My struggle is harsh

And I come back

With eyes tired

At times from having seen

The unchanging earth,

But when your laughter enters

It rises to the sky seeking me

And it opens for me all

The doors of life.

Her eyes looked dead and empty.

She had grown into her curves, her face had lost some of its roundness but her eyes looked as if it had shed every bit of life it had ever owned. She looked up at him, barely recognising who he had become but he would never forget her. He would always see her- no matter what shape or form she would take, he would see her.

"What do you want from me?" She jerked out of his hold, fisting her hands at her sides.

"Don't you recognise me?" He asked. His voice had deepened and roughened over the years but she could recognise it even if he had to whisper it to her. His voice still soothed her mind and touched her ears as if it were a gentle breeze brushing past her.

"What are you doing here?" She took a step away from him. He couldn't see her like this- He would know why she was here. She was dirty and she didn't want to make him dirty too.

He shook his head not knowing how to reply to her question. "Where did you go little bee?"

"Where I've always been." She said, looking around warily. Her brother was only supposed to pick up her medication and she didn't want him to see Riaz. She couldn't believe he was right in front of her. She could touch him. She could reach out and hold his hands but she would never touch his hands ever again. "I can't..." She turned around, her heart aching with each second in his presence. He reminded her of who she used to be and she couldn't do it. She longed for her old self too much that it killed her to know she would never find it. She would never find herself- not after what her brother had done. He had distorted her, mutated her, destroyed her and she couldn't go back.

"Don't." He caught hold of her wrist once again. "Don't leave me again."

Reading her last letter had broken something within him and it had never been fixed until this moment. When he first laid eyes on her it seemed as if something in him was being pulled back together and the thought of it breaking again- Not now. Not when she was so close.

"Please don't touch me without my consent," she whispered, unable to look at him. She didn't want to dirty him. She was dirty and filthy and sick and if he was too close he would be able to see it all. Her brother had muddied her. He had tainted her with darkness and filth and he had robbed her of her light. She had no light in her- he had stolen it and trampled over it too often for her to find it again. She looked around again- she didn't want him to see them together. "Leave me alone."

It hurt.

It hurt, unbelievably so to say those words but she would rather break her heart by herself then have her brother break her body again.

She started to walk away- the ache between her thighs seemed to have intensified after her few short minutes of standing, still but she couldn't let him see. She had to try to walk normally so he would never figure it out.

"Just one last time," his soft, gentle voice caused her steps to falter for only a second. "meet me one more time under the tree in front of the school."

"I can't Riaz." She didn't turn around. If she had to look at him, she knew she would say yes but she couldn't. She couldn't look at him.

"Please Tasneem." He pleaded. "I'll wait for you until 12."

"I have to go."

Goodbye Riaz.

...

Next to the sea in Autumn,

Your laughter must raise

its foamy cascade,

and in the spring, love,

I want your laughter like

The flower I was waiting for.

Take bread away from me, if you wish,

Take air away, but

Do not take away from me your laughter.

Her brother wasn't called into work that night.

Her mother didn't come home early that night.

Her brother didn't come home from school that night.

But he did step into her room that night. He questioned her about the boy she was talking to and he asked her if it still hurt.

She wasn't talking about her body when she said yes though. She was talking about her soul. She was talking about her heart that felt as if it had been ripped into pieces before being put back into her body to pump blood uselessly through a living corpse.

She wished she hadn't said yes though. She would have muffled her whimpers of pain as he tore her apart. Nothing could hurt her more than her heart at that moment except the humiliation he intended for her after that. Her eyes wouldn't close long after he had left her room. She stayed curled into herself as she stared aimlessly at the large oak tree outside her window. She hadn't even felt the tears run down her cheeks nor did she bother with the pain in her stomach or her head. She had made it to the bathroom in time to empty her stomach violently into the sink but beyond that- she didn't want to think anymore. She didn't want to think about the taste in her mouth or the redness against her knees as it chaffed against the rough carpet. She only wanted to fall into oblivion.

That's all she wanted really.

She wanted to have never existed. She hadn't made an impact on the world. In 22 years, she had done nothing and no one would miss her if she was gone. If she was never there at all, the world would have gone one without her just as it had before. She wasn't important or special. She hadn't saved lives and she hadn't touched anyone's heart.

She was a figure drowning amongst the faces of people who had someone to miss them.

The world wouldn't care if she never existed.

Just then, in the depths of her sorrow her eyes landed upon a perfect, white butterfly.

She had lost her way and hadn't made it home before dark...

And just then, she flew high up into the leaves of the oak tree to her home.

She made it home.

He would miss her. Riaz would miss her...

...

Do not take away the rose,

The lance flower that you pluck,

The water that suddenly

Bursts forth in joy,

The sudden wave

Of silver born in you.

