Chapter seven–
Ibtisam
The morning was different,
Not peaceful. Not chaotic either. Just a strange, unfamiliar middle ground where my breath didn't rattle in my chest, and silence didn't screech, till I needed to bleed.
I made breakfast.
Not for anyone. Just me. But even that was foreign. Toast, eggs, a glass of warm water. The kind of breakfast people with routines make. I didn't even burn anything. That was the scariest part.
Saal had done something to me.
Not just with words. Not just with touch. With presence. With patience. With all the things I never thought I deserved, handed to me quietly, like I was allowed to have them.
I pulled out my phone. Again.
The screen lit up with an empty glow, too bright against the shadows stretching across my room. I stared at it the way people stare at closed doors, half-expecting someone to walk through, half-dreading that no one ever will.
Our last conversation looped in my head like a broken tape, each word replaying with the painful sweetness of something I didn't know how to hold onto. "I'll stand with you."
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Typed: You're annoying.
Paused.
Deleted it.
Typed again: Want me to sneak you out again tonight?
Sent.
Then I dropped the phone on the bed like it was suddenly made of heat. Like holding it longer would expose the restlessness running through me.
I paced the room, back and forth, the worn rug under my feet a silent witness to all my uncertainties. Maybe he was asleep.
Maybe he hated the hospital food. Maybe he was just craving real noodles. Maybe he missed me. Maybe he wanted me there, beside him, like before.
Or maybe he didn't.
Maybe I was just another temporary high in his life.
Maybe I was clinging to a moment that had long passed its expiration date.
The thought hit me like a punch. Not to the gut—but to the chest. Something deeper. Something heavier. Something I'd buried under thick layers of sarcasm and strength and stubborn silence. And still, it surfaced. Still, it trembled inside me.
I walked to my nightstand.
The Quran sat there, where it always did. Untouched. Dust-softened. Waiting.
My fingers reached for it, slow and unsure. The pages crinkled as I opened it, brittle but alive—like something sacred you didn't deserve but needed anyway.
I didn't know what I was looking for.
A verse, a sign, an answer.
I wasn't even sure if I was praying, or just pretending to know how.
But I whispered anyway.
"Let me be enough. Just for once."
As if on cue, the phone buzzed.
Saal: Only if you bring real food.
That was all it took.
My lips pulled into a real smile—one that didn't feel like borrowed light. One that didn't hide behind layers of grief or guilt. A smile that felt like the girl I used to be. Before the loss. Before the drugs. Before I hated mirrors.
I opened my wardrobe, pulled out a loose hoodie, tossed a scarf over my head in a hurry that felt like hope. Grabbed my wallet. My car keys.
I didn't know what I was walking toward.
But for the first time in years,
I wasn't walking away.
Saal
The door creaked open. No knock. Just the sound of hinges and the scent of something real—pepper, heat, spice, home.
I knew it was her before I looked up. I always did.
She walked in like she owned the place. No hesitation. No theatrics. Just Ibtisam, holding a white nylon bag like it was an offering.
"You ordered noodles," she said, deadpan.
I gave a small smile. "I summoned you. The food was a bonus."
She rolled her eyes, but there was no heat behind it. Just a softness she didn't show to the rest of the world. She moved with casual familiarity—adjusted my pillows, dragged the tray table across the bed, unpacked the meal like she did it every day.
Like we'd done this before. Like this was our rhythm.
And maybe it was.
Maybe we were writing a new normal.
The smell hit me first—sautéed vegetables, roasted pepper chicken, that unmistakable jollof rice aroma that clung to memories and mother tongues. I hadn't tasted real flavour in days. Not since the bland gruel of hospital food turned eating into survival.
We ate in silence, but it wasn't empty.
It was full. Holding unsaid things between every bite.
She talked a little. Told me how the fight club was quieter now. How she didn't miss it, but also didn't know who she was without it.
I nodded and told her about the doctor's report.
I was healing. Fast, apparently. They said I could leave in a week.
But it didn't feel like good news.
Because if I left, I had to tell her everything.
About the specialist.
About Berlin.
About the tests.
About the ticking in my body that no one could pause.
And I didn't know how to say that without breaking her.
I looked at her.
She was hunched over the plastic fork like it anchored her. Her scarf slipping a little to one side. No eyeliner. No practiced defiance. Just her—bare, vulnerable, unguarded.
"You're going to break me," I said suddenly.
She stopped chewing. Looked up. "Why?"
I swallowed. "Because you make me want to live in a way I don't know how to anymore."
For a heartbeat, she just looked at me.
No jokes. No rolled eyes. Just those dark, quiet eyes that had seen too much too soon.
Then she said, "We'll learn together."
I closed my eyes, just for a moment.
Let that sentence settle into the room like warmth.
Later, when the nurse came in to change my IV, she hesitated. Glanced at Ibtisam—still sitting beside me, her hand resting gently on my blanket—and asked if she was family.
I didn't even blink.
She's mine."
And she didn't correct me.
She didn't flinch or frown or laugh it off. She just looked out the window, her fingers still touching the corner of my blanket.
Like she belonged there.
Like we were real.