Twin Souls

⚘21⚘

❗TRIGGER WARNING ❗

Mentions deteriorating physical and mental health and death.

Sanaa ☯️

It was difficult balancing school and overall health as time flew by. The almost daily night arguments rang through my head as I relied on little to no sleep, which made me sluggish and a bit more agitated.

My body wasn't any better. My appetite significantly decreased, which made me to lose weight. I was "slim" but not as slim as my younger sister which was fine by me; we were two different individuals after all.

Weight had always been an issue with me since the beginning of puberty but the weight loss did not improve my self esteem, due to my mental state. My glowing complexion lost its light and my hair became quite brittle and dry, which led to some hair loss.

The instability I faced at home made school to be a sacred place for me, despite my existing hatred for school. Surprisingly, I still succeed in getting amazing grades. To some extent, I believed the positive reactions (including mine) due to my good grades would satisfy me.

Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one that faced some sort of difficulty in my friend group. Kaya had to deal her maternal grandfather's death (who she happened to grow up with) and Zara was dealing with her younger brother's hospitalization who was suffering from sepsis. We tried to distract ourselves by doing our usual activities and they never mentioned their problems. I did not have to talk about mine because they didn't notice, which was fine by me. I wasn't ready to explain my feelings to them anyway.

After the conversation my siblings and I had with Mom, Mom and I focused on making them happy. We spent more time together (which was a lot because we were almost always together) by engaging in different activities and motivating them to perfect their crafts. I could tell Mom was still broken, which was quite understandable but the increased time she spent with us diverted her mind from thinking. She taught us many life hacks and gave us advice she knew we needed during the difficult times.

We never had a proper sit down with Dad because he wasn't the type of person to face his problems. He did try his best to please us by coming back earlier and handing us extra money but it was something to get used to. Trying to repair years of pain wasn't going to be an easy task, especially if Mom decided to remain with him.

I took a break from creating art and deactivated all of my social media accounts, which meant I had almost no contact with Abel. We barely texted nor called each other and when we did, we never went past "How are you?"

Meeting in the dream realm was barely possible. Whenever I succeeded to drift off, he was nowhere to be seen. He suddenly disappeared without a world, leaving me with a perplexed and bruised heart.

To be honest, I missed him a lot. He always knew what to say, served as a great distraction from reality and was overall a beautiful person, inside out. I wasn't sure what was happening with him but whenever I felt a foreign feeling of confusion and sadness, I prayed for his well being, family included.

Damon and I got closer and it felt refreshing to learn about him from a different perspective. We could talk for hours about many topics with little to no arguments which was a huge step in our friendship.

As another long, dreaded day quickly flashed before my eyes, I got ready for another minimal to nonexistent sleep.

"I pray for better days," I whispered softly as I took a glance from my window before collapsing on the bed.