Page 274 of Eternal
“I don’t know how,” I finally whispered. “I never really tried to understand it. Talking about it makes it…real. Makes me feel like I’m back there, in that kitchen, in that house. Where things went from warm to war. Where love bled out on the floor.”
He doesn’t say anything, so I keep going, maybe because if I stop now, I won’t ever start again.
“I still braid my hair every night like she might come back and finish it. Like maybe that version of her could still exist. The one before the bottles, before the pills, before she forgot how to hold me without hurting.”
“Did you cry a lot?” he asks, quietly.
“I did,” I breathe. “Whenever she said she’d leave. My dad would take my brother and go, make sure she couldn’t hurt him. But I stayed. Ialwaysstayed. I thought if I was good enough, quiet enough, she’d love me enough to stop.” My throat tightens. “Shedidn’t.”
“What else, Azra?”
Gosh this is harder than I thought.
“She’d lock me up sometimes, in small places. Said I was too loud, that she needed to think. But I know she just needed to drink.”
He looks at me, that kind of look, like he’s seeing all the ghosts haunting me.
“I don’t do all of that for her,” I whisper.Don’t cry. Don’t cry. Don’t cry.“Not the one who forgot me. I do it for the one who sang lullabies, the one who taught me how to love irises. The onewho kissed my cheeks when I had nightmares. I don’t remember those moments clearly, I just remember forgetting them, like they were too soft to survive the bad.” I exhale, “I do it for her. For the version of her I needed. For my brother. My dad. Forme.”
“You’re burning your life down for the person who lit the match first?” he finally asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I am.”
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking a little.
“Do you think she could’ve been better?”
“Not really. She died before she could even try, and that night, when they came, when they all died and I lived, nobody looked for me. They hid me instead, and changed my last name. Let the world believe I was gone too.”
His hand was still on mine, warm and delicate.
“I ended up with a man who preached the Bible and made me bleed when I disobeyed. His wife watched like it was God’s will. Like I was some lesson.” I let out a bitter laugh. “They said I should be grateful that they saved me. That pain was purification.”
He flinched at that, just a little.
“And I missed her still.”
“Are they the ones you told me about?” he asked, almost afraid of the answer.
“Yeah. I turned eighteen. I had the journal they gave me back from her things, I had a new goal, and I left. I didn’t run. I killed them that day, just like I told you.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Don’t look at me like that, I’m still learning...”
“Destroying your life for the person who destroyed it first isn't healing, Azra.” he finally said.
“I’m not doing all this for revenge,” I admit quietly. “I’m doing it because I don’t know how to be anything else but broken in her name.”
He finished the braid with a gentle tug, securing it with a hair tie. His fingers lingered for a moment, tracing the woven strands as if trying to understand the stories they held. Then, without a word, he moved to sit on the floor in front of me, his eyes searching mine.
“You never had the chance to be a kid.”
I couldn’t answer.
Hadn’t I?
Was I missing out on something soft and sweet? Would I be different if I had this chance?
