Ruins of Autumn

16• Fragile Farewell

    Thinking about each other woke up with them the next morning, and conscience didn't hesitate for a second to criticise them for being wrong and that they had to stop at once.
 
    Knowing that what they felt wasn't right put them at a greater risk of paying a heavy price for allowing those forbidden thoughts and feelings to exist.
 
    But yesterday didn't get tired of reminding them that life was no longer the same, and Blerimi and Leonora didn't want to go back to how they were before they knew anything about each other.
 
    The moments of agency between them created beautiful illusions of a future where they could meet again without being dismayed that it was forbidden for them to be alone together in the same environment because someone could separate them.
 
    It was just the two of them in another new chapter of life, where happiness wasn't impossible at all and every second belonged to them, to be lived together. 
 
    Leonora hadn't had that many emotions before going to work, then that morning, with the hope that maybe Blerimi would come to the office with the excuse of meeting Denada since he knew her and that way he would see Leonora too.
 
    With an invisible tangle of invigorating emotions in her chest that drove half of the oxygen to her lungs and she felt difficulty breathing, she was standing in front of the bathroom mirror and looking at her hair pinned behind her head in a closed blue clip, her dark red golf and black trousers, and wondering if clothes in lighter colours would help her more in standing out.
 
    She shook her head in disbelief at what she had been thinking and left the bathroom, unable to look at herself in the mirror any more because of the shame of the situation she was in. The pressure of the torturous way of living without her will had made her frail towards Blerimi's allure and had pushed her into thinking, affected by his gaze, that he loved her too, but being alone at her house was coming to her aid in thinking through and reflecting into understanding that she had created positive impressions and romantic feelings about Blerimi because of the lack of love that should have been given to her by people whose responsibility had been to offer her that love.
 
    She had to get down on the ground, face the reality in which she lived, and accept it so as not to be knocked down by the latter's catastrophic impact, like a bolt of lightning in the shape of a plant root in the open sky.
 
    She was married to someone, and even though without her will, it seemed safer to her if she would give up on her feelings for Albioni's close friend, give up on imagining that he too looked at her the way she wished to be looked at by him, and carry on with her life.
 
    Blerimi's knock on the office door that morning instantly destroyed every decision Leonora made to forget him and brought into focus her heart pounding out of control at his longing gaze, which made her blindly believe that he was in love with her too.
 
    Denada had left half an hour ago and wasn't back yet. It was only her in the office, and if Blerimi entered, it would be just the two of them in each other's presence. Leonora rose to her feet on shaky knees and looked at him, trying not to be visibly hypnotised. 
 
    Blerimi had used meeting Denada as a reason to go to the office, with an unspoken excuse, to look at the employee with the straight red hair.
 
    He hadn't told his cousin that he was going to visit her, with the thought that he would find her there. If he had texted her and she had told him that she was going to be out at that time, would he have gone to her office, however, knowing that Leonora was alone? Of course not, he thought, unsure.
 
    Perhaps it was in his favour that he had found her alone. He would talk to her while waiting for Denada, and during the conversation, maybe he would notice something about Leonora that would make him think that she wasn't as perfect as she seemed to him; his feelings for her would disappear completely when he realised that Leonora wasn't as special as he had created the impression of her, and he would finally give up on her without having to risk his friendship with Albioni.
 
    He opened the glass door and walked in with more confidence that he was making the right decision about them. If he continued to have feelings for her, in the future he wouldn't love her anymore, and he would have regretted that he had risked that much for them.
 
    "How are you, Leonora?" He extended his hand to greet her formally, and the feelings that had been sleeping for a moment reawakened in the form of romantic love, much more powerful than before, when he touched her soft hand. 
 
    "I'm fine," she smiled timidly with politeness, that maybe she should have remained serious so as not to be misunderstood and that she liked him.
 
    "Has Denada left for today?"
 
    "No, she'll come in a few minutes." Leonora replied, trying to calm her heart from being too close to Blerimi.
 
    "Can I wait here?" He gestured from the black chair next to the boss's desk.
 
    "Yes," the employee stepped to the left, elated that Blerimi wasn't leaving immediately and would spend time with her.
 
    She justified herself, that she was just talking to someone she knew and had no reason to feel alarmed, as if she were committing a misdeed. The two of them weren't doing anything immoral. They were just two acquaintances who were talking to each other to pass the time until Denada came, and nothing more. 
 
    "We have fruit juices in this refrigerator," Leonora approached the furniture a little further from the table. "Would you like a drink?"
 
    "Yes," he agreed, and he rested his shoulders on the back of the chair.
 
    He didn't feel at all the uninterested comfort he expected from her presence. The eyes desperately wanted to look at her. How could he remain indifferent to such a beauty sitting in the black chair across from him?
 
    "Thank you." He didn't move until Leonora placed the glass on the table, and only then did he take the glass.
 
    "Not at all," she poured the juice into another glass for herself as well.
 
    "How are things going in this agency? Have you had any problems?" he asked worriedly.
 
    "No. We're very good." Leonora smiled and took her glass to drink juice, also with her eyes avoiding him.
 
    The constriction of her throat by the emotions prevented her from doing anything else before completely clarifying her feelings for the man in black at that office, without expressing them or finding out if he felt the same way or not. 
 
