Novels by Halima Ibrahim

It started with a phone call I almost didn't take."We're cutting your hours," my manager said, not unkindly, just tired, the way people get when they've had to say something difficult too many times that week. "It's not personal. We just don't have the volume right now."I said I understood. I didn't, not really, not with rent already tight and my savings thinner than they'd been in months. But there wasn't time to sit with it, because my phone buzzed again before I'd even put the first call down.The hospital. A new charge on Ephraim's account, something insurance hadn't covered, a number large enough that I read it twice hoping I'd misunderstood the decimal point. I hadn't.Then the university portal lit up — a notice about a missed fee deadline, my name flagged, a warning that my enrollment could be affected if it wasn't resolved by Friday.Then Valerian.I know you're avoiding me. This isn't over just because you want it to be.Four things. One after another, no space between the

I almost cancelled three times before I made it to the restaurant.Each time, I told myself the same thing: I wasn't going to fix anything, and I wasn't going back. I was going to say what I hadn't said clearly enough the first time, so there would be no room left for him to twist it into something smaller than it was. That was the whole plan. Say it plainly. Leave.I'd chosen my clothes carefully that morning, not for him, but for myself — something that made me feel like the version of me who had walked away in the courtyard, not the version who used to check the mirror twice hoping he'd notice the effort. I practiced the words on the walk over, quiet under my breath, until they stopped sounding like a speech and started sounding like something I actually believed.He was already seated when I arrived, at the corner table we used to call ours, like he'd chosen it on purpose. He stood when he saw me, pulled out my chair the way he always had, and for one disorienting second, my body

I woke up already reaching for my phone.It was a small thing, the kind of habit that doesn't ask permission before it happens. My hand found the nightstand before my eyes had even opened all the way, fingers closing around the phone like they'd done every morning for two years, expecting the same small glow waiting there. Good morning. Or a complaint about traffic. Or nothing important at all — just proof that I existed somewhere in his day.There was nothing.I lay there staring at the blank screen for longer than I want to admit, and it took me a full minute to understand what had actually woken something sharp and unfamiliar in my chest. Not the empty screen itself. The fact that I'd been expecting it to be full. Twelve hours after telling him I was done, some stubborn, unlearned part of me was still waiting for him to prove I hadn't meant it.I set the phone down without checking it again. That felt like its own small victory, even if nothing about the rest of the day was going t

I woke up already reaching for my phone.It was a small thing, the kind of habit that doesn't ask permission before it happens. My hand found the nightstand before my eyes had even opened all the way, fingers closing around the phone like they'd done every morning for two years, expecting the same small glow waiting there. Good morning. Or a complaint about traffic. Or nothing important at all — just proof that I existed somewhere in his day.There was nothing.I lay there staring at the blank screen for longer than I want to admit, and it took me a full minute to understand what had actually woken something sharp and unfamiliar in my chest. Not the empty screen itself. The fact that I'd been expecting it to be full. Twelve hours after telling him I was done, some stubborn, unlearned part of me was still waiting for him to prove I hadn't meant it.I set the phone down without checking it again. That felt like its own small victory, even if nothing about the rest of the day was going t

I found Valerian in the courtyard behind the arts building, the one with the stone benches nobody sat on because they were always cold. I'd spent all morning rehearsing what I'd say, replaying the image of him walking away with Sereia like it was a scene stuck on repeat behind my eyes. Every version of the speech in my head sounded strong. Standing there in front of him, none of it came out that way.Neriah was a few steps behind me. She hadn't said much on the walk over, just squeezed my arm once like she was trying to load me up with courage before I ran out of my own.He was on his phone when he saw me coming, and I watched his face do the thing it always did in public — a quick shift, like a light switching on. But this time it flickered. This time it didn't fully turn on. The courtyard was nearly empty at that hour, just a few stragglers cutting across on their way to somewhere else, and I remember thinking that even the cold stone under my feet felt steadier than I did."Can

I woke up determined to be normal.That was the whole plan, as far as I'd let myself think about it — get up, go to class, don't mention the call, don't mention the lounge, don't mention the words prove you trust me that had kept circling my head half the night like something caught in a drain. Normal felt like something I could still choose if I just held my face the right way.I almost believed it, walking across the quad with my coffee going cold in my hand. The morning was bright in that thin, indifferent way mornings are when nothing around you knows what happened the night before. Students cut past me in twos and threes, laughing about things that had nothing to do with me, and for a few minutes I let myself borrow some of that lightness. I told myself the conversation with Valerian had been a fight, not a fracture. Couples fought. This didn't have to mean anything.Prove you trust me. The words kept surfacing anyway, uninvited, no matter how many times I pushed them back und