❝ I know. I could be happy until midnight if I wanted to. But what about after midnight? What about two AM? What about four AM? What about months and even years later?
I don't want to let him in knowing sometime in the future I'd have to let him go...
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Tabish gathered the thick books from his studying table and turned off the lamp, following which his room turned eerily dark.
With the help of his phone's light, he made his way through the lightless hallways and to the study, also the room where the brother and sister stashed their novels and stories.
As Tabish rounded up to the fiction aisle and slid in Paper Towns, he caught movement in the corner. With full knowledge of exactly who it could be, Tabish took silent steps towards the nook between a bookshelf and a wall.
"Fancy seeing you here."
Abnosh, tucked away in a corner with her knees drawn close to her chest, smiled. "Figured this was the one place I could run off to without being looked for."
"Or our secret pathway to the roof." Tabish took a seat next to her on the floor, crossing his legs.
"People think moving away to a different city for education will gradually rid you of your home, but it won't. It'll just imprint all of it on you with even more force."
"Then move back."
"I want to." Abnosh nodded. "But I can't."
"Because there's a very specific reason for why you moved away in the first place, and she is the very reason you're hiding here."
"I want her to talk to me, Tabish. I want her to show she cares, maybe not as a mother but as a friend." Abnosh sighed heavily, leaning her head back on the wall. "But she couldn't do so for Baba, what am I then?"
"Maybe you should-"
"Maybe I shouldn't because I swear if I'd seen her take one step towards me, I would've taken ten."
"Maybe you should stop bringing it up, especially during dinner."
"The empty chair at the foot of the table isn't easy to see."
"Then don't see it."
There was silence.
Abnosh spoke. "You're taking her side again, aren't you?"
"You can't make me choose between my mother and sister."
"Eventually, that's what you'll have to do."
Tabish stared into the distance, a dull ache in the side of his head. "I think she's already suffered the punishment of what she did. Why do you have to increase it tenfold with this distance?"
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