⚠️ Warning: This chapter contains brief scenes, discussions around and references to spiking and sexual assault. There is a list of resources at the end of the chapter. ⚠️.

✈️

The UK's national health service never failed to show its citizens that their welfare wasn't a priority.

It took four days for the hospital to call Kulthum for a drug test.

Even Kulthum's father, someone who worked in the same hospital where she was going to be tested, couldn't use his position to get past the wait times.

"This is a waste of time and public resources," Kulthum moaned. "Even if I had taken drugs, they're probably no longer going to be detectable."

"That depends on how much you took and your usage," her mum said as she slipped on her coat.

Kulthum rolled her eyes. She was sat at the top of the staircase watching her mum get ready. "Mum, do you really think I was banging out drugs on a daily?" she asked.

"I don't know what to think," her mum sniffed as she adjusted her scarf in the hallway mirror. "That's why you're getting tested."

"I've been camping in the living room for five days now! Look at me!" Kulthum hissed as she pointed at herself. "Do I look like someone who's going through withdrawal?"

Her mum sighed and turned around. Her eyes slid up and down Kulthum's body in a bored fashion.

"No," her mum admitted, causing Kulthum to groan and slump her body in relief.

"But you do look like you're going through something, and this test may help us get closer to finding out what it is," her mum said as she unlocked the front door.

Kulthum shot up. "You just said–"

"Stop arguing and get in the car, Kulthum," her mum ordered.

Kulthum stayed in her spot. "You're wasting precious public health resources!"

"Good thing we pay our taxes," her mum sneered. "Get in the car."

Kulthum folded her arms. "I need to wear my shoes," she huffed.

"We're going to be late. You can wear them in the car," her mum said before pulling the front door open and walking out of it.

Kulthum chewed on her lip. She hadn't taken drugs, so her test would come back clear. But the bodies of her past were swimming below the surface of her mind, and this test could cause them to break through the surface or pull her under.

Three car honks tore through Kulthum's thoughts.

Kulthum stomped down the stairs, picked up her shoes and locked the front door.

Crumbs of gravel and dirt pressed into the bottom of Kulthum's feet as she pattered out of the house barefoot.

Kulthum yanked the car door open, slipped into the passenger seat, and slammed the door shut.

Her jaw was tight and tense like she had been grinding rocks with her teeth as she wrestled her trainers onto her feet.

"You ready?" her mum asked as Kulthum pulled her seatbelt over her body.

Kulthum glared at her. "Please don't act like you care."

Her mum turned on the car and pulled out of the driveway.

Kulthum pressed her legs together and slanted her knees against the car door, trying to increase the space between her and her mum.

She pressed her forehead against the window and watched the trees blur into grey streets as they left their estate.

They drove in silence for a few more minutes until her mum hummed and tapped a tune out on the steering wheel like the conversation she was introducing was a sitcom. "Kulthum, I think you should talk to someone."

Kulthum closed her eyes. "About what?"

"Everything. Your potential expulsion, the drugs–"

"I'm not on drugs," Kulthum snapped. Her head bumped against the window as the car turned.

Her mum ignored her statement and continued. "If you don't feel comfortable talking to me or your dad, perhaps you could talk to someone else."

"Like who?" Kulthum asked disinterestedly.

"Like a therapist," her mum stated.

Kulthum opened her eyes and frowned. "Why would I need to talk to a therapist? I'm not crazy."

"Kulthum, please don't use that language," her mum reprimanded.

"Sorry," Kulthum muttered.

"Anyway," her mum continued, "People speak to therapists for many reasons. There are Muslim therapists, too. Speaking to one could help you–"

"Help me what?" Kulthum's clipped as she sank down her seat.

The air coming out of her mother's mouth might as well have been smoke. Kulthum could feel her breath curling in her lungs like a spring.

Since when had the topic of her feelings been able to create ones?

It was like Kulthum's feelings were evolving. Changing as Kulthum's setting did, as though they needed to in order to survive. They were embedding themselves deeper into her life as though they were something helpful, something that had to stay, something that she needed.

"Work through what you're going through," her mum answered.

"I'm not going through anything." Kulthum placed her hands on her thighs and used them to knead the material of her joggers.

The car was starting to feel like a snow globe. Her mum was speaking too much. Cramming more words into the air and smothering Kulthum.

