Ruins of Autumn

42• I Hate Tattoos!

    She looked at him, confused for a moment that maybe it wasn't the person she thought he was, but when the man with his back against the dark blue car in front of the company building turned his head to Anila, she was convinced that it was Sidoreli, wearing light grey jeans, a T-shirt, and black trainers, who had just ignored her with a look and had focused his attention on the entrance of the building.
 
    Totally normal, she reasoned with herself about his reaction so as not to fall prey to overthinking that he could still have the opinion that Anila liked him.
 
    She had barely convinced herself that she didn't have to kill her mind any longer in order not to fall prey to the memories of the past and to notice how much pain her wounds still caused. She had to find something else to create dependence on and to think about it, not constantly about Sidoreli, replaying like a fragment of a video every moment with him, with the excuse that she just wanted to know exactly what his glances at her had meant.
 
    He had probably just been casually looking at her at the same time she had looked at him that way, and nothing more. Anila had given her explanation yesterday in the conversation with Ilirjana, which he had also heard, and now she had to focus on the plan she had made for the future, to get married and have a child.
 
    She was walking towards the entrance of the company, both ignoring his presence and being nervous that she would have to pass by him. She had clarified the issue of the looks between them, but she still had unconscious doubts that Sidoreli kept thinking that Anila had feelings for him, and she didn't like such an assumption at all. What if he told someone that she had stared at him several times, they thought badly of her and spread rumours about her?
 
    How did she have to do, to clear that misunderstanding once and for all?
 
    She thought of Monika's arrival from Italy after a few days for her birthday, her wish to get a tattoo done in Albania, and the newly born idea that could clarify everything by putting it into practice, seemed a little absurd at first, but it could work.
 
    She would talk to Sidoreli, say to him that her cousin wanted to get a tattoo done in his studio if he was still working as a tattooist, and during the conversation, he would let him understand from her distant and serious attitude, as if she were talking to a stranger, while looking at him neutrally, that that's what he was to her, a stranger and nothing more.
 
    Sidoreli did not turn his head towards her for a single moment, although Anila knew for sure that he was listening to her steps while approaching him.
 
    "Sidorel."
 
    He instantly looked at her with indifference to her presence, and she gave him the same cold look in return.
 
    "I wanted to know if you still work as a tattooist."
 
    It seemed to Anila like the plan that she had formulated just before flew out of the window the second she spoke. She didn't even greet him; as a stranger, she considered him. Straight to the point, as if she had known him for years and they met each other every day.
 
    "A relative of mine has her birthday soon, and I have decided to give her a tattoo as a gift. I wanted to suggest you."
 
    She hadn't taken her gaze for a single moment from the jade softened by the green tint of his eyes, and only when she finished clarifying had she had time to pay attention to the comfort she felt in Sidoreli's presence—the energy of a mature man and unbothered by anything around him that he radiated—because he was aware of the physical and mental strength he possessed.
 
    "Yes, I still am."
 
    He balanced her calm, talking with his voice in the same tone and look. Her gentle demeanour let him know that maybe he was wrong. Anila knew nothing about him and her brother, Amarildo, so he didn't have to take any measures.
 
    "The location is the same, and the phone number too."
 
    Anila recalled her attempt over five years ago to note his number on her phone and the look of Sidoreli when he had noticed her, and now she thought that he was deliberately reminding her of that moment.
 
    "I don't have your phone number," she remarked bitterly with furrowed brows, throwing away her composure from a few seconds earlier in the conversation.
 
    "I was talking about my studio's contact number." Sidoreli didn't ruin his composure. "Not my personal number."
 
    Anila tensed at his implication, as if he were thinking that she wanted to have his phone number.
 
    "That's what I was talking about too," she explained, obviously tensed by the flow the conversation was taking.
 
    "Okay," he gave in and pulled out his phone from the left pocket of his jeans. "This is my studio's Instagram account." He touched the screen several times and showed his phone to Anila. "Can you remember the username, or do you want to write it down somewhere?"
 
    "I'll remember," Anila read once again the username @nura.s_tattoo .
 
    "You can text me here or at the phone number in its profile."
 
    "Okay," she decided to leave.
 
    "Do you have any tattoos?"
 
    She frowned in confusion. "Why are you asking?"
 
    "Because your relative may ask you if she doesn't know it yet," argued Sidoreli. "If not, she will want to know why. Because you don't like tattoos..."
 
    Anila narrowed her eyes at his ironic guess.
 
    "... Or because they harm you terribly, but you can't tell her, because that's exactly what you want—to rely on the chance that maybe she can get very sick too."
 
    She looked at him wide-eyed at his absolutely unrelated hypothesis.
 
    Trying to hurt Monika by telling her to get a tattoo? He wasn't okay.
 
    "I don't like tattoos," she replied with her head slightly raised and her challenging gaze, so that Sidoreli defended his profession without result.
 
    "Huh," he chuckled derisively. "I wouldn't be surprised at all if I found out that the first question you asked your boyfriend when you met him was, 'Do you have tattoos?'. And the reason why he is your boyfriend is because his answer has been, 'No.' "
 
    Anila wanted to remove that arrogant look from her face, accompanied by such an arch of his lips.
 
    "Or he had lied to you, thinking that he would convince you to like his tattoos, and is waiting for the right moment to tell you the truth." Sidoreli kept guessing. "Or..."
 
