Bonus chapter: Anderson .vs. Malik Feud Explained

The next morning, I prepared an over-night bag with my clothes and other essentials I would need for the next few days. I was sat down with my back against the front door waiting for my father to call me, signifying he had arrived to pick me up and take me back to Leeds for the next few days. My grandmother had suffered yet another seizure during the night and the doctor informed us that we should expect her death within the next two days.

My grandmother, Jackie Anderson, is one of the many sufferers of epilepsy. Although she took medication to prevent seizures from happening quite frequently, when they did actually happen they would be so horrible that she would look as though she was in pain. Since I spent a lot of my free time at their house, I was present for a few of them and couldn't do anything to help them. Comforting them or trying to calm them down wouldn't alter the seizure. The only thing I could do for her was to lay her down on her side so that she wouldn't choke on her own saliva and wait for it to be over.

My phone started ringing and when I noticed it was my father, I ended the call, grabbed my bag and left the house. When I entered the car, I stuck my headphones in my ears and blocked everything out. My father looked in a state that was much worse than mine, and I didn't blame him. It was his mother after all. They were quite close, unlike the relationship I had with my mother. If it weren't for my father being the equilibrium that he was, then I don't think I would have been able to live under the same roof as her.

The ride from our house to the hospital in Leeds where my grandmother was, felt like two minutes long, when in reality it was almost twenty minutes. After finding an empty spot in the parking area, we made our way to the elevators without a single word. The elevator made a few stops on the way to 'Level 6' and when the doors slid open smoothly I followed my father out of the suffocating elevating metal box, down a long corridor with blinding lights. Even the light outside hurt my eyes, probably due to the fact that I hadn't gotten any sleep the previous night.

I counted the steps I took one-by-one and after the count had risen to the number seventy-four, my father stopped and turned to look at me. My head rose slowly and I met a pair of eyes identical to mine; eyes that were red and puffy, looking broken and completely miserable. It broke my heart even more just to look at him and I felt my heart beating faster, not ready for the inevitable goodbye that would soon be coming. I wasn't ready for that. I had finally found how to go through a panic attack when my memories hit back, and I found my comfort spot in Zayn, but I knew that this time I couldn't go to him. I didn't want to put the pressure on him to always be there for me. I had gone through things alone, and I wanted to go back to depending on myself.

I felt way too vulnerable depending on others, and didn't like that feeling one bit. When you show your vulnerability to others they use it against you without realizing sometimes and you would end up getting hurt even more than before.

"Hazel," my father started off and I knew that a speech was coming up. His bottom lip quivered but he quickly pulled himself together and looked me straight in my face, his expression turning slightly cold and distant. "Your grandmother won't make it through the night. She only has a few hours, eight maximum. I know how close you two were so I want you –no. I need you to make her feel at home. Make her feel loved because I have no idea how to help her, Hazel. I feel so useless. I don't even know what to do."

A tear slipped down his cheeks and my heart shattered into a billion pieces, tears forming in my eyes and I quickly enveloped my father into a hug, wanting to make him feel comfortable, to make him feel better but I knew that a simple hug wouldn't suffice, I knew that it wasn't going to ease the excruciating pain he was feeling. I knew it was worse than what I was feeling. Like I said before, they had a pretty close bond for a mother and son.

"Go in, I'm going to stay out here for a few minutes," he added, sitting down on a chair opposite the door where my grandma was.

I gave him a slow nod, my eyes downcast with tears still gathered in the sockets. I pushed down on the handle and stepped inside, the smell of disinfectant hitting my nostrils the moment the door was open an inch. The sight that stood in front of me was something I wasn't mentally prepared for and my body started shaking, feeling a new wave of emotions taking over my body once more.

There were tubes stuck to her nose, her arms and beneath the robe she was wearing. They all connected to machines that stood next to her, one of them being the heart monitor showing continuous rising lines. Something I knew would soon become a continuous flat line and my lip started to quiver at the mere thought of it. Despite the situation, a warm smile was etched onto her lips. She managed to raise her arms, beckoning me over for her hug and I instantly ran towards her, throwing myself on the edge of the bed and into her arms. I savored the seconds that I spent locked in her arms knowing that it was one of the last hugs I would get from her.

Tears that were once gathered in my eyes were now freely running down my face, soaking into her hospital gown. My body shook as the tears increased with every passing second, my head was pressed to her bony chest and I could hear her heart rate faltering one minute, and increasing the next. Her fingers ran through my hair soothingly, her chin resting on the top of my head. I felt a few drops fall onto my head, making me cry even more.

