h o p e - museweek day 4 + adina abdul qayyum (insp)
Her mother’s nimble fingers carefully flipped through pages before her, too many numbers for Adlina to keep track of. She peeked her head farther around the corner, breathing still as she listened to the gentle hum of the company’s computer. “Either come in or leave, Adlina,” she heard, Erina’s voice clear as she tutted at her. “And stand up straight, creeping and slouching are not doing you any favors.” Shoulders back, she fully stepped into the expansive company office, her mother’s confidence like an aura that she could just reach out and steal for herself. But instead she too commonly withered in her presence, biting words like wounds that she shirked back to tend to.
“What is it you wanted? I don’t have all night.” Never taking her eyes off of her spreadsheets. She did have all night - it would just be spent here at the office, surrounded by buzz and businessmen, rather than at home surrounded by the little family she had. Adlina cleared her throat, gathering all the courage that her twelve year old heart could muster. “I was just. Wondering if there’s anything else I needed for TKC? Anything you wished that you’d had, I’m nervous about starting soon,” she managed to get out, fighting the urge to stare at her feet - but attempting to make eye contact with Erina was like making eye contact with a feral dog. She’d lost count of all the times she’d buried herself in her father’s suit jacket just to avoid making further eye contact with her.
But she’d grown older, and that wasn’t acceptable. She needed to be a proper lady, from now on, and so Adlina had practiced shoving her emotions down. Screaming them into her pillows, letting her fingers twitch with anxiety and anger, her body bursting at the seams with everything trying to fight its way to the surface. Even letting a little vulnerability out was wrong, it seemed, as Erina took off her glasses to stare at her daughter, fingers interlocked together, work abandoned. “Do you think we underprepared? Because I can assure you that you have everything you need to succeed away from home. And if you fail…” Her words trailed, and that was even more painful to Adlina than if she’d continued.
“If I fail, what? You’ll never speak to me again? You’d be saving me pain,” she cried, her body threatening to collapse in on itself as she fought actual tears. “I got into TKC, didn’t I? And you’re never satisfied, you never seem proud. Have I done something wrong?” Her hijab was threatening to fall, but she couldn’t move to fix it. She’d finally bared her fangs and now it was the silence before the strike.
The arms of her glasses were folded, the frames set aside. Adlina was small simply standing, a contained explosion, but Erina could sit and still be as threatening as a nuclear blast. “And tell me why should I be proud of someone who isn’t my daughter,” she stated, voice chilling Adlina’s fire. It couldn’t be true. But every fight she’d ever heard across the house - this was a new perspective, and Erina had never lied to her before. Too blunt even when she was just a child.
And as her heart broke, it tried to fix itself. It didn’t set properly, it would have to be broken again, but even if she didn’t have a mother, at least she didn’t have one who could be so awful. She stormed out of the office, afraid to go against the alpha again, there was no way she could win, fixing her hijab as she flew out of the building, armor in place once more.
She’d been stupid to hope that Erina could ever care.