    "We would have met even earlier," Blerimi said, deeply regretting that he hadn't chosen her when he had the chance. "But I've been in prison," he took the risk to tell her. Albioni would have already told Leonora anyway. If not, he wanted her to hear about it from him. "That's why I wasn't at your wedding."
 
    'That wedding wouldn't have happened if you had come.' Leonora could only say that answer silently and by looking at him.
 
    If she had known him before she married Albioni, she would have rather agreed to die than belong to another man, except for Blerimi, whom she blindly believed would have done anything not to let her marry someone else.
 
    "Why did they set you in that trap?" She guessed that that's what had truly happened, and not that he had committed a crime and therefore had been sentenced to imprisonment. She didn't want to believe that Blerimi, too, wasn't a fair man, as he seemed to be. 
 
    "I don't know," he said, his love for her growing from her belief that he was innocent. "I thought I would find out when I got out of prison, but no one has contacted me."
 
    Leonora stared at him in silent fear, and Blerimi dared to look deeply at her without speaking as well. What if he was in danger and she would lose him, even though he wasn't hers? Then it would really be the end for her, and she wouldn't have to live anymore. She couldn't live a minute longer in the prison created by her family.
 
    'I love you!' they both thought at the same time about each other. 'I know that it's absurd, and it seems like madness, considering when we met—completely an illusion of crazy people—but I'm ready to bet my whole being that it's true love, that if I have the chance to know you better by hanging out with you, my feelings won't change at all. I'll just end up loving you more. What should we do to have a chance, to get each other out of the torture of hiding our feelings inside us by expressing them?'
 
    'Blerim! I can't breathe when I'm near you because of the feelings that I have for you.' Leonora looked away, hypnotised by the intense romantic love that unfolded in his eyes for her, before her imagination took over, and she did something immoral from society's perspective. Although she didn't say those thoughtful words to him, she got the impression that he had read them all in her gaze.
 
    "I want to find out myself why you have come." Denada entered the office in full swing, and they both immediately stood up, alarmed that she might have suspected something about them. "You want a suggestion from me to make a surprise trip for your girlfriend."
 
    Blerimi grinned and looked at Leonora, who was about to be heartbroken if he confirmed that he was dating someone else.
 
    "You chose a good way to advertise your business," he joked. "Which trip do you suggest?"
 
    "The most expensive one," Denada answered at once, and her cousin laughed.
 
    "I don't need it for now," Blerimi said to calm Leonora, who went to her work table.
 
    "Have you been waiting for a long time?" Denada went to the refrigerator and took a glass of orange juice.
 
    "A little."
 
    "Have you texted me that you were coming? I haven't gotten any messages."
 
    "No. I thought I would find you here; that's why."
 
    "Ah, OK," she replied.
 
    Leonora was taking advantage of the chance that Blerimi was talking to her boss, to gaze at him, admire his calmness while he spoke, and his relaxed body while sitting on the chair. She loved the feeling of warmth that she got from his gaze, and the hope that maybe... maybe something unexpected was going to happen and the two of them would have the chance to be together grew stronger with each passing second.
 
    She would live if they would belong to each other eternally, with their complete will. 
 
    "My friends have invited me to go on a picnic tomorrow for lunch at The Lake," Denada said. "Why don't you join us?" She looked at Leonora. "You come too, Nora. Tell Albioni..."
 
    "I'm not coming," Blerimi guessed that Leonora would suspect because of her.
 
    "Why? You'll spend a few hours having fun. It will benefit you." Denada advised. "It's decided, then. Both of you will be there," she announced without their approval, and they stayed silent.
 
    They wanted to go so that they could meet again, although their conscience suggested the opposite and threatened them with imagining a version of life where there would only be suffering if they continued to choose each other.
 
    That warning that they were breaking the rules was beginning to fall on deaf ears. Their hearts had made the reasoning a sock, and they just wanted to be near the centre of their thoughts.
 
    Leonora feared that she wouldn't be able to go because Albioni would refuse, but he was convinced by Blerimi, and the next day she went to the Artificial Lake of Tirana at ten o'clock before noon.
 
    They had decided in silence to finally put an end to that something that they couldn't openly name between the two of them. They had been carried away until those moments, but they had to stop already. They would gain nothing by continuing to feel for each other because they knew what and who was stopping them. Why risk and cause themselves grief for nothing?
 
    The result of those decisions was proof that they were weak-willed because they kept sneaking glances at each other all the time, catching each other in surprise, being under the gaze, and then turning their heads away so as not to be noticed again.
 
    Even that little will, which they were holding by its throat, got loosed from their hands when Blerimi was left with only one place at the table to sit, and it was on Leonora's right.
 
    Albioni was to her left. 
 
    She had remained frozen like a statue between the two and was just occasionally answering like a robot to the others or laughing at their jokes.
 
    The reasoning was finally done with the job for the day when she felt his hand accidentally touch hers placed on the bench, and she was completely stunned by the intimate sensations flooding in every cell of her being, shocked that she had never experienced such emotions before by someone, and now she no longer recognised herself.
 
    They were the only ones who left gloomily after the picnic ended because, from the farewell look that they gave each other, they realised that they couldn't avoid themselves any longer.
 
    They were in love with each other, and that was the reason why they couldn't meet again. They had to stop while they were in time and hadn't suffered much more. They admitted that loving each other was painful.
 
    But they made that pain look so beautiful.