She Is My Hayaat

Chapter 18: Lighter than Balloons, Silkier than Rose Petals

Here you go, the much awaited.

"Izhar..." I faintly whispered as I traced each scar.

After what felt like forever, Izhar spoke up in the same position he was in before: his back facing me with his head titled downwards and eyes tightly shut. His voice shook at first but then with time it eased, and it was full of pain and regret.

"When I was 13, I slowly started drifting away from everyone and everything. It was nice being a golden child for awhile, and at that time I already knew I would graduate early. Everyone gushed over me, parents spoke to me and acted like they cared about me as their kids daunted me and hated that I was the dream child. Ammi and Abbu weren't worried about me since they knew I was doing the right thing to pass by. But I wasn't untroubled, and I didn't like being in the spotlight 24/7. One day during lunch in school, I became nomadic. I didn't know what I wanted to do in life or where I was headed. There was so much pressure, and I didn't have a social life whatsoever. It was all school, homework, repeat. I was sick and tired of the normal routine. As I walked to unknown places, I noticed I made it to a neighborhood I'd never been to before. At that time we lived in North Carolina in a beach house. I tried tracing my steps backwards, but I was lost. I was far more lost than I could even have imagined."

Izhar's voice broke at the end and I knew in that instant, he was reliving all those memories that haunted him for the past 12 years.

"Like an alley we were in today, I was walking down and it was starting to get dark outside. Four older boys whom I'd never seen before trapped me from each side. I was scared, shaking, and cold. I never felt so alone in my entire life. I tried to escape to no avail. Two of the boys hauled me by the shoulders and pulled me into one of the brook stone apartments askew from the alley. I shouted and protested with all the strength I had, but they didn't listen. They told me they were part of a gang and after they told me which one, I realized I was in deeper than I could suffice. I grew up in the richest county, so I'd never come across someone from the gang before. However, we all knew them and what they were capable of...." Izhar's voice shook and clouded.

I froze in position and my hand stilled on the dip in his lower back. I breathed through my nose and waited for him to continue.

"They started putting thoughts in my head, I was going astray. I lost all spiritual touch and didn't pray. Ever. Ammi and Abbu started noticing, by that time I was caught smoking by Huda Appi. I picked up bad habits. I've gotten drunk. But I can tell you for sure that that was a one time thing.

We had tasks in our gang that all members had to partake in. The gang leader, Ian Raseeq, was very fond of me. I was the youngest member and he was the eldest at 24. I wanted to please him, but he always made me the lookout. I was never physically a part of recruitment, or the horrible things they did even though I had a second degree black belt in martial arts. They always told me that they were only going into homes and other places to recruit more people. And then I started to become curious as to what took them so long to summon one person.

One day I blew up and lost my cool. I flipped chairs and tables in the gang's apartment, I punched and hurt people who were my so-called "brothers". Then finally, Ian answered. He didn't want to tell me and after what felt like forever, he claimed that they were looting families, robbing them of their money, dignity, and humanity. They raped the girls they found appealing to them and left them to rot in their own misery. They killed the innocent ones who wanted to come between them and break up the gang. They...they-"