If only

chapter 5

The dreams didn’t stop.

If anything, they got louder.

My brother’s voice would follow me from night to night sometimes whispering, sometimes screaming, sometimes just breathing heavy like he was drowning in air.

I stopped sleeping properly.

Not on purpose. It just... happened.

I’d lie awake, counting ceiling cracks, listening to snores and rats, replaying that day on a loop.

The Quran.

The spoon.

The cat.

Me, laughing while he tried to talk.

Even in the middle of class, I’d drift.

Not into sleep into silence.

Teachers would call my name twice before I blinked out of it.

I’d nod, pretend I heard the question, and write random answers I never believed in.

Tomi noticed. Of course she did.

But she had learned not to ask.

I had mastered the art of smiling with swollen eyes.

The exams came and went in a blur.

I barely remembered what I wrote. I didn’t care.

Until the results came out.

69%.

That number slapped me like a cold hand.

“At least you didn’t fail,” someone said behind me.

But they didn’t know me.

69 wasn’t just a number. It was a warning.

That if I kept letting the past chew on my mind, I’d start losing more than sleep.

That night, I didn’t cry. I didn’t write.

I just stared at the ceiling and said it aloud for the first time:

“He’s gone.”

And then, quietly:

“I need to stop dying with him.”

I folded the last page of my black book.

I didn’t throw it away.

I just… stopped adding to it.

For the first time since that day, I told myself something simple:

You can’t hear him now. But you can still live.

That was the night I decided to try.