Crazy Little Thing Called Love (Sun Tower #3)

38. Raees

38

Raees

R aees, I’m finally writing a song by myself!

Crazy, right? Surprise, surprise.

These days, I’m finding it a little easier to breathe. A little easier to exist. But there are still those stupid, sneaky moments where I wonder if all of this will blow up in my face. That I’ll say or do something so astronomically dumb it’ll ruin everything. I don’t know what it is. I’m just a fuck-up.

Good things don’t last for people like me. That’s the ugly truth I’ve been carrying around for years. And now that I have the best thing that’s ever happened to me—aka YOU—I’m terrified I’ll screw it up. That I’ll push you so far away, you’ll find yourself standing in some dark corner wondering what the hell you ever saw in me.

I know it’s irrational. I know it doesn’t make sense. But anxiety’s a bitch like that. My head’s like a washing machine stuck on the spin cycle. I overthink. I catastrophize. And sometimes I get this horrible thought: What if the best thing I can do for you is protect you from me?

Let me explain.

You know about my Baba passing away. That’s where everything started falling apart. Shahzad leaving made it worse, like ripping out the last support beam holding our family together (I still sometimes hate him for it).

After that, Mama went insane. Her degradation wasn’t occasional; it was constant, a daily soundtrack to my life.

“Why are you wasting time singing and playing music? Get a real career!” That’s what she’d scream at me, over and over, drilling it into my head like it was her life’s mission to make me feel small.

If I argued back, her hand would catch me across the cheek, or I’d get shoved hard enough to feel it in my ribs. I’d lock myself in my room, sobbing into my pillow like the stupid, melodramatic teenager I was, clutching my guitar like it could protect me from the world.

Cue the rebellious phase.

When I turned eighteen, I’d had enough. Dua and I packed our things and left. She was just starting high school. I had no plan, no clue how to raise my baby sister, but we made it work. Thanks to Azeer and his family, we found this little shoebox of an apartment outside the city. It wasn’t much, but it was ours.

I used the money Baba left me in his will to put myself through university. Scholarships and bursaries did the heavy lifting. Shahzad helped, too, when he could. I was building a life for us. Independence. Freedom. I didn’t need Mama’s words or her beatings anymore. I was chasing what I loved, pouring everything into my music.

But, like I said, good things don’t last for people like me.

I have this problem, you see. I cling to people who show me affection. It’s like I’m constantly trying to hold onto that tiny sliver of love I had growing up, and I’m terrified that if I don’t love someone back with the same intensity, I’ll lose them. That I’ll be abandoned.

That’s how Damien happened.

I thought opening up to him about my past a week into our relationship was brave.

In hindsight, it was stupid.

At first, he was everything I wanted. Twenty-nine. A fellow musician. Supportive. Encouraging. He made me feel seen. Like I was the center of his universe. He’d listen to my songs, let me crash at his place whenever Dua’s boyfriend stayed over. He treated me like I was his whole world.

Then came diner dates where we shared fries and laughed until our stomachs hurt, late-night drives with the music on full blast, windows down, yelling the lyrics to every song, mostly his band’s songs. We stayed on the phone until we fell asleep, and he’d surprise me on campus with breakfast just because. We even wrote music together. He’d pluck out a melody since he was a guitarist, too, and I’d write/sing the words.

Then the dates turned into debates. Arguments about where we were going, who we were going to be since I was only twenty. The late-night drives turned into screaming matches, voices louder than the music, and once, he threatened to open the car door while speeding down the highway. He started getting into stupid fights at bars that left his body bruised for weeks. The long, sweet phone calls became abrupt five-minute conversations he’d cut short because he “had friends over.” He’d show up drunk on campus, crying, begging for forgiveness. And then, when I didn’t forgive him fast enough, he dumped one of my compositions in the trash, and said it wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t good enough.

After that, the debates turned into destruction. Actual destruction. Of furniture. Of my things. Of me. He once smashed his guitar into a wall during a fight over drinking from his mug. The drives became reckless, with him slamming the brakes to scare me or swerving so close to the edge I thought we’d go over. He caused a near-collision once, spraining his wrist right before a big show, and somehow, that was my fault. The bar fights were now aimed at me. His fists. His hands. He crushed my phone against the pavement because he was convinced I’d been talking to another man. It wasn’t another man. It was my father’s voicemail. He didn’t care. He disrupted one of my classes, staggering in drunk and screaming at me in front of everyone, calling me names.

But the worst of it—the absolute breaking point—was my birthday.

He’d slapped me the day before because I told him I wanted to invite Dua to dinner. I didn’t want to be alone with him. I was too scared, Raees. I needed her there. But he wouldn’t allow it. He wanted me all to himself.