Her mum flicked the indicator. "Kulthum...you're dressing, speaking and acting differently. Your university shared your grades, they were abysmal. Your personal tutor described your behaviour as chaotic. How you've hopped from university to university, degree to degree, is chaotic, and you've been living under your duvet since you got home."

"I have nothing to do," Kulthum combatted as she wound down her window.

"Well...sometimes...," her mum turned the car's steering wheel, changing lanes before continuing, "all of those things can be signs," she said cautiously.

Kulthum pushed against her seatbelt, stuck her head out the window and closed her eyes. "Signs of what?"

"Please, can you wind up your window?" her mum asked as the car approached a red light.

"No," Kulthum said defiantly. "I need fresh air."

Her mum pulled up the car's hand break and looked at her. Her tongue moved against the inside of her mouth like the words were too difficult to just spit out and say. "Signs that something may not be quite right," her mum eventually said softly.

"Kulthum," her mum drew in a breath and hesitated like it was being strangled in her throat, too. "You're displaying signs of depr–"

"Mum. Stop," Kulthum demanded.

Kulthum knew what her mum was going to say. She had heard it before.

It wasn't the same word that had come out of the A&E doctor's mouth, or the nurses, or her friends.

Kulthum was struggling to keep the lid on her current problem. She didn't need people diagnosing her with more.

Sure, she had modified her wardrobe, and her lifestyle no longer resembled that of her older sisters, her parents, or parts of the sunnah per se. Yes, she had more piercings people could see now. Still, she wouldn't allow people to describe her as different, even if she felt that way. She wouldn't admit that.

Kulthum wouldn't give up any more of her power.

People had always called Kulthum chaotic. But they had often used it to compliment rather than criticise her.

When they used to call her chaotic, they had been referring to the good kind. The kind that accompanied shouts of surprise and showers of confetti at parties.

But now everyone was treating and speaking about her like she was a problem. Like she was a hurricane tearing through their lives while she exhausted and wrecked herself in the process.

Kulthum slammed herself back into her seat and jammed her finger against the button that controlled her window. "I'm not an example in one of your student's textbooks, mum. Don't try and diagnose me with anything. I'm fine."

Her mum didn't argue, but after a few minutes of silence, she hummed another tune similar to her last one, as if she were introducing the sequel.

"You know your aunt? Mummy Zainab. Your dad's older sister in Nigeria? She's been asking after you. Your cousin Zainab has, too," her mum said.

Kulthum didn't respond. Instead, she focused on picking off the small clots of fabric on her hoodie.

"Your dad's been wanting us to visit her for a while now, but he hasn't had time to with work and everything," her mum informed.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Kulthum asked before her eyes narrowed and widened. "Are you trying to ship me off?" she shrieked.

Her mum winced. "Your dad suggested you visit."

"I don't want to go," Kulthum spat. "You can't beat me into changing."

Her mum snorted. "No one there will beat you. If anything, you'll be spoilt rotten if you go."

"Then why are you sending me there? I thought you guys wanted to punish me," Kulthum said.

"We don't want to punish you. We want to help you," Kulthum's mum cooed in an overly sweet voice that made Kulthum feel sick. "I'm starting to think that your dad is right. That a change of scenery could help you."

"Then pay for my interrailing ticket," Kulthum sneered.

"A change of supervised scenery."

Her mum's voice was an indicator that her patience was thinning, but Kulthum's body felt like it was on the verge of something. She felt the same way she did the night someone called an ambulance.

Her body was on the verge of tipping into flight mode unless she fought, and her mum was the only other physical thing in the car, so she was the default replacement for a punching bag.

"You need someone to watch you and watch out for you. We don't want you ruining your life," her mum snipped.

"My life," Kulthum hissed. "If you know it's my life, why aren't you letting me decide what I do with it?

"Because this car journey proves you can't be fully trusted! You can't be trusted to make good choices!" her mum snarled.

"Making bad choices is a part of life! It's a part of growing!" Kulthum argued.

Kulthum's body lurched to the side as her mum suddenly swerved off the motorway and onto the hard shoulder.

Her mum hoisted up the handbrake and twisted her body, facing Kulthum. "Yes! Bad choices can be, but not illegal ones, Kulthum!" she yelled. "You don't make any progress by breaking the law! Or by doing things that are haram!"

