Published: Thursday, February 7th 2019 4:38
am

Collided- Chapter Eleven

Jamila's POV

        Slowly but surely, the breath returned to my lungs as the gunman pulled the woman back inside of the building instead of shooting her. I don't know what I would have done if I would have seen that happen live. It was one thing to see a murder happen on tv; they're actors and you know they'll survive the next scene, even if their character doesn't. But to see it happen... I couldn't even describe how hectic and distraught anyone who was watching would be.

        I hadn't been able to pry my eyes away from the screen since he had shown himself. Despite the warm weather, he wore a black, baggy hoodie. The hood of the jacket was tightly secured on his head, and his dark sunglasses blocked the suns rays from his eyes. Other than the fact that his skin was very noticeably light, he appeared to be white.

        "That was close." Inayah breathed the words I had thought. I couldn't bring myself to utter a word after what had just taken place. "You still there?"

        I grunted as my response. For some reason my lips refused to move and words didn't want to make an appearance. I had never witnessed something like that before. Sure you see movies and you are sometimes calm through the scene, but that's one of the things you expect from movies. Never in your life would you have thought that you would witness an attempted murder. Whether or not he was going to pull the trigger–I wasn't ready.

"That was so intense!" She continued to exclaim, but I was a million miles away from hearing her. I could hear her words, but I wasn't exactly listening to her. I could only hear and feel the millions of thoughts running through my own head. "I mean he almost shot her–shot her! What if he did? Do you think they would have killed him live? I mean, they would have to. He would be a murderer then, not just a hostage holder. And maybe–"

"Inayah!" I had stopped her before she went any further. I was starting to get a headache from all of her chatter, and the noise inside my own head. Scrunching my eyes closed, I sighed deeply. "Why don't we talk about this tomorrow. I'm tired and have to clean up before Tehreem gets back."

        "Oh, okay." I would be lying if I said I didn't hear the frown in her voice, but in that moment I didn't care. The only thing on my mind was getting off the phone. "Well, I'll see you tomorrow then..."

          "Yeah..."I nodded, only partially aware that she couldn't hear me. It was one of those things that become normal to do, even if we don't notice ourselves. "Assalamu Alaikum."

         "Wa Alaikum Salaam."

***
March 9th 2018

          The next day, it felt like any other day for me. Only today was different for a lot of other people. It was the day after yet another horrible situation had occurred. It left the nation and quite possibly the world heartbroken. Every one was still disappointed that this has become our lives, but not surprised.

          The sad fact is that this is just yet another day in the horrible world we live in. We're not moving forward or even backwards. We're all standing still.

          "Why can't we have a hot breakfast?" Mina whined from her place at the table. This was the first time I knew of that she had actually stopped glaring at her breakfast long enough to pout about it.

          "Because it's been a long night and we're out of hot breakfast foods." I scooped up a spoonful of my cereal and shrugged. "You have to take what you can get."

          With a huff, she pushed her bowl away from her and folded her arms. "This sucks."

          Again, I shrugged my shoulders and continued to eat. "That's life. It sucks."

          "Tell me about it..." Amna placed her bag down next to a chair and walked into the kitchen and to the cabinet with the bowls and plates. Pulling out a bowl, she opened the drawers with the spoons, all while mumbling under her breath. On any other day I would be wondering what she was saying and why she was saying it, but today is not one of those days.

          "What's up with her?" Zack nodded in her direction, his mouth full of cereal.

           Simply shrugging, I stood up from my seat with my bowl and placed it into the sink.

          "Everything okay with you?" I stood across from Amna in the kitchen as she angrily typed on her phone. "You should eat before you go to school."

          "I'm not hungry." Was her response as she continued on her phone.

          "Okay." I was tired, and not willing to go back and forth with her. So leaving her alone, I walked over to the door and walked outside to get the mail. It was the most calm I had felt all day, which was a relief.

          "Hey!" Inayah waved wildly as she walked down the sidewalk all while clutching a backpack. "You look like hell, but that's okay!"

          "What are you talking about?" I scrunched her eyebrows in confusion, but nonetheless smiled. It was hard not to when looking at how enthusiastic my friend is being.

          "Studying of course." Inayah gestured to the heavy backpack she was dragging along. "I'm not letting you fail because you don't know how to study properly."