To “make it up to me” he took me out to eat Mexican food. It was pouring rain that night, and he was already pissed off because of the weather.

I had ordered ahead to make things easier. My birthday, and I had to do the planning. I had to pay. And still, it wasn’t enough. He was impatient, starving, snapping at me the whole ride. Then he demanded I feed him while he drove. I refused. I told him it was dangerous, that we could eat when we got home.

He didn’t like being told what to do.

He forced me to undo my seat belt then wrapped it around my throat, tightening it. And then he grabbed the back of my head and slammed my forehead into the dashboard.

Everything went black.

When I came to, my head was pounding, blood dripping down my face, and he was laughing.

He kept saying he was going to kill me. Over and over. He said he’d dreamt about murdering me in my sleep. He said he had friends who could make the evidence disappear.

And then, in the middle of one of his twisted rants, he lost control of the car. The tires screeched. The car spun. And then we slammed straight into a traffic light.

He hit two women and killed them both.

No, three women died that night.

Whatever was left of me—the me who laughed, the me who sang, the me who dreamed—I died right there in the passenger seat.

But unlike those unfortunate souls, I woke up.

With broken ribs. Broken fingers. And a voice that barely worked anymore. My larynx was damaged in the crash. I couldn’t sing. I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even laugh at how absurd it all was. I was alive, but I wasn’t really living. I was a ghost in my own skin.

The withdrawals were the worst.

I was diagnosed with insomnia, PTSD, severe depression, and anxiety. My life became a cocktail of medications I couldn’t pronounce, online therapy sessions I could barely sit through, and days that bled into nights where I was too scared to leave my apartment. Some days, I couldn’t even leave my room. Most days, I couldn’t leave the closet I was holed up in.

I stopped eating. My throat felt like it was on fire every few days, and I’d choke down water just to keep myself from passing out. Every attempt to speak felt like trying to squeeze sound out of lungs that didn’t work. What came out instead was this pitiful puff of air.

I couldn’t let anyone touch me. I couldn’t meet anyone’s eyes. I was disappearing into myself. The only thing I really did back then was shower in water so hot it felt like my skin might melt, and I swear I cried fifty oceans dry in those first two years until I couldn’t see straight.

But the medication started helping. A little. And the speech therapy was impossible at first, but it started to make a big difference too. I began whispering again. Barely there, but it was something. Eventually, I took baby steps toward being human again, doing the things I used to love.

The first time I left my room, Dua sat me on the couch and cried. We watched TV together in silence because I still couldn’t really talk, but for the first time in what felt like forever, I didn’t feel like I was drowning.

The first time I left my apartment, it was snowing. I stood on the stoop, staring at the sky for an hour, letting snowflakes land on my face. I didn’t move. I just stood there, breathing in air that didn’t feel so suffocating anymore.

I started eating properly because Shahzad stayed with me for months to take care of me. He planned my meals, sat with me while I ate, and made sure I had something in my stomach at least once a day.

After two years of avoiding physical touch, he was the first person I hugged. We were in the kitchen. He made me a grilled cheese sandwich, and when I reached for him, he just hugged me. I broke down right there on the kitchen floor. He cried too. The next day, I hugged Dua for the first time. More tears—happy ones, I promise. She started sleeping in my bed after that, curling up next to me like she was holding me together.

I didn’t sleep much, but those nights with her by my side, I managed an hour or two. Sometimes I’d wake up clawing at the sheets or accidentally scratching her skin during a nightmare. She never complained. Not once.

Three years passed. I still couldn’t sing, but I was beginning to imagine a proper life again. Then, just as I was starting to feel like maybe I could take bigger steps, get a job or something, Mama came to visit.

Shahzad was there, thank God. He’d vowed never to speak to her again, but he broke that vow for me. He kept his composure as he explained why I couldn’t speak, spinning some lies about a fatal throat infection because he knew the truth wouldn’t help me.

Mama bought it. She believed it. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, she made sure to pull me aside when no one was looking and called me useless. Then, she began setting up marriage matches for me.

I didn’t fight. I didn’t argue. I didn’t have it in me anymore. I didn’t have the fire, the confidence, the motivation to say no. I didn’t want to play guitar anymore. I didn’t care about a career. I didn’t want anything. I just wanted to escape her. And if marriage was the way out, then fuck it.

She brought me match after match, each one worse than the last. I rejected them all, though not because I was brave or had some great plan for my life. I rejected them because they gave me reasons to. One tried to force me to talk when I clearly couldn’t. Another grabbed my hand without asking. One trashed his own mother and sisters like it was a personality trait. Another flaunted his wealth like it was supposed to impress me. A few just rejected me outright.

Mama didn’t care. She just kept bringing more. Because, to her, my life wasn’t mine. It was hers to control, and as long as I stayed under her thumb, I’d never really be free.