    Anila thought about not having a boyfriend and froze when she deciphered his mind-reading gaze.
 
    "Don't you dare find out!" she threatened with a rough, panicked look.
 
    "You don't have a boyfriend at all." Sidoreli smiled triumphantly after solving the riddle, and Anila stood frozen for a moment.
 
    "What about you?" she suddenly asked frantically to distract him from her truth, and he hardened his gaze at her demand to know. "Have you got any? Tattooist, who does tattoos on others?"
 
    Sidoreli got captured in silence by the attentive gaze of Anila's beauteous eyes, a characteristic that only in those moments did he notice that she had from her mordant gaze.
 
    He saw in detail the sweet colour of the warm brown, slightly hidden by the shrunken lids of the eyes in the pulchritudinous face in front of him, and smirked unconsciously, lured to follow Anila's teasing flow.
 
    She understood the sudden softening of his facial features towards her and didn't manage to raise the barriers in time so as not to be manipulated, but softened her own facial expression as well, after studying his gaze, the meaning that immediately dawned on her, as if she too had looked at herself in that way and had thought as he did, that what an interesting beauty she had, and she was surprised, how come she hadn't noticed it before.
 
    Anila lowered her gaze below his green eyes to break away from the hypnotism of the positive emotions she felt from his silent compliment, as she was strangely sure that Sidoreli had felt the same towards her, but she thought it too late to turn the action back and had just made the next blunder; she had looked for more than a second, long enough to be called staring at his rosy pink lips in light apricot, and rather mesmerised by the thought of how attractive their colour was, she looked Sidoreli in the eyes again, who expressed dictation of her silent compliment for them.
 
    "I don't have a girlfriend, and I haven't gotten any tattoos done," he replied with a slight blink of his eyes and a movement to the left of his head.
 
    "Oh, but it's a profession of yours, such an art." She crossed her arms in front of her to take control of the situation. "How come you don't have any?"
 
    "Because you don't like tattoos." Sidoreli smiled more when he saw how she was taken aback by his flirtatious words. "It's very important to me to have a positive opinion from you."
 
    Anila was captivated by the reaction of surprise. From a very serious and strict look, now he was trying to flirt with her. Was he really attracted to her, as he had expressed a while ago, or was he playing? 
 
    "I don't have an opinion about you at all," were Anila's words for closing the conversation with him, and she turned to leave.
 
    Sidoreli immediately grabbed her arm to stop her. "I'm waiting for you at the studio," he looked intently at the bright colour of her eyes from the sunlight falling on them.
 
    "What?" she asked, flustered from thinking that he had understated intimate moments between them.
 
    "About your relative's tattoo," Sidoreli said innocently. "I made new drawings a few days ago. If you have something in mind, do tell me, and I can draw something else for you," he stared deeper at her soft eyes.
 
    "I changed my mind. I hate tattoos!" Anila emphasised every letter of that information about her very close to his face and did not step back immediately but waited defiantly with a wild look for Sidoreli's reaction.
 
    "But maybe she likes them," he justified with a chuckle, clearly having a lot of fun with that throat-on-throat conversation with her.
 
    "I'll tell her to go somewhere else." Anila kept on with the attack, determined not to let go, without saying the last word herself.
 
    "Wow!" he laughed, rather surprised at her stubbornness. "You're really that terrified that I might be impressed by that girl and forget about you?"
 
    Anila stepped back right away, and her eyes flashed with indignation at his absurd suspicion.
 
    "Don't be afraid. You're not easily replaced."
 
    She focused on his libidinous gaze for a moment, like the words in the comforting voice he had just said, and closed her eyes for one second to snap out of the distraction.
 
    "Listen," she asked for all his attention, which she already had. "It looks like someone has lied to you by telling you that you're like a sun, and now you think that it is our duty to move around you as if we are obsessed with you, or something like that. This is not true at all; for your information, so as to get down to earth."
 
    "I've never been interested in having everyone around me, only someone in particular." The reprimanded one didn't withdraw from the game, and Anila realised that he was talking about her as that person in particular.
 
    Arbeta's comment on his deleted Instagram post and his unsolicited reply a little while ago that he didn't have a girlfriend helped her understand the situation, and she laughed lightly.
 
    "You don't know me completely; that's why you say that," she entered the flow of the conversation with the same energy as him. "I have a very complicated personality," Anila said with pity and a playful look as well.
 
    He probably wanted to use her to make Arbeta jealous, because they could have argued and broken up.
 
    She had indeed given up on many things, but not the knowledge about them, for example, how to play in a game in which they made her a part without telling her anything.
 
    "Well, I guess we're made for each other, then," Sidoreli remarked, elated from flirting with her. "I have a very simple personality. Maybe I can help you simplify yours."
 
    Anila laughed with her eyes closed, pushed her hair back on purpose so that he would find that act attractive, and felt her pride go up a notch when she received the contemplative look in his eyes at how beautiful she was looking in those moments.
 
    "I'm a lost cause; trust me," she said. "You wouldn't make it even if I would let you."
 
    "I believe in the saying that opposites attract," he insisted.
 
    "And they get crashed at the end if they're not careful," added Anila. "I am not careful." She gave one last repulsive look to Sidoreli's smiling eyes and headed to the entrance of the company to get the products she had gone there for.