         "Whatever." I rolled her eyes and led them both into the house, sighing in relief when the living room and kitchen were empty. I sat down cross-legged on the couch and tossed the mail onto the table. "Maybe after a take a tap." I yawned, getting comfortable on the couch. "That sounds good."

          "Yeah, for a failure." Inayah pushed my legs over to make room for herself and took off her backpack. "Seriously, lets go." She sighed, pulling out her notebook.

          With a groan, I sat up straighter on the couch and picked up one of Inayah's notebooks. Her eyes widened at all of the notes and color coded pages.

          "Don't rip it or anything." Inayah smirked. "Those took me a while to do."

Without warning, I reached across the couch and wrapped my arms around Inayah and squeezed tightly.

          "I was struggling." I said once I pulled back and continued to look through the book. "Plus I felt kinda bad that I hung up on you last night. The whole hostage thing was getting to me."

          "Yeah, me too." Inayah agreed. "Especially how it ended."

           "How did it end?" Jamila looked up from flipping through pages, her eyebrows scrunched curiously. "I fell asleep."

           "Well." Inayah sighed. "Some people lived. Others weren't so lucky. The worst part is that half of the group that held the hostages got away."

My shoulders slumped in defeat and I inhaled deeply. The woman on tv. I couldn't stop thinking about her, or the fact that she may not still be alive. It might have been the fact that Inayah had a longer time to process all that had happened the previous night, which is why the news didn't hit her as hard. But for me...it was harder, especially because the woman broadcasted with a gun to her head kept replaying in her mind. So I asked about her.

          "She was the first reported fatality." Inayah said sadly. "There will be a vigil in town for all of the victims. There will be vigils all over the country. Hopefully soon, there will be change."

          "Yeah." I quickly wiped away a stray tear when Inayah wasn't looking. "Hopefully."

"Jamila?" Suddenly Tehreem appeared in the front room, eyes wildly looking around. Her phone was pressed against her ear as she looked around. "Where is that girl?"

"Um, I'm right here, Tehreem." I shared a knowing look with Inayah before standing up and putting myself in view. It wasn't the first time my sister was urgently looking for me, or the first time they shared thelook. Although it had been a while, the look still said a thousand words.

Once I had come into view, Tehreem turned around and started making her way down the hallway and towards the basement, not even saying why. The whole situation had me questioning the hidden meaning behind what was happening. My eyes still stung as I walked, a side effect of getting very little sleep.

"What's up?" I asked as we stopped right by the basement door. Out of habit, I folded my arms across her chest and waited for an answer.

"I need you to watch the kids for a few days." Tehreem covered her microphone of the phone as she spoke, obviously not wanting whoever was on the other line to hear. On any other day I wouldn't hesitate with my sisters request and would do whatever I could to show how grateful I am that she had a home with their family. But it was almost finals time, and I needed to focus.

"I have tests coming up." I said, barely looking Tehreem in the eyes as I said that. It wasn't my best excuse, but it was my only excuse. The look of confusion Tehreem gave me was anticipated, but that didn't make the situation any less uncomfortable.

"Jamila, I really need you right now." Tehreem said to her, shaking her head in disbelief at what she had just heard. "I know finals are hard and you need all the study time you can get, but they're not going to be much of a bother."

I had to stop herself from snorting at that statement. Because of the closeness in age to my nieces and nephew, they more often times than not forget that I am their mothers sister and in charge of the home while their parents are away. It never took too long to get control again, but the thought of putting her time and energy to anything other than the books was making her stress more.

"Listen, I have to continue this call." Tehreem sighed, saying a few words to the person on the other end of the call before covering her microphone again. "You'll be fine." She called as she walked away.

I stood there stunned a bit, my mouth propped open. I had lost the fight, not that Tehreem gave me much of a choice anyway. To me it felt like my sister didn't care much about my education, and that alone made me angry. The whole reason for me moving down had been Tehreems idea. She wanted me to be what she couldn't become back home. In no way was I planning on babysitting.  Even then, I knew I had to do it. With a 'thump', my back collided with the wall behind me and I slid down, holding my head in between my knees and taking deep breaths.

The only thing on my mind was failing. Deep down in my heart, I knew I eventually would.
***
It has been a while since I posted anything, but hopefully the next update won't be too long after this one.

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