"Breaking the law robs you of every single choice you could have! If your school had reported you to the police, you could be doing time! You'd have a criminal record, and that would be it!" Kulthum's mum snapped her fingers together. "Your life would be over or, at the very least, significantly limited."

Her mum was furious, but Kulthum could tell she was trying to control her anger. She looked like a puppet being controlled by an over enthusiastic master. Her movements were jarring and sharp but uncoordinated.

"Our lives are prewritten, but we still have choices, Kulthum, and I'm sorry to say you haven't been making great ones recently!"

Her mum's statement felt like a shot to Kulthum's heart.

"Four years, Kulthum. Four. Years," she growled. "Four years, a gap year, three universities, three cities, three different degrees, and you have nothing to celebrate, to feel proud about or hang up on a wall. Is this what you want to show? Is this all you want in life? To sofa surf in your own house? To have to handle your own pee?"

Kulthum's mind failed to buffer out a response. She felt her lips tremble. Each twitch caused her face to crumple and spasm.

"Kulthum, what is going on?" her mum asked desperately.

Kulthum couldn't speak. She couldn't even shake her head. She felt like she had been trampled on. "I-I-I," she stuttered through sounds that were very close to turning into sobs.

Her mum's lips immediately softened into the shape of an apology. She pushed her body against her seatbelt to lean over and cradle Kulthum in her arms, but Kulthum moved, and her mum froze like Kulthum's body had taken the shape of a stop sign.

Her mum sighed and deflated in her seat. "I'm sorry," she apologised. "I didn't mean to shout. I don't mean to be harsh or mean. I'm on your side, but I just-I can...I'm scared. Your school's letter has been the only glimpse into your life we've had for a while. I feel like something is happening to you. It's scaring me and breaking my heart that I don't know what or how to help."

"I don't mean to break your heart," Kulthum croaked.

I don't. I really don't, she repeated inwardly. That was part of why she wasn't saying anything.

Her mum was right. Time had passed, and while Kulthum would be handling something gold and small in a few minutes, it was a far cry from a trophy.

No one will give me a trophy if I tell them what I did.

"Has something happened?" her mum asked as she scrutinised her, as though if she looked at Kulthum hard enough, a map to Kulthum's problems would materialise on her body. "You can trust me, K. If it's school, friends, hell, even a boy! If something has happened, you don't need to deal with it alone."

Kulthum clamped her mouth shut and shook her head.

She couldn't say anything without combusting in the process. Her nerves were pacing inside of her as though they were preparing to perform and use her body as the stage.

She didn't want to have another panic attack. They hacked away at her, exhausted her, replayed her feelings of fear over and over again and left her feeling like a pile of rubble for hours afterwards.

They violently tore her out of reality and transported her back to a place where she had been powerless and hadn't been able to do anything.

Where Kulthum hadn't been able to speak, turn, or lift her shoulders and shrug off the strange, strong arm that had wound itself around her neck strictly.

When she hadn't been able to shift her head away from the lips that had planted slippery, sloppy kisses against her cheek, then down her neck and on her chest.

When she hadn't been able to pick herself up after the stranger had let her go, and she had slumped into the sofa. Her eyes wet and sleepy and her breath, slow and heavy as her brain failed to connect to her body.

Kulthum hadn't been able to command her body. She had flopped around like an unfilled rag doll when a shadowy figure curled over her, hauled her onto her unstable feet and manoeuvred her out of the crowded room. Their fingers had painfully pinched warnings into Kulthm's side.

"Stop. I need to lie down," was what Kulthum had slurred.

Or thought, maybe.

She couldn't remember if her mouth had actually moved.

Kulthum had woken up in the hospital, hooked to IVs, too weak to break out of the paper-thin blanket she had been swaddled in.

"Where are my clothes?" Kulthum's lips had moved, but her voice had sounded like it was coming from somewhere else. Like her voice box was plugged into a speaker in another room instead of her throat.

"You threw up on yourself," Busola had answered her shakily. "You kept throwing up."

Busola, the friend Kulthum had gone to the party with, believed nothing had happened to her, but she couldn't promise Kulthum that.

Busola swore she hadn't left Kulthum alone for up to five minutes, but there were minutes she couldn't account for. Minutes where Busola had been searching for Kulthum. Minutes where Busola hadn't known Kulthum's whereabouts or movements.

