Naked

Here's a preview to the novel I've been working on:

She ran into her room, slammed the door and threw herself onto her bed. It was happening again. It’s almost like she memorized the order. She’d experience the anger first, it would build up inside her chest like tar on a smoker’s lungs, but she would control it. Tell herself that she won’t let it get to her, it wasn’t worth it. He wasn’t worth it. Depression followed, she would’t be able to eat, sleep or concentrate on her schooling. It was like he was etched in her brain cells. He was everywhere. She’d hear his voice, his laughter. Every other guy on the street looked like him or dressed him. The depression and the sadness start taking control over her. Sharifa would control her emotions, pushing them to the back of her mind. She didn’t have anyone to talk to. In her opinion, there was no one trust worthy. People wouldn’t understand, they’d judge her instead. She didn’t need the extra attention, being the talk of the town because of what he did. Her smiles were beginning to fade; the lovely giggles were no more. A walking corpse she’s become. Grades down the drain. She was losing herself. As she went on to conceal her misery from everyone around her, the moment came when she could bare it no longer. So she cried, she sobbed till her eyes hurt from the crying. Till it felt like her heart was about to be explode into billions of pieces. It wouldn’t go away. It was getting harder and harder to breathe. Her quiet sobs turned into ear shrieking screams. Sharifa wanted it to stop, if only someone could make them all go away. She kept wishing she never existed. She continued to grieve, she was alone. It was her against the world. There was no way out for her, and she knew that very well. She wondered if it would fade and disappear. If one day she’d look back at the trauma and breathe a sigh of relief because it was behind her.
It took her a while before there were no more tears. She lay there motionless and brain dead. She got up and walked towards the mirror to look at herself. She examined her face, her hair, her body. What she saw was a neglected young woman. Every square inch of her body was incomplete. She was ugly from head to toe. Thoughts ran through her head; “what was I thinking?” “Why do I look so hideous?” Who am I? Why do I even exist? I’m useless. No one wants me, they hate me! Look at me!!! And as those thoughts kept running through her head she couldn’t hold back the fresh set of tears.

Chapter 1
Sharifa was the second child in family with six children. Her elder brother was never around so she took the role of the eldest. She’d help her mother with the kids, teach them when they needed help with schooling, cooked for them when they were hungry and the work never ended. Sharifa was a straight A student, envied by many of her peers and admired by her teachers. She was competitive, active and passionate. As a child she dreamt of being a doctor and make her parents proud. But after all she’s been through she laughs every time she remembers the “good old days”. She wondered if she could rejuvenate herself again. She wished she knew if she would ever get past the hardship and whether the wounds would disappear one day.....


Her mother was her role model, her back bone and her only alley. Sharifa’s mother held her hand when she needed a hand to hold hers, gave her words of wisdom when Sharifa secretly considered ending her life. Her mother was her sunshine, her light, her everything. While Sharifa was suffering, her mother’s strength baffled her, after all her mother had to fight a battle of her own. Her younger siblings suffered in silence, their fear a clearly reflecting in their big green eyes. Sharifa was torn. She wanted to fix it all, make all the bad vanish into thin air, give her family what they truly deserved. He wasn’t a part of it. But he wasn’t part of the family; well not as far as Sharifa was concerned......