The night was still, but inside me—chaos.
Ever since I read that last page, something cracked open in my heart…
Something that refuses to close.
I kept reading.
The next page was dated two days later:
"No one spoke to me during those two days.
The door was locked, and food came from under it… like I was a prisoner."
"Baba didn't come near me. Mama walked in once, holding the Quran, her face twisted.
She said: 'Read. Maybe God will purify your heart.'"
"I told her: 'My heart is not impure.'"
"She slapped me.
Said: 'This isn't you… this is the devil wearing your skin.'"
I stopped. I didn't feel like I was just reading.
I felt like I was there, in that room—
With Sherine, all alone, trying to understand herself while her family treated love like a crime.
"The next day, they brought a sheikh.
He read verses over me and said:
'Say: I seek refuge in God from the accursed devil.'
I stayed silent.
Not because I was afraid…
But because I refused to justify being human."
"Baba said: 'We're not sending you back to that school.
That school that turned you into this is no longer welcome.'"
"I asked: 'What did I do?
I loved. That's all.'"
"No one answered. But they all punished me."
The following pages weren't dated day by day.
It felt like she started writing in stolen moments of solitude:
"I prayed Yasmin never found out.
That I could keep her image pure in my mind,
even if they erased her from my life."
"But Mama called her mother. Told her:
'Keep your daughter away from mine. That girl's not right.'"
"Another girl in class told me Yasmin stopped coming to school."
"She vanished.
And I felt myself vanish with her."
Sheri stopped at that line.
She felt the wound wasn't just Sherine's.
It was the same sentence Sheri once wrote in her own journal—
when something she loved was taken without explanation.
The diary kept replaying a painful reel,
not just about love,
but about the silence forced on those who defy norms,
and the pain that turns into isolation.
But Sheri didn't close the journal.
She was determined to reach the end—
even if it hurt.
On the next page, the handwriting was shakier,
with a faint ink smudge—
as if a tear had fallen before the sentence was complete.
"That night, I decided to run away."
"I didn't have a full plan. But I knew my path…
I was going to Yasmin."
"I wore my old clothes, hidden in my school bag.
Forced the window open, jumped over the wall.
My feet got scratched,
but my heart ran faster than any pain."
"I walked through the street seeing only her face—
I knew it better than my own."
"I found her address from her school file,
something I saw once by accident… or maybe fate."
"I stood at their door, hand trembling,
heart pounding in my chest like it wanted out first."
"Before I could knock… the door opened."
Sheri gasped. Her eyes locked on the next line:
"But it wasn't her who opened it… it was her mother."
"She looked at me like I was a ghost."
"She said harshly: 'Aren't you done? Haven't you ruined enough?'"
"I tried to speak—anything…
But my tongue tied up."
"Then I heard Yasmin's voice inside… calling her mother."
"I stood there, in the cold air,
and heard her ask: 'Who is it?'"
"And her mother replied: 'No one important.'"
"Then shut the door in my face."
I stood still for seconds, unable to move.
Everything around me fell silent… even my heart.
But suddenly, I heard a window open above me.
I looked up—and saw her.
Yasmin stood in her house clothes, her hair down, eyes full of tears.
She said, her voice breaking:
"I'm sorry, Sherine… I can't do anything."
I looked at her and smiled through tears,
despite the pain, despite everything.
I whispered, but it felt like the words came from the depth of my life:
"I love you."
"And I won't forget you… even if you forget me."
We stared at each other for a moment…
A moment longer than the night,
and shorter than a dream
Then, the window closed…
and the light from her room disappeared.
And me?
I walked away… but not like I came.
I walked with a new wound…
But also, a new fire.
The streets were quieter than my heart,
and the night stretched long over my tears.
Each step I took, I felt myself getting closer to the chains—
But something inside me… was moving.
Something no one could ever lock away.
"The door was open… like they were waiting for me.
But the silence in the house wasn't peace—
It was a trap."
As soon as I entered,
I saw Mama in the living room, her face frozen.
Behind her, Baba sat—silent, but his eyes burning.
"Where've you been?"
"What were you thinking?"
I couldn't respond.
All I said was:
"I went to Yasmin's… I didn't really get in…
I just wanted to know she was okay."
"Okay? You mean our scandal?"
The word hit harder than the hand.
But the hand came, too.
Again. And again.
Not just their hands—
Their words, their silence, their eyes… all punishments.
"You lied to us.
You tried to run.
You're chasing Satan!"
Sometimes, punishment doesn't scream.
It's enough when they strip everything that ever felt yours.
They took away school.
Took my notebook.
Locked my room every day from the outside.
And Mama?
Every time she looked at me, she said:
"I don't see my daughter anymore."
Sheri closed the journal, her hands trembling.
Each word was a wound.
But in the middle of all that pain…
a small light began to flicker.
Sherine didn't stop.
Despite it all—she kept writing.
"After days locked away, two women came to the house…
They didn't feel safe."
Mama said:
"They're good people… they'll teach you how to come back."
But the first thing they said as they stared at me:
"The problem isn't with the girl…
The problem is that she thinks she's a boy."
They tried to convince me
that the love inside me was a disease—
Something to be fixed, broken, buried.
They locked me alone in a room.
No TV. No books.
Every day, they said:
"A girl is a wife.
A girl is a mother.
A girl is her family's honor.
A girl obeys and follows.
A girl does not love.
A girl marries who her parents choose."
"Tell us—are you sorry?"
"Tell us—this was just whispers, right?"
"Girls like you end up doomed…
If you don't return to God,
maybe death is better."
Sheri read the lines as they blurred in front of her eyes—
more like a chokehold than letters.
She knew that voice—
It wasn't new to her.
It was the same voice that once broke something inside her,
and still whispered in her ears even now.
"I passed the days counting the light
that entered through the bathroom window.
I dreamed of Yasmin opening the door…
but each day, the dream dimmed."
"Until one day, I woke up to Baba's voice saying:
'You're getting married. Enough of this childish nonsense.'"