Once Kulthum had started stumbling and sliding down walls, Busola steered her to a sofa in a quiet corner and asked another girl on their course to keep an eye on her while she grabbed some water for Kulthum.

Kulthum couldn't remember that happening.

There were so many moments Kulthum couldn't account for. So many movements she had lost count of.

There were holes and gaps in her memory, like she had fast forwarded through parts of a movie she was meant to have watched and starred in.

It was a movie she should have never been in.

Kulthum wasn't on the sofa when Busola returned with a bottle of water. Busola said she had found Kulthum slumped at the top of the stairs, with a river of bile and vomit running over the stains of the old ones on her chin.

All Kulthum had had that night was juice and water.

"You were spiked," the nurse had said before informing Kulthum that they needed to take some tests.

Kulthum hadn't been in pain. There were no bruises, cuts or wounds on her body, and they had checked her skin for puncture holes and found none. There was no external evidence to suggest that anything had happened to her.

Kulthum had told the police everything she could remember, which wasn't a lot. Her memory was full of redacted text, as was their incident report sheet.

The only thing Kulthum could remember was how scared and powerless she had felt that night in the brief moments where she had wrestled against sleep and won.

Kulthum had always been steady and strong up until that point.

Kulthum couldn't talk about those moments. She would no longer be in charge of the story if she shared them. She'd be forced to listen to it as others repeated or scolded her for it.

She'd be damned if she allowed herself to continue to feel powerless. If she let her body shut down, over and over again, and allowed it to continue to rule her as if she wasn't the head of it.

She was supposed to be in charge of her body. She was supposed to be in sole command and wear the crown. It wasn't supposed to be the other way around.

However, each time Kulthum was at a bus stop, time drove past her because she kept losing control and couldn't stick out her hand to stop it.

She was getting older. She was closer to twenty-five than she was to eighteen. She was an adult, so the world would be less generous with second chances.

If she followed her mum to a Nigerian party, she would be served Supermalt instead of a fizzy drink. Small children would be lightly smacked for not addressing Kulthum as auntie. She was already an auntie and was about to become one to another person.

You're not there anymore, Kulthum repeated inwardly.

She was no longer weak or helpless.

You're safe. Kulthum closed her eyes and exhaled slowly as her hands fumbled with the door handle. You're safe. You're safe. Calm down you're safe.

"Kulthum, are you okay?"

Kulthum could feel her mum's eyes tracking her.

Her mum was probably counting every one of her shaky, sparse breaths and mentally drawing out the erratic pattern under her list of reasons why Kulthum needed to see a therapist.

Yes. I'm safe, but Kulthum's mouth didn't say those words. Anxiety had placed a stern finger over her lips, and like a child, Kulthum had obeyed.

Kulthum continued repeating those three words inwardly. There was no reason for her to keep experiencing these spells that paralysed her and made it hard for her to breathe, to speak, to think, to stand, to smile.

You're safe, Kulthum inwardly chanted, hoping that her mind would eventually acknowledge that she was in a car with her mum. She wasn't there anymore.

But her breath was thinning, her insides were turning like she was suspended upside down on a roller coaster, and her mind kept copying and pasting the past over her present.

"Kulthum–"

Kulthum's fingers hurriedly secured themselves around the door handle. She shoved the door open, and like an anchor, Kulthum threw her head over the threshold and vomited. 

The links to some resources and services are in the in-line comments. Please don't hesistate to click on them. Please also feel free to add credible links or numbers to resources and helplines in the comments.

United Kingdom

Rape and Sexual Abuse 24/7 Helpline and Services.

Spiking Support and Information.

Spiking Support and Information.

Muslim Youth Confidential Helpline.

Samaritans/Listening Support.

Gov Website on what to do if you suspect or you've been spiked or assaulted.

International

Find a Muslim Counsellor or Therapist.

Spiking Support and Information.

Crisis/Listening Support Canada.

Directory of Crisis Lines (Apologies if this is out of date).

Support and Help (for Female Muslims & Women of colour).

Sunnah: Things Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said, did or approved of. In Islam we follow the quran and sunnah.

Muslim: An individual who practices the religion Islam and believes there is only One God.

Haram: Something that isn't allowed in Islam.