Fight the Darkness

Fight the Darkness

Heena Iqbal

Copyright

Copyright © 2018 Heena Iqbal.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Some names have been altered to protect identities. This book is not meant to be promotional for any names that have not been altered.

ISBN: 978-1-387-60487-6

Front cover image and Book Design by Christina Staffopoulos

Published by Lulu

Dedication

The dedication page for Fight the Darkness took me longer to write than the rest of the book. The question has been playing in my mind since I first began typing this story: who should I thank? So many people have influenced me and have helped me write this memoir. However, I realized on December 2, 2017 who I wanted to dedicate this book to: my girls. I student-taught at Mercy Academy in Louisville, KY during the fall of 2017. I would like to dedicate this book to all 93 of my students. They are the ones who told me that I needed to finally publish this. They are the ones who taught me that I could do anything. They are my girls and always will be.

PRELUDE

Hey readers! I hope you are ready to take a journey with me! It was difficult to write this little memoir, and it took me over four years to finish because it brought up so many emotions; sometimes it was hard to re-live my experiences. That being said, the following pages are filled with my real story. It might seem over exaggerated to add effect, but it sadly is not.

Every chapter is written as a diary entry. I apologize in advance for the informal nature of the book. It is written from the perspective of a teenage girl to add realism; I was only a child when the events detailed throughout this book transpired. The writing on the pages develops as I mature.

I am about to share a part of my life, and it is crazy to think about all that I went through. However, I’m not trying to just share my story; I’m trying to help people. The purpose of this novelette is to help other people in a difficult situation try to get some perspective. If this story helps even one person, it will be fulfilling its role.

So sit back, and prepare to jump into a world full of love, sadness, anger, and willfulness.

CHAPTER 1: THE START OF IT ALL

I was running, faster and faster. I ran until I felt that my heart was exploding. I wasn’t able to suck in air fast enough. I was aching all over and all I wanted to do was to give my body a rest and stop, but I just kept running.

What was I even running from? I didn’t know, but my legs just kept moving as if they were being controlled by something else. They drudged forward through a colorful world. I could see grass below me and feel the wind in my hair. Exhaustion, emptiness, and loneliness engulfed me.

Then suddenly, I collapsed. My legs wouldn’t move an inch no matter how hard I tried. I couldn’t move so I just … stopped trying. I lay there motionless, waiting for whatever was coming for me. I closed my eyes and let the darkness that was chasing me for so long consume me.

#

My eyes shot open in fear. It was burning hot in my room, but I felt completely frozen on the inside. What the heck was that? That was the weirdest dream I had ever remembered.

I pulled the sheets off of me and slowly walked into my bathroom. I took a good look at myself in the mirror and was absolutely disgusted. I looked like the definition of a hot mess. My Pakistani olive colored skin was white as a ghost. My brown frog eyes (my cousin called them that because they were large and round) were surrounded with the darkest circles I had ever seen. My long, sleek, thick, black hair was stuck to my scalp from the cold, sticky sweat that had escaped my pores during the night. I could take five hot showers and cover my face in layers of makeup, and I would still look horrible. Great!

At least no one really cared how you looked at school. I decided to take a very long hot shower after some contemplation. I was too lazy to do my makeup. Besides, I think if I actually went to my all-girls Catholic High School wearing makeup, every one of my classmates would shun me.

I walked to my kitchen after getting dressed to wait for my mom to take me to school. I sat waiting for ten minutes and then I asked myself the burning question: was she even awake?

I walked into my mom and dad’s room and found my mom snoring away on her bed. I saw red and could have strangled her at that moment. Mom! I screamed  (I was not really a morning person).

She woke up in a start and said in a sleepy voice, What’s wrong?

I stood with my arms crossed and looked at the clock. My alarm didn’t go off! she screamed as she stood up immediately.

(Ok, I said some really mean things next. Not like cussing or anything, but I was a spoiled brat at fourteen. I’m kind of embarrassed by my past behavior so…I’m not going to tell you about it!)

I walked, fuming, into the kitchen. That was when I realized that something was definitely wrong with me. I felt weirdly dizzy; it was a strange feeling and something I wasn’t used to experiencing in the morning. Maybe it had to do with the fact that I hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet. At least, that’s what I convinced myself it was. It was nothing to worry about, but why did I still feel warmth in the pit of my stomach that was only there when I was lying to myself?

My mom came into the kitchen in the next minute. She never wore any makeup on her forty-six year old face, and she wasn’t a tall person at all. Actually, she was shorter than I was at the time.

