Old Wounds
OLD WOUNDS
Now
Kian’s body is shaking as he tells the full story to Shirin, though he pretends it isn’t. He has imagined her turning on him, seeing him so differently, but she only wipes tears that he didn’t even know were streaming down his face and says, “It wasn’t your fault.” He says he knows it wasn’t, though that is only partly true. It doesn’t matter how many people tell him that, he knows the only way he can believe it is if Mehdi says it—and he hasn’t. He still hasn’t spoken to Mehdi about it at all since he was released, ten years ago.
His brother now lives in Manchester with his wife and two children. He works as a substance-misuse support worker, but his road to this life was not easy. When Mehdi left juvenile prison, it was bittersweet. He returned agitated, impatient for life to resume as he’d hoped it would. He struggled to secure a job because of his criminal record. He had done poorly in the GCSEs he’d taken and, as a result, couldn’t get into college. He was lost—considering different career moves every week, limiting himself to the ones that allowed a criminal record even though they didn’t suit his skill set. Meanwhile, Kian completed college, then moved to Glasgow to study art at university. In the end, their parents were so overjoyed that one of them was going to university that they didn’t fight Kian half as much as he’d expected when he told them he was going to study art.
It was art that became Kian’s release. When he tells Shirin this, it’s the first time that there is light back in his eyes, even if it’s faint, among all the hurt. It became a way for him to control his life, to express himself in a way that was safe, healthy, and brought him joy. When she asked if it helped him let go of some of the pain, he said not completely, but he was able to compartmentalize it and put it away. She realizes that’s why they have grown up so differently, their roles reversed in a sense. Whereas Shirin was the one to bolster Kian up when they were teenagers, now Kian is the one to do that for her. Kian expresses himself through his art, uses his talent to process his emotions.
She asks what happened to Mehdi, how he got through it all in the end. Kian tells her that it was only when Mehdi dedicated himself to Islam, and began going to the local mosque, he found some semblance of peace and calm. He met other reformed men who mentored him, related to him on a level no one else had. He completed an access course to go to university to study psychology, and his life took a different path. Despite this, though, Kian cannot help but feel responsible for the path Mehdi could have taken. The subject of his imprisonment is glossed over. As if that year—and how it affected Mehdi’s future—never happened at all. Though Kian’s part in it, his guilt, sits on his chest. It is a burden he’ll carry forever.