Chapter 3

Here with me-  Susie suh

I would want to say my life changed when I met him. That the butterflies and the tingles happened. Perhaps if my life was a fictional book it would. It would have been magical....As magical as the river, the garden, the city of love or anything the books say would be.

I met this man at the market. Not exactly the most romantic of places yet the most magical. It wasn't exactly the first time I met him that was beautiful, It was the first time I looked into his eyes and found myself. That was the moment I found beautiful.

I might have seen Rayyan countless times. Maybe amongst the fleeting and scurrying array of people. I might have seen him pass, say a hy here and there. Perhaps paused and greeted him or even bought his things. No one could say.

Yet it wasn't until the tenth or twentieth of meeting him that I know of his name.

The first day I noticed him, he should have been this unimportant character in my market routine. I should have gone to him and exchanged the only thing at the time permissible to exchange with. Money and goods. Then he should be back to his work and I should go back to my life.

But things took a turn!

^^^^^^^^^*^

Looking back, my life wasn't as uneventful as I had thought it was. Growing up as a kid, I would go to this huge mango tree, sit by its root and eat the fallen mangoes. I didn't care on washing them, I just eat them straight. I would climb this plum tree at the front yard of our home and eat all the plums I could find while overlooking driving cars. I remember pinning to my memory any car I see and liked.

I had friends who come over to play or I go to their places. My school life was absolutely fun too, I had the best of friends at that time. That however were things I didn't consider when I come home. I absolutely hated the life I lived in my home. If I were to choose, I would never have gone back to that house.

When there's a holiday at school, every kid is jubilating while I dread on the inside. How could I survive all these days staying alone at home. Worst, staying with the ghosts of...them?

I live with my mom and dad alone. We have house helps who comes and goes except on Sunday. I am the only child of my parent. My father, Alhaji Kabeer started as a farmer and eventually owned big farms that provide eggs, chickens and even rice. My mom, Hidaya was a civil servant.

We were well doing, lived in a five bedroom duplex with two living rooms. My room was a shade of yellow that has a wallpaper of the sun hanging. It has a huge window that overlooks some tall trees.

There is a study chair and table which holds my story books, school books, pencils, sketch pads, brushes and paint. Growing up, I remember knowing nothing about painting. I loved seeing the paintings of others but never tried to paint. That was, however before Rayyan. Before his presence, his painting and his art.

Painting eventually became my only escape from the gloom that lays in my home.

As a kid, my parent  were very "busy" people. As busy as one would get to forget about their own child. The only time I get to see them is when they're home at night. There are days I try very hard to stay awake and tell them about my day, which they dismiss because they're very "tired"

"We are very busy. Working to give you comfort" my mom would say when I am dejectedly sent back to my room.

What they didn't understand was how the distance was killing me. I didn't have any sort of a connection with my parent. The only person I know is the house help and the driver. They're these two completely distanced figures in my life that never make a presence.

It was almost as if I was only visible when they're home. The house help and the driver does every single thing a parent is supposed to. All my parent do is give money and they're out of the picture.

I always thought that was how parent are. Maybe they are not supposed to be close to their children. I hated how my childhood provide those toxic and negative thoughts.

I remember my view changing when we had a "Healthy Marriage Programme" in our school by the time I was in JSS3. I remember the category the fair woman placed marriages. There was the healthy and loving marriage, and then there was the unhealthy marriage.

The gasp that escaped from me was quite audible to our row. I had, at that moment realised my parent marriage. It wasn't a healthy one, it was the unhealthy one. I remember crying myself to sleep that night and promising to never get married or be in any relationship.

It was easier to avoid marriage in whole than fall into a toxic one.

^^^^^^^^^*^

I took on that oath through out my next two years. Avoiding people and anything that could lead to anything relationship. Then came the holiday that I went to my aunt's place. My view changed, my perspective moved. My aunt and her husband were the couple in a perfectly healthy marriage.

They cook together, go jogging, cuddle up to watch the TV. They had something that I actually craved. And I made another oath. If I were to be in anything sort of a marriage or relationship, it would like my aunt's.

Only like that.

^^^^^^^^^

Until him, I haven't been close to anyone. I haven't been the closest to my parent. Even when at that moment I thought I was the closest to my friends, Rayyan changed that.

That man singlehandedly changed everything I know and stood for. Our closeness became that of a single soul sliced in half. I was one, he was the other.

Sometimes I know what he'll say from his eyes. His mood, his unspoken words and yearning wishes were all loud to my ears.

Looking back now, to the countless times I've definitely met Rayyan and swiftly walk pass, to the point I pick up his scent in a thousand of mingling bodies; it was quite shocking.

Shocking how events unfurled, intentions were moved. Who would have thought?

That it is with unexpected emotions. Unknown forces stretch and expand into a universe of unspoken words.

Rayyan was the light that peeked through the curtain of darkness enveloping me.

I called him Ray.

My Ray of hope.