Mid-year, I met you.

Surprisingly, for once, it wasn’t Mama’s matchmaking obsession that led to you. Dua did. She told me later she’d been arguing with Mama about you for weeks, but our mother kept pushing her own choices. You were the last option. (Sorry, but hey, you won, so take it as a compliment.)

To be honest, I didn’t like you when we first met.

But that was on me, not you.

You smiled too much. You laughed at all of Mama’s terrible jokes, complimented her shitty balayage, and actually listened to her endless stories like you were taking notes for an exam. You even had the audacity to eat every single one of my favorite chocolate biscuits Mama put out.

Every. Single. One. :(

You said yes to the proposal immediately. But I didn’t. I wasn’t going to make it easy for you.

So, your mom and mine locked us in my living room together, like some kind of social experiment, to “get to know one another.” I figured you’d start talking immediately. Like, a lot. Just chew my ears right off.

But you didn’t.

You didn’t force conversation. You didn’t crowd me. You didn’t fidget with your fingers, or shake your leg, or play games on your phone to pass the time. You didn’t wander around the room making comments about the picture frames or try to crack a joke about the Teletubby costume I wore when I was three. You didn’t even try to have a staring competition with me.

You just sat there. Quiet. For a whole hour. You let me sit in my silence without asking for anything from me.

“How’d it go?” Mama asked when you left. Dua was shaking with the anticipation of my answer.

I remember watching you open the passenger door for your mom, making sure she didn’t bump her head, and then driving off. That told me everything I needed to know.

“I want to see him again,” I said, and walked back to my room.

And here we are now. In this house. Our house. Married. You, the one patient, precious person who accepted me for exactly who I was. I don’t even know how to explain how much that means to me. Someone I cannot bear to lose without losing myself.

I’ve always believed Baba raised me to be a kite. Wandering, colorful, honed to float through skies, seasons, storms. But even kites are tied to strings, aren’t they?

The first sign of snapping was when Baba passed away.

The second when Shahzad left.

The third when it was just me and Dua trying to survive.

The fourth was Damien.

The fifth was forgetting who I was before all of it.

And just like that, my string was gone. I wasn’t tethered anymore. I was free-falling toward the sun like Icarus.

But you? You didn’t burn me.

With my ex, everything was about control. About power. He smiled like a prince but turned into a monster behind closed doors. He told me I was too loud, so I stopped speaking. He told me I was too opinionated, so I stopped arguing. He told me I was too much, so I started becoming less. When he pushed me, I said sorry. When he shoved me, I said sorry. When he hit me, I still said sorry.

I thought that was love. I thought love was giving everything and getting nothing back. I thought love was walking on eggshells and making yourself smaller so the other person didn’t feel threatened. I thought love was pain.

But then you showed up, and I realized I was wrong.

There are pieces of me I thought I’d lost forever. Parts I’d buried because I thought no one would ever be safe enough to let them out again. But somehow, you brought them back. You made me love me.

You brought me back to life, Raees.

And I know life hasn’t always been kind to you, either. I know people haven’t always been kind. I know you think you’ve been walking through the world alone, but you haven’t.

Not anymore.

Now, I’m here. Right beside you.

You don’t have to keep trying to make people like you. You don’t have to stay quiet when someone talks over you. You don’t have to brush off the hurt when you’re wronged. You don’t owe anyone that.

It’s okay to teach me things I don’t know. It’s okay to ask me to teach you things you don’t know. It’s okay to need space sometimes (but if you take too long, I will get clingy. Consider yourself warned).

You don’t need to change. You don’t need to prove anything. All I want is for you to stay exactly the way you are. That’s the best sweater you can ever wear.

I love you, darling.

Yours forever,

Zinneerah Shaan.

The ink smudges where my tears hit, blurring the word ‘sweater.’

Finally, I fold it back up and tuck it into her cardigan pocket, glancing at her as she snores, completely unaware of the mess she’s made of me.

Carefully, I slide my arm out from under her and sit up, legs crossed, staring blankly at the little white skulls on her black socks.

My mind is empty, wiped clean. Nothing else exists.

Just Zinneerah. Only Zinneerah. Always Zinneerah.

I clean up the coffee table, sniffing and wiping at my face like the lovesick, sensitive fool I am. I pack the rest of her sushi into the fridge, stack the cushions back where they belong, and then I scoop her up and lie back on the couch with her in my arms.

Zinneerah exhales quietly, her nose brushing against the crook of my neck, her arm instinctively wrapping around it like she’s meant to belong here.

I brush her hair back from her face, piece by piece, until I can see her fully.

My lips press to her forehead and make home there, whispering, “I love you, too,” against her skin.