8- Unrequited

Khaleed hovered over his desk, his eyes focused on the latest picture he had printed.

It was a photo of Nadia he had taken the day before when they had gone out to the park. She was leaning against a tree, holding a stick of candy floss while smiling at it like it held all the answers to the woes that befell her. It was too good a sight to not capture it and now, it had came out better than he had hoped.

Photography was something he did as a hobby, not as art. He liked to see the beauty in the ugly, turn the flawed into flawless.

It gave him hope and sometimes, it grounded him, reminded him that beneath the hard exterior he presented to the world was a scared little boy who had watched all the women around him go through painful experiences he wouldn't have wished on his worst enemies. But such was the way of life, at some point, a person's faith is tested by The Almighty and the thought that 'With every hardship, th