"My little sister is - to put it mildly - kind of a loser." The young man barely scoffed as he stared up at the ceiling.
"I see," Dr. Sebastian Menon, a renowned Indian therapist, said kindly. "Could you elaborate?"
"Well..." The young man hesitated. "You ever met the kind of person who scoffs at normal pleasantries as 'small talk' but is also too afraid to order pizza on the phone? Yeah, that's her. That's Mahirah Noor Siddiqui to a T."
"And how does that make you feel, Atif?" Dr. Menon asked; surely this little sister had something to do with his patient's confused feelings about life.
Atif shook his head. "It's fine, Dr. Menon. I love her; really, I do. Every day she tries to be a better person, and we've always looked out for each other. She's just in her own world full of bad jokes and weird logic a lot of the time."
"Funny story," Atif added before Dr. Menon could speak. "She thinks she's an INTJ or INTP or something. She puts way too much stock in that personality test sometimes, even though she knows it's not real. 'Just for fun', but when is the line between fun and reality gonna blur into nothing?"
Dr. Menon couldn't help but agree; how many times had patients stumbled into his office, trying to explain away their coping mechanisms with "of course I'm logical to the point of psychopathy, I'm such an INTJ haha"? However, he chose to let Atif speak; Atif probably didn't have any mental disorders, but he deserved to be able to talk about his feelings to someone, even if it was to a therapist who'd have to move on to the next patient when Atif left.
"Is your little sister the cause of your troubles?" Dr. Menon asked; it was a risky question, but a reasonable one.
Atif shook his head emphatically. "Mahirah's a good kid. She can be evil, but so can most people. No, Dr. Menon." His friendly face twisted into a scowl. "You want to know who really ruined our lives? Our dad."
"Tell me more," Dr. Menon said gently.
Atif took a deep breath. "It's a long story, Dr. Menon..."
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Even though Mahi doesn't always try to portray herself that way, in her 'written accounts', she's the hero of the story. Maybe it's her way of coping with the fact that she never really had a dad; I just cope with that by finding role models from pop culture. It hasn't always helped, but it's better than nothing.
I guess I should tell you what happened; in 1998, a year before we were born (Mahirah says we're twins, but did the doctor's report that said I was 13 minutes older lie? I think not), our parents were happy as clams. They'd gotten married 2 years ago, they loved each other through thick and thin, Mom looked like a Bollywood actress and Dad was ripped with a mullet, things were good. And then Dad lost himself; well, that's what we used to think, before we realized supposedly that he'd never been there at all.
It's hard to explain; I guess I better start at the beginning.
Doc, the one thing you have to remember is that Dad still isn't what we thought he was. Sure, I guess he's OK now, but to be honest? I'm still pissed at him, and not just for leaving me, his son, without a father until a little while ago; I'm mad that he abandoned my little sister, and that he left Mom. There's a reason he did it, but I'm still angry. I wish there'd been another way.
So what did he do? Well, after Mom gave birth to us, she didn't want to have another child, since it's generally more difficult to deliver twins. Dad wanted another child, preferably another son apparently, and they had a fight about it. Dad learned to respect Mom's wishes, but he was a lot younger then; Mahirah and I are 21 years old, remember? Apparently that excused him resenting Mom because of it.
Then Morato showed up.
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(Author's note: the quote in the prompt will show up in Part 2 of this response)