6- HARPER

"No! This won't happen under my watch," the thought continued furiously as I lay on my bed staring at the ceiling, replaying everything that happened today over and over in my head.

My bedroom was quiet except for the hum of the standing fan in the corner, its blades slicing through the humid evening air. The lavender walls my mother had painted two summers ago seemed to glow faintly in the dim light from my bedside lamp, but I wasn't seeing any of it.

"I love Julius Martins. He is my dream lover, the one I've imagined in my head always, and yet he kept acting like I didn't exist, like I was invisible and like everything I said and did didn't matter," I lamented angrily, the words burning in my throat even though I spoke them only to the empty room. My hands clenched the edges of my blanket, twisting the fabric until my knuckles turned white.

I had imagined this moment a hundred times before — meeting someone who would look at me the way the heroes in my novels looked at the heroines. Someone who saw past the surface to the girl who stayed up late reading novels, who cried at sad movie endings and tried so hard to be kind because the world already had enough sharp edges.

“But No! Julius had walked into class with his storm-cloud eyes and his silence, and I had foolishly thought that maybe the universe had finally heard my whispered prayers”.

But the worst part was how he kept smiling at Jane at every little chance he got, laughing with her, gist-ing and even holding her hands.

"Sigh!!" The sound escaped me, heavy and ragged. "How I wish it was my hand he held then," I continued lustfully in my thoughts as I wrapped myself tightly around my pillow

as I squeezed my eyes shut, willing sleep to come and hoping my heart would stop its frantic pounding. But sleep felt like a distant shore, and I was drowning in the middle of the ocean.

….

(KNOCK ON MY DOOR)

The sound was soft — three gentle raps, the rhythm my mother had used since I was small enough to be carried.

"My beautiful queen, Are you still awake?" my mom said as she walked into my room and sat down on my bed. The mattress dipped under her weight, the familiar creak of springs a comfort I had known since childhood. I quickly pulled the pillow closer to me, pretending I was already fast asleep with one eye half opened, my breathing deliberately slowed into the deep rhythm of dreams.

The room fell silent for a moment and I could feel her gaze on me, warm and searching.

She gave me that mom look — the one that sees right through me. "I have been peeping," she finally spoke, her voice carrying a smile even though I couldn't see it. "And I saw you holding that pillow tight even before I knocked. What happened? What is bothering my beloved daughter?"

The warmth in her voice broke me and cracked the fragile shell of pretense I had constructed. So I have to give up my pretense and sit up, the pillow falling into my lap.

"Nothing, Mom... I'm just tired," I whispered staring at my hand in other to avoid her direct eye contact. My fingers traced the embroidered sunflowers on my pillowcase — the same ones my grandmother had stitched before she passed away.

"There was no need to knock," I added immediately, pulling the pillow closer and hugging it against my chest like armor. "You were already in before I could respond."

"Oh! My bad! Sorry, my dear," she said, pressing a hand to her chest dramatically, her gold bangles catching the lamplight. Then she stood up, walked to the door and peeked back in, her head tilted at an angle that made her look younger than her years, almost girlish. "Or, should I go outside and knock again, then wait for your permission?"

I tried to stay mad, to hold onto the sullen fortress of my teenage dignity, but the way she stood in the doorway with her hands on her hip, waiting for "permission," made a laugh slip out before I could stop it. It started as a snort, then bubbled up into something real that loosened the knot in my chest for just a moment.

"Mom!, there's no need doing that. I was just kidding," I replied immediately, patting the space beside me on the bed.

"Okay! I can do anything for my queen to be happy," she said as she came back and sit on the bed beside me, the mattress dipping again. She smelled of the coconut oil she used in her hair and the cinnamon from the tea she drank every evening. The familiarity of it wrapped around me like a childhood blanket.

"There's something I want to discuss with you," she said as she took my hand slowly and squeezed it softly then let out a breath. Her palm was warm, slightly rough from years of washing and working, and I could feel the faint pulse in her wrist against my fingers. Something in her tone made me sit up straighter.

"What's that, Mom?" I asked immediately, with curiosity. The fan continued its rhythmic hum, and somewhere outside, a night bird called out into the darkness.

…

"Didn't you think you need a father figure in your life?" she asked as she let the air out slowly. Her voice was soft, but it landed heavy in the quiet room, like a stone dropped into still water.

"Yes mom. But, I don't think that might be ever possible again. Daddy is gone for years now," I replied as I shook my head in remembrance of dad. The image came unbidden — his laugh, the way he used to carry me on his shoulders so I could touch the ceiling, the smell of his aftershave that lingered in the house for months after the funeral. The hollow space he had left behind had become a part of the architecture of our lives, a room we no longer entered but never quite forgot.

I tried to keep my face calm, but I could feel the worry creeping in, cold fingers climbing up my spine. "Mom, why all these questions?" I asked immediately. My voice came out sharper than I intended.

"Hmmm!!, I think I have found someone who would replace the gap which your Dad left open," she replied as she held my face, her thumbs brushing gently against my cheeks. Her eyes were shining in the lamplight, liquid and bright. "Tell me!, Wouldn't you like to see your mom married again and have someone whom you can look up to as a father?"

The question hung between us, fragile and enormous. I looked at her and saw the lines around her eyes that hadn't been there when Dad was alive. The loneliness she carried so bravely that I had almost stopped noticing it.

"Your ideas are good, but I am just afraid that no one might be like Dad," I replied, my voice smaller now. The truth of it sat heavy on my tongue. "Mom, have you found any man that you think is compatible enough to fill the space," I asked.

"Yes! my dear," she replied smiling and blushing at the same time, a flush rising from her neck to her cheeks that made her look like a schoolgirl confessing a crush.

"No wonder! You were lost in thought the other day at the kitchen when I came back from school," I said. "Anyway!, I can't wait to meet this fortunate man and my future stepdad," I added teasingly, nudging her shoulder with mine.

She laughed, the sound bright and startled and pulled me into a hug. I rested my head against her shoulder.

“Somewhere out there, my mother had found a new beginning and somewhere in the corridors of my school, my dream lover had chosen my best friend instead of me.

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