"We're going to your house for a shower and to see if everything is okay, we'll be back in around two hours, three at the most," I heard my mother say, and after a few footsteps walking around the room, the door opened and shut behind her.

I knew we were alone in the room and as soon as the door shut, I burst into a loud cry and formed a waterfall with my tears, sure that they were seeping through the thin material. Her fingers continued to run through my hair, removing the knots that I hadn't bothered to brush out this morning after the relentless tossing and turning in my bed the previous night.

It felt like hours after the tears stopped and I was starting to calm down from my tiny breakdown. I was still shaking when I pulled away from her embrace, heaving in a deep breath and wiped my eyes with the back of my hands. She moved to her right so that I could have a comfortable space to sit on. I tucked one of my legs beneath me and left the other one to dangle mid-air from the edge. Her eyes scanned me and a proud smile quickly tugged at her lips, while I looked at her quickly fading body that had almost become skin and bones. It was quite clear that her health was deteriorating by the minute, breaking my heart into pieces.

"How are you, my dear?"

I shook my head, fresh tears gathering at the corner of my eyes. "I don't want you to leave, grandma."

She chuckled, a smile still plastered on her face. "Its life and I have finally come to peace with it. I don't want to leave and the last thing I see is you crying. You're too beautiful to cry, my dear. It will be alright. I don't want to hear more about it. Let's talk about other things."

I nodded, quickly removing any traces of the tears that were previously there. I didn't want to make her feel guilty and wanted her last few hours to be the best possible. For the next hour or so, we talked about how everything was going back in Bradford, how going back to a proper school was, how my health was in general, if I had made any friends yet and I had even mentioned Chase in the midst of it all. Her lips tilted into a smile when I described how our date had gone. I wasn't sure if it was a date, but the way it had ended and his promise that we would talk soon, made it seem like one.

"How is it living next to the Malik's?" she asked, changing the subject pretty quickly.

"It's definitely better than I had expected," I mumbled, looking at my lap and fiddling with my fingers.

"How so?" she tried to sit up straighter and when she managed to lift herself by a few inches, she let out a heavy sigh and turned her attention back to me.

I shrugged, readjusting my position to a more comfortable one. "I thought it would be so awkward and I would be so cold, distant. I wasn't sure how to be around them because I had heard so much against them. I tried to get an opinion of my own, but I just couldn't wrap my head around it. Then I had a fight with Zayn, their son who's my age, and he got me to see it from their point of view grandma. I thought it was 'We're right. You're wrong.' But it isn't even close to that. It is so much different if you see it from both perspectives! They're different. They are nothing close to how grandpa used to describe them as. I just don't understand why the whole rivalry even started in the first place."

The whole time I was talking my grandma was looking at me in awe, a ghost of a smile visible on her lips. I furrowed my eyebrows together, unsure how to react to how she was looking at me. I thought she would give me one of her frowns and shake her head, shrugging, telling me one of the many lessons she had learnt. Instead I got the opposite of what I was expecting. She opened her mouth to reply, but instead started coughing uncontrollably, her heart monitor spiked up way too quickly and my eyes widened, unsure of what to do. She waved her hand as though signaling she was alright. After a few seconds she calmed down and took a sip of the water, heaving in a deep breath and let it out noisily.

"I need to tell you something."

My ears perked up when that one sentence left her lips. She closed her eyes momentarily and scrunched her face as though she was thinking over her decisions.

"There's a reason why I never said anything against the Malik's Hazel, and I think you've come to the conclusion yourself at this very second," she started out, and my eyes instantly widened in shock.

It couldn't be.

"I need you to stay quiet until I finish. I don't have much time left and I want to die knowing that at least one person knows about this. The only other person that knows about this is your grandfather. What he doesn't know is what really happened between the two families. All he sees is red and hatred. We were a very small family when I were younger and I only had two cousins, one from my mother's side and one from my father's side. As you can already guess, my father was a Malik and my other cousin was Francesco Malik, who is the father of Jacob Malik, who is your neighbour. We grew up together and we were so close some people even mistook us for brother and sister. I never thought that by me marrying your grandfather, Greg, would change it all. Our childhood memories together became a huge big blur. What was once a great bond had become something I couldn't bear to look at because of what had been done.

"Francesco and I were the next in line for our grandfather's company and when I married your grandfather, things got complicated between Francesco and him. In those days the women stayed at home while the men went out to work and bring home money for the family. That being said, once I was married to your grandfather I wasn't the next in line for the company, but Greg had taken my place and was fighting for his place at the top of the company against Francesco. I don't really blame my cousin for what was done, because after all, it was a family business. I don't blame Greg either, because once he was married to me, wasn't he supposed to be counted as part of the family as well?"

