Strings - Capstone Amal Al Shamsi (1)

She had overcome the urge to press her thumb down and make a dent, even though she
knew she’d be successful. Young things are, after all, like clay. It would hurt and he would cry
but then he would forget.
There was a photograph of her leaning over the edge of the bathtub. In the gap beneath
her elbow, a reddish thing in a shallow plastic tub lay complacently. The edges of the photograph
curl slightly inwards, worn out.
She said to him that his father took it, but then the man wasn’t there to answer.
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