When We Were Sisters: A Novel

by Fatimah Asghar

His heart isn’t with me. Or maybe I misplaced it. But I’m not sure when he gave it to me, and it doesn’t seem fair: to be responsible for something that I didn’t ask for.

Our language became cement. It settled. Tower. Babel. The fall. The lightning struck. Our throats changed. We separated. We assumed we meant the same thing when we spoke, because we said the same words. But. We were wrong. We were so wrong.

How terrible—to be an ordinary orphan. Not a superhero. Not a wizard in waiting. Not a prophet who goes to a cave. Just—ordinary. All that grief, wasted. All that fucking grief for nothing.

I feel my flame spark. Around me, smoke. Around me, everything becomes desert. The scorpion stinger rises. It wants to hook into someone. After all these years. It wants to make something bleed.

Family. Aisha. Noreen. Uncle ██████. Aunty. Meemoo. My dead mom. My dead dad. The apartment. The fire escape. The twin trundle. All the doors inside me lock.

I wonder how it would be if all our memories stacked up together, what would be real and what would be make-believe.