She coughed once again and after taking a sip of water, she took in a few breaths before continuing. I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to interrupt her. This was a side of the story I had never heard before. Who knew there were more than two sides to a story?

"They both had a point, and both had blame in the situation. The person that didn't get the place would have to take a place below them. You might ask, 'Why couldn't they work together and be business partners?' Simply because it wasn't a tradition, and either way, everyone in the family knew they wouldn't work together and the company's economy would quickly go downhill. Above all, religion was very important those days. Greg was a Muslim, and my family was Christian. You can clearly see the problem here. When my grandfather got ill and was at death's edge, he had to finalize his will and chose Greg to take his place.

"This didn't sit well with Francesco, obviously. A Muslim man taking charge of a company that had been started and lead by a Christian believer? An outsider took his place. At those times, religion was a very difficult and hot subject for everyone. His own blood had chosen against him. So he chose against them. He dropped from the company and built one of his own, having exactly the same objectives and beliefs of the company our grandfather had built. The companies became huge competition and were well known with other investors. Along the years both companies had become a huge success but the rivalry between Greg and Francesco has lived on through two more generations. From what you mentioned about the Malik's, Francesco either didn't carry on the rivalry to his children, or Jacob just doesn't care. The funny thing about it was your father and Jacob were friends when they were younger, but as soon as Francesco and Greg found out who their children were hanging out with, they forbid them to ever see each other again. I had no choice in it, and honestly speaking, I never wanted to. Although my cousin hasn't talked to me for the past half century, and a bit more, I never said a single word against him because after all, he is my family."

My mouth was hanging slightly ajar after she finished with her side of the story and I was amazed, suddenly agreeing with how Zayn saw it. Both sides were to blame here and both sides were right too. Before I could open my lips to reply, she shook her head and a smile formed on her lips once more.

"I don't want to hear anything from you, Hazel," she said quietly, her voice sounding croaked and forced at the end, as though she was putting a lot of effort into talking. "I just wanted you to hear another side of the whole situation that has been going on for three generations now. I just want you to make decisions based on how you feel, not on what you know. I need you to follow your heart and forget what happened; don't let a stupid rivalry that happened half a century ago stop you from going after what you want in life."

Tears formed in her eyes at the end which triggered my own tear ducts, filling my eyes with more fresh tears. All of a sudden the heart monitor spiked up quickly and her face contorted into a facial expression I never found the words to describe. She stared straight at me, her eyes glossing over but no tears came out of her eyes and I knew what was coming next.

"No, no, no, no!" my voice started rising with each syllable but I knew she wasn't hearing me. "Grandma, no, please don't go! This can't be it! You can't die!"

She started having spasms and collapsed backwards, the heart monitor was going crazy and all I wanted was to hear the continuous soft beep, not this noisy and irritating beep that meant I was going to lose my grandmother forever. Her eyes lost any hint of focus and went sideways, drool forming at one side of her lips. I felt completely useless, unable to help her, and take away her pain, to make her feel better and healthier. I didn't want her to die in such a way.

I wanted it to be peaceful; I wanted her to be surrounded with all the people she loved; I wanted her to have time to talk to Francesco once more before she left; I wanted her to say goodbye to the love of her life before she left; I wanted her to say goodbye to her son and to get one last chance to tell him how much she loved him; I wanted her to have the last few minutes with her daughter, and ask her how her family trip had gone; I wanted her to be at peace.

After what felt like a million years, the door flew upon and I was shoved aside by a nurse. A doctor was yelling something to the nurse that had just shoved me away from my grandmother. They were talking to each other, shouting information to each other over the loud beep that had turned into one long line instead of a continuous spiked one. I had gone completely numb for a few minutes until I heard what the nurse said after checking her wrist watch.

"Time of death for Jackie Malik Anderson is two-fifty pm. Cause of death, severe epileptic fit."

When I found myself sitting outside her room, my back to the wall waiting for my parents to come, one thing kept crossing my mind.

I never got the chance to say a proper goodbye.

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Okaayyyy this is the final explanation of why there is the rivalry between the Anderson's and the Malik's. I received a bunch of comments asking how and why. I edited this whole book and added other characters, while removing some too and I included this chapter in the new version but never got around to posting the new one here and instead decided on just posting this explanation instead of the whole thing.

Hope this answers your questions!