Hey Mom, I said nicely (See, I was not a horrible person all the time).

Hey Baby. Let’s go, she said with a smile on her face. It always bugged me that she could still be so sweet to me after I treated her like crap. I didn’t deserve her love. Taking advantage of stuff was one of my special qualities.

Ok, but first take a look at this. I can’t walk in a line, I started walking to show her what I was talking about. I was trying to walk in a straight path, but my steps seemed shaky and slowly swerved to the right.

Oh Heena! Stop messing around! she breathed in an exasperated voice. It was a Monday morning and she thought that I was trying to find an excuse to skip school.

I was starting to consider home schooling with Hirra, my sister in seventh grade so I wouldn’t have to deal with my mother thinking I was faking illnesses all the time.

My sister was a petite version of myself. And when I say petite, I mean it. She was so little, I honestly felt like I would crack her ribs by hugging her too tightly. She had a small face that was as dark as mine. She had sleek, black, and thick hair that came down to the small of her back. She was shorter than my mother and stood as a shy and small child (Just between us: I was always kind of jealous of her skinniness).

My sister and I were pretty tight with each other. We weren’t sitting around braiding each other’s hair or anything, but we didn’t fight a whole lot. Sometimes we had our little arguments, but I mean, what siblings don’t quarrel?

I don’t think I would mind too much if Hirra was my only sibling, but I guess my parents did not see it that way. Two years before I was born, they had a premature, cute, little baby boy and named him Omer. Everyone fell in love with him instantly.

Apparently, he was a charming kid until he saw me. My mom and dad said that when they brought me back from the hospital, my brother took one look at me and screamed, Take her back!

Sibling love at its finest… Now, he thought that he was too cool for me. We barely spoke to each other and when he did talk to me, it was usually to insult me.

Omer looked like… I don’t know, a boy with dark hair and dark skin. He stood looming over everyone with his weird teenage guy image. His hair wasn’t that long. It was about an inch long from every part of his head. He was a little darker than me, but not too much.

You have no faith in me, Mommy. I swear, I’m not faking, I said with amusement in my voice. My mom just rolled her eyes and opened the garage door. I followed her and we got in her car so I could get to school on time.

We drove by familiar restaurants, shops, and streets, but I didn’t really pay attention to any of them because I was too preoccupied thinking about how tired I was. It was only a ten-minute drive, but I still managed to take a nap. As my head rested on the cool window, I closed my eyes. I could definitely tell it was late September by the way the cold kiss from the glass touched me and helped me sink into a quick slumber.

I could tell when my mom was pulling up to my school, and I felt like throwing up when I slowly opened my eyes (figuratively). I loved the two story familiar building of Mercy Academy, but the thought of focusing my brain on academic content for about seven hours was horrendous.

I said goodbye to my mom without looking at her and walked towards the front entrance. I stopped walking halfway there and almost collapsed. The pit of my stomach was full of tight knots that left me feeling nauseous; my entire body felt like it was spinning. I constantly asked myself: what the heck was happening to me? This had never occurred before.

Hey Heena, are you alright? The concerned face of my best friend and cousin, Nadia, appeared in front of me.

Nadia was my favorite person in the whole world. She was funny, smart, and best of all, she put up with the likes of me. She listened to my complaints with patience and usually made some sort of witty comment to ease my tension.

Most people said we looked alike; I didn’t see it. My mother and her dad were siblings and were born in Pakistan. She had olive colored skin also, and we were both about the same height. The main difference between us was our hair. My hair was sleek, but her hair was thicker and a lot bushier (I actually love her bushy hair but I like torturing her about it). Nadia was also four months older than me (She never let me forget that fact). We were both in tenth grade; she was fifteen but I was still fourteen until December 14, 2010 because I started school early.

The dizzying spell left my body and I shrugged it off. With a smile on my face, I said, Yeah girl! Just stomach pains from skipping breakfast.

She didn’t look completely convinced, but she said hesitantly, Ok, let’s go inside then.

I could bore you with the details of the school day, but I’m not in the torturing mood. You just need to know that I was taught a lot of academic stuff and walked around school still feeling dizzy. I was not able to concentrate in any of my classes because I was busy thinking about my terrifying dream and my dizzying spells. I was trapped in a small room full of my thoughts (I said I was taught a lot, not that I learned a lot).

Finally the last bell rang. I was beyond ready to get away from the dreary halls of the school. I wanted to get into my huge home and see my loving mom and dad. I wanted to collapse onto my bed in my big pink bedroom, but most importantly, I wanted