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••

When she came to after a few minutes, a police officer offered to give her a ride back home, watching as Lamees still clutched onto her head. She refused and managed to walk out of the station without another word.

The walk back home was a blur as she tried to keep her breathing steady as the panic continued to build up inside of her. What was she going to do? Gunner's question echoed in her mind but she didn't know what her answer was.

Her fingers shook despite the warm temperature of June and she stuffed them inside of her skirt's pockets. With her head low, her eyes still darted around her, afraid. She couldn't let go of that fear that he might appear in front of her again. Lamees's heart skipped a beat at every guy with light hair and she would heave a grateful sigh when it wasn't who she feared it to be.

She was quite relieved when she'd reached home and took a deep breath outside of the door, collecting herself and putting on an impenetrable mask. Over the years, she'd gotten enough practice to be able to avoid her parents without them suspecting a thing. So she pretended to have a carefree expression on her face as she rang the doorbell and waited for them to answer.

Her mom opened the door while on call with some family relative on the phone. She nodded a quick greeting in her daughter's direction as she jabbered away in French and made her way back into the living room.

Lamees sighed and followed her in, her hands in her pockets. Her father was watching the news on television and barely glanced up at her as she took a seat next to him on the sofa.

What am I going to do?

The same question that she'd been asking herself for the last few days.

"Where've you been this morning?" Her dad asked her casually, his eyes still glued to the television.

Her back straightened as she took a second to come up with an answer. "Um, just... around the neighbourhood. Walking. You know, taking inspiration for drawing."

He nodded absentmindedly but she still felt that familiar twinge of guilt crawling up her spine. How long had she been lying to her parents for?

She hadn't drawn anything for months now, even though she terribly missed it and would pick up a pencil every other night, but nothing came to her. She found that she couldn't draw anymore and it broke her heart.

She'd started feeling like a stranger to her parents, to herself. Because she was leading double lives and she hadn't been sure when the lines had been blurred.

Her stomach grumbled slightly which had her springing up to her feet and heading straight for her room. She couldn't let them know that she was ill, that she had been throwing up since yesterday, couldn't bear to have them suspicious, not yet at least.

Lamees locked her room and ran into the attached bathroom, crouching in front of the toilet seat as a shudder ran through her. She started feeling nauseous and closed her eyes. Her delicate frame shook and she tried her best not to be loud, as she spilled her guts out.

She was crying. She was in pain. And for the first time in a long while, she felt like she was truly alone. She couldn't bear other people knowing out of shame and humiliation and fear of judgment and the only one who had known, wasn't here with her.

Even after she had stopped throwing up and flushed the toilet, she couldn't stop the tears. She sobbed her heart out as she held onto her stomach tightly.

"Why?" She wheezed, her head spinning. She looked up at the ceiling, at the God who'd put her through this, who'd punished her for all the lies over the years. "I-I'm sorry... I'm s-so sorry! But... I didn't deserve this... no... no one deserves this!"

No one responded to her cries and tears.

••

"Haf you started applying to collezes? See where you want to go," her mother inquired over dinner that night, as she dug into her meatballs.

Ah. That had completely slipped her mind ever since her world had turned upside down. But thinking about college applications now seemed almost trivial as compared to the other problems that were constantly plaguing her mind. She felt herself being much older than eighteen.

"Well?" Her mother prompted once she'd fallen silent.

"Uh, yeah... I mean, I still have to apply. I'm still thinking about what I want to major in..."

"You could study architecture like your daz," she suggested.

Her father raised an amused eyebrow at his wife. "I'm surprised that you can pronounce architecture without stuttering but can't even say a simple word like dad properly."

She leaned over and pinched her husband's elbow, causing him to wince and chuckle. They drifted to some other topic of conversation and Lamees was glad to be out of the picture as she chewed on her food.

She didn't want to think about her near future, not when she was so trapped in the present, she didn't think that she could handle all the potential futures.

Not when she was wagering whether she was going to give the baby a potential future or not.