He had waited for almost two hours. He had leaned back against the tree, enjoying the little flickers of sunshine that rained down upon his face through the canopy of leaves above him. He felt as if no years had passed between them. He was still 18 and so was she and they stood beneath the green leaves, invisible to the sparrows chirping above them as they built their nests and sang their sings to soothe their little ones. He was 18 and he wanted to kiss a girl simply because he wanted to know what it would feel like to press his lips to hers and feel the softness of her body against his.

But years have passed and time had changed them.

They were no longer 18 and time had refused to be gentle with them. He had changed but so had she. And he was scared- truly terrified- that she had lost her battle against time itself. She was defeated at its hand and he was terrified that he wouldn't see her this one last time.

But he could feel it...

He could feel her gaze on him from the edge of the pavement as she watched him- remembering their moments from once long ago. He could feel the way her eyes traced over him, trying to figure out the changes within him.

And when he opened his eyes- she was standing right in front of him as if she had been plucked out of his dreams, and washed amidst the twinkling stars to stand before him.

And time, it seemed, hadn't actually passed at all.

...

My love, in the darkest

Hour your laughter

Opens, and if suddenly

You see my blood staining

The stones of the street,

Laugh, because your laughter

Will be for my hands

Like a fresh sword.

He was right in front of her.

She didn't want to believe that he was there but he was. He was taller than she remembered and his muscles were straining beneath the thin cotton of his long sleeved navy t-shirt. And when he looked down at her through his thin-framed glasses she felt as if she had never left him at all. She was back to those days in the darkened auditorium and holding hands with him beneath the acacia tree outside the science lab. He had changed though.

He was handsome before but now- now he was beautiful. He had grown older and more mature in the four years that he had been away. He had grown from a boy into a man and she didn't know what to say to him. His green eyes had softened as he looked at her and for the first time in what seemed like an eternity. She wanted to smile as she looked at him.

He was her little glimmer of hope and he was standing right before her- But still he was too far for her to grasp onto.

But just that she could see him was enough.

"I..." She stopped. What could she say to him?

Their meeting the day before didn't exist.

This was their first true meeting after all this time and words felt too insignificant to capture what they both truly wished to say. They could only look at each other- melding their past with their present as time had ceased to exist in their memories but could not cease to exist on their bodies. They were who they used to be. They were still Riaz and Tasneem but they had also transformed into strangers meeting each other for the first time. Yet their hearts had rejoiced and their spirits had soared through the sky, dancing together after all these years apart.

"I still see you Little Bee."

His voice was soft and husky- its gentle timbre washing over her as a wave of stardust falling over her from the skies above.

"You don't see me. I'm not who I used to be," she said sadly, bitterly.

"You don't understand. I'll always see you no matter who you are."

"I don't want you to see this version of me."

And she didn't. She wanted him to remember her as she used to be. She wanted him to live his life remembering the girl he met when he was 18 who had brought sunshine into his life. The woman that she was now- she had no sunshine to give. She only had an eclipsed moon who's silver glow had been darkened as she disappeared into the midnight sky.

"Come with me."

He didn't care about who she thought she was. He didn't care that she looked empty and lifeless and dead. He cared about who she was- who she was beneath the pain and the torment that he knew would one day flicker through like the sunshine flickered down upon them through the canopy of the trees.

"Come with you? Where do you want me to come?"

"I leave for Cape Town tomorrow afternoon and I'm never coming back. Please don't let me leave you again."

"I can't Riaz." She had nothing. She was nothing. She couldn't go with him. He had such an extraordinary life ahead of him and the thought of ruining him decimated her. "You have a beautiful life ahead of you and I don't... I'm too ugly to fit into that life."

Her words left his heart feeling cold.

"You're beautiful Tasneem." He said, his voice barely a whisper as he looked down at the ground. "My bus leaves at 2 tomorrow."

"I wish you..."

"Don't." His hands were barely a millimetre from her face. He wished to cup her cheeks in his hands and run his thumb along the swell of her plump red lips but he couldn't touch her- not until she allowed him to. "Don't say it. I'm leaving at 2."

"I can't." She took a step back. He was a dream. He was a fantastic dream but he was only a dream. "I'm sorry."

She turned around and she walked away, leaving her heart behind where it belonged.

He was always just a dream...

Laugh at the night,

At the day, at the moon,

Laugh at the twisted

Streets of the island,

Laugh at this clumsy

Boy who loves you...

...

Her heart ached.

She walked into her room wanting only to lie down and forget the world had ever existed.

But as she walked in- her steps faltered at the sight of her brother perched on the edge of her bed thumbing through the crumpled letters that she had read and reread over the years.

"Who's Riaz?"

But when I open

My eyes and close them,

When my steps go,

When my steps return,

Deny me bread, air,

Light, spring,

But never your laughter

For I would die.

A/N: The poem used in this chapter is adapter from Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda