was harsher than I'd ever know it to be directed towards me. "Don't you ever, and I mean ever, talk like that again, Saria. I can't even begin to imagine losing you. Please... please do not make me have to think of it."
I shrugged. "I'm sorry," I murmured, though I was only really apologising for having caused harm to my other half. "But I thank you for your honesty, my brother. I knew from the moment I learned about Sami that I was nothing more than his substitute. Oh, what an insult that is. An insult to both him and I. What would he have to say about this I wonder? Such a shame that he's not around to heal the pain that his loss has caused. Maybe we wouldn't be here if that was the case."
Maybe I wouldn't be here. Maybe the lives of several people would be greatly improved if I was never born. Maybe Sami could have saved several lives, had he not lost his own. But who's to say? All that's left now are the feelings of shame and humiliation. The freedom of acknowledging my own worthlessness.
Cupping the sides of my face, Assef looked me right in the eye. It felt as though he were looking through the depths of my very soul. "I need you to hear this, my love, and hear it well," he said. "Yes, it's true that our parents might see you as a replacement for Sami. There's nothing that can be done about that. You and I both know how shattered our family is. But, Saria Adelah Ahmed, you have never, and you will never be that in my eyes. I have never, not once, not since the moment that I met you in that hospital twelve years ago, since the instant that Mahmood had me sit in a chair and placed your squirming little body in my arms, and you wrapped your tiny hand around my finger and I felt a love that I had never known before or since... never have I thought of you as a second Sami. Never have I looked at you and wished that I could lose you in order to bring Sami back."
"I don't know how my relationship with Sami would have developed had he lived. What kind of brother he would have been to you. What kind of people we might have turned out to be, were it not for his death. It's a question that I will never get the answers to. But the one thing I do know is that I have never known the love of another person in the way that I love you. Nobody else has been able to capture my heart, my soul, in the way that you do every single day."
"But..." I began, sniffing. "You... you were so angry, the day that I found about Sami. Like this was some big secret that I was never supposed to find out." Yes, I still remembered the horror of being struck by my alleged soulmate.
I watched his eyes began to shimmer with tears, felt him pull me into his arms, pressing his lips to the side of my head, my cheeks. He lifted my hands and kissed my fingertips and palms. "I know... I know that I messed up on that day, my love. Messed up doesn't even begin to describe the consequences of my actions. I should have told you about Sami long ago. Should have realised that you deserved the truth. And the way I reacted, the way that I treated you... it shames me to my core, Saria. I am more sorry about that than I have ever been for anything in my entire life. Please, I beg of you, do not take this awful mistake as a reflection of my love for you. Please do not take the cruelty of our family to heart. Do not let them into your mind, they deserve no part of it."
Assef continued to press kisses to my flesh, mingling his tears with my own. "I love you, Saria. With every bit of love that I have within my blackened soul. I have done some terrible things in my life, things for which I feel no remorse. The only thing that pains me is your suffering. The only thing that brings me more joy is when I see that beautiful smile on your face. I live and breathe every day for you. You are the reason that I know what love is." He guided me to lay my head against his chest, tightening his grip around me. "Do you hear that, Liebchen?" he asked. "Do you hear my heartbeat? Sustaining me, keeping me alive?"
I nodded, tears continuing to roll down my face. "It's yours, my love. My beautiful Saria. My heart is yours, my soul is yours. Everything that I am, that I was, that I ever shall be, is yours. I love you more than anything or anyone in the world, little sister. Please, if you believe anything, believe my words. Believe my love for you. It's a love that you will have for every second of every day of your life. No matter what. Nothing will ever break our bond, nothing will ever make me stop loving you, for how could I not love the other half of my own soul?"
"I love you too, my Assef," I whispered, nuzzling against him. "Oh, I love you so much. So very much. You're the only person in this universe who could hope to have the chance to understand the kind of person that I am. Fuck our scumbag parents. Fuck the rest of the world. You and I, my darling big brother, it's going to be you and I against the world. Always and forever."
Oh, how wonderful my brother was. He had managed to chase away the demons that were circling my head, to replace them with the beauty of his love. I snuggled closer to him, not wanting to be away from him even for a second. "I'm starting to feel better now, Assef jan," I told him. "Thank you. Thank you for being there for me."
Assef kissed my head once again. "Don't thank me for doing my job." I moved so that I was laying with my head resting in his lap, and he began to card his fingers through my hair. "You should rest now, my sweetheart. I'll be right here with you, not leaving your side for an instant. And then we can take a trip to Belourine's and grab ourselves something for tea. We can spend an hour or two in the market before coming back here for the night. No need to worry about renovations for now. What we have in this moment is good enough."
He stroked my hair with one hand, the other rubbing circles on my back. "I love you, Liebchen," he whispered, as my eyes began to flutter closed. "Let my words be the only voices in that head of yours. I love you, I crave you, my soul is set aflame for you. I love you, I love you, I love you."
It was his reassurances that I carried with me as my body sank into the comfort of Assef's embrace. Yes, there was still a lot of pain that had formed in the bosom of my soul. I wouldn't just be able to let go of the fact that I had, in fact, been created to replace my dead brother's life. I sent up a quiet prayer to Sami, if indeed there was a next life in which he existed now. I told him that I loved him and that his little sister would fight to make the world a better place, to create something that he could be proud of.
I may have been your replacement, Sami, I thought, but I know something that our parents never could. You are not replaceable. And I will honour your memory, big brother. I will make you proud of me. You will never know the love that Assef and I share, but that does not make you any less a part of my own soul. I love you, Sami Abdul Ahmed. I love you and together, Assef and I will turn this house into a true home. Our special place. In your name, big brother. So that you may live on forever in the perfect life that I will have one day. I swear it.
In the next chapter, Saria is back in the schoolyard again, once more facing harrassment from Ahtrai. But as tensions escalate, will she be forced to stain her hands red once more, or will someone finally come to her aid? Look for that, coming within the next month! I appreciate every single one of my readers and reviewers, and just know that you have my deepest gratitude. My best to you all!
