the number one to arbury

unravel

I don't even want to touch the door of Rüveyde's flat anymore.

I saw someone familiar in that flat yesterday. The one with the necklace. I didn't hear her name mentioned then, but I know her from Mara, I know her from Lina, I know her from Emine.

Mally Abraham. The one I saw on the bus.

She has a sister who's in the same year as Emine and lives in the neighbourhood a couple miles off where my uncle lives. The first house I ran away to after I fetched the car.

And yes, Raisa Abraham was one of the first to know of Emine's death. I had to tell her what happened that I had to run away.

Something else gets in my mind. I haven't told Rüveyde the whole story. She didn't understand how returning me back home can cost me my life.

There was almost always something wrong with her. Emine got into a lot of fights at school. And after most of the fights she would break down in tears, going what have I done...

All these fights hurt her more than it hurt her targets. They had been the ones starting it but she still went on like it was her fault.

Eyüp thought she was insane. He though he should be rough on her to stop her. Our mother, on the other hand, only saw her as troubled and she thought she should be loving to her to stop her.

This wasn't a movie where love would fix everything.

I don't know what he did, but he drove people away from her, going so far as to convince herself that she could only make chaos as long as she was alive. He drove her to suicide.

Does driving someone to suicide count as murder?

That wasn't the full story.

There was also the way he made her feel she could only sin as long as she was alive. Whoever at the mosque we usually visit taught him to be like that, I feel like I want to do something to them. At this point I could only pray ill of them, and I've always wanted to, but I fear my prayers would come back at me.

Where our father is an imam, a leader, Eyüp, the second father, is a sultan. I don't trust sultans – they liked to torment those deemed outsiders, and most sultans were murderers.

Our father is a carpenter who often stays at a room in his workshop, only comes home on Saturday nights. Without a father to lead the household, Eyüp was chosen to be a 'second father'.

And that's where things start to change.

---

Mally was out for most of the afternoon, but she's here now, carrying a piece of paper in her hand.

'What's that?'

'A letter from Esra. Found it slipped through my door. Sent to me, but she told me here to give the letter to you.'

'It's gotta be about yesterday, isn't it?'

'I don't know, I only skimmed through the letter. Here,' she says, handing me the letter.

The letter covers a whole ruled binder loose leaf, back to back. Her handwriting looks like trained from tracing alphabets on kindergarten worksheets; I can tell that she wrote this fast, but it's still legible, if not tidy.

I skip the opening, knowing she sent it to Mally and not me. I only read that part from the second last sentence. Please show this letter to Rüveyde once you receive (and maybe even skim through) it. It's actually meant for her but I still don't even want to touch her flat door at the moment I'm sending this.

Rüveyde, understand that I truly mean it when I say I'm afraid of being returned to my brother. You would too if you were in my place. He drove my sister to suicide. She was never fine to begin with, she got into a lot of fights and she would get breakdowns, a lot of them happened after fights but a lot of them occurred at other times. He made her feel like she could only ruin everything as long as she was alive.

Then there was the way he treated both of us, his younger sisters. He thinks he can do anything to us because he's older. He thinks he can do anything to us because he's a boy and we're girls. And that, paired with a bastard of a teacher who taught him and a group of other boys at the mosque, well, that did not go well. He made her feel like she could only sin as long as she was alive.

I can tell I'm in a better condition than her in the first place. I will never find out if she was just troubled or actually ill. I've heard a lot about people being manipulative because of mental illnesses, but I don't know if the opposite is also true, that others with the same illnesses are instead more easily manipulated.

One thing I'm almost certain of is that I could see the same fate – suicide – if I stay under one roof with him for even another year.

About what happened yesterday. You heard me saying that Ash got me and took me back home. I almost stayed there if it weren't for my mum who had arranged my escape. I was there from around 6 to something past midnight. Between 6 and 9, when I decided to go to my room, he was friendly to me, but I could tell it was all lies, the whole house could. Earlier on the same day I talked to you, 1 AM, I had run away from home for the second time.

I wouldn't have gone through that if you were able to hold back all four of them. That was what I thought when I went to my house. And only after I left you did I realise that if you weren't there all four of them could've got me.

Thank you.

PS: If you'd like to see me again, Rüveyde, last chance is tomorrow. Cullen Close, 4 PM. After that I'm heading somewhere else.

'Should I go now or tomorrow?'

'A bit too late now, isn't it?'