Ruins of Autumn

49• Promise Break

    The end of that chapter in the desert-like history of her life.
 
    Anila was supposed to have already understood that every oasis, which she noticed somewhere on the horizon of that desert, was only a mirage, to give her hope, to raise her to her feet, and then for her to fall because of them. That was the way she had to be careful not to be deceived, but she had suffered the same hit again, and besides herself, she had no one else she could hold accountable.
 
    She grew more and more gloomy when she recalled how she had turned to Sidoreli when he had asked her to go out together, and she was burdened with regret that she had not given him a definite answer since the beginning but had followed his course.
 
    Perhaps it had been necessary to speak to him that rudely so that he would learn the lesson to no longer think that she was an easy prey if he had ever really thought that, and Anila was convinced that that had happened.
 
    Otherwise what? Sidoreli wanted to go out with her because he was really attracted to her? He didn't care how she had lost her brother, and he could be risking his life too if he hung out with her? Impossible. Well, at least that had been the end of the communication between them, and now they were continuing on a different path.
 
    It had been two weeks since the last conversation with him at the company, and she was sure that Sidoreli had already forgotten her and had met someone else.
 
    If he had really had initial feelings for her, she knew that they wouldn't have lasted for too long. Anila was afraid that she could have begun to hope for more love from him and would have been disappointed when he didn't meet her expectations. 
 
    Not that she had persistently imagined that it would happen otherwise; that he had really felt for her and had waited a little longer, hoping that Anila would change her mind and not blame him for doing the opposite. With all those traumas that she had from the mirrors, the fear of crowds, the paranoia that anyone nearby could be secretly planning to hurt her, and Amarildo's murder still unsolved, it was normal that no one wanted her presence that evoked only danger, but... was it that impossible for someone to consider her so important in his life that he didn't want to give up on her that easily? Beyond the past that she had, no one would ever see anything else in her? Was she really another proof, among many others, that sometimes it is only the past that defines people, and they shouldn't be given any chance to escape from it?
 
    She was twenty-eight years old, but she felt as if she were two hundred and eight in spirit. How could she live such a meaningless life? How could something not happen to make everything stop until she found a way to heal?
 
    She had accepted that there was no cure, but sometimes she couldn't believe that she was living in that kind of reality. It was as if she had just opened her eyes and had begun to realise that she had been thrown away in the form of a useless remnant of a war in agony. How could the world allow such a distortion of the law? How could life just go on with all the flaws it had?
 
    After participating in the next event, she would finally leave that job and, therefore, stay away from Sidoreli, and she would no longer have such thoughts. The distance from him and severing any relationship with the company where she worked would help her hide from those negative thoughts.
 
    With such an end to that chapter of Anila's life in her mind, she got ready for that day. The black colour accompanied her that afternoon too through the clothes that she chose to wear—a pair of jeans, a shirt, a jacket, and a pair of trainers—to deliberately give the impression of a cynical and dismissive person, as if nothing and no one around her was worth enough to deserve a second glance from her.
 
    To convey the message more clearly that she didn't want to talk to anyone, she put on white wired headphones so that those present could easily distinguish them and think that she was listening to music or talking to someone (they could guess, as they wished).
 
    While waiting for the clock to strike two in the afternoon and for the event to begin, she stood at the end of the corridor with her back resting on the cylindrical iron barrier near the glass walls, her elbows placed on the barrier, and, as usual, the shrunken lids of her eyes, which brought out her most disdainful gaze.
 
    She had greeted Majlinda and Ilirjana and had immediately withdrawn from the crowd. Up until that moment, everything was going according to her plan. No one was giving her a mean look. Everyone was focused on their conversations between groups, where they were, or phones, and the event would start after ten minutes.
 
    During the event, she knew that she would not encounter problems because everyone would be listening to the speakers and talking about the company. In the end, she would only have to greet Majlinda and Ilirjana again, so as not to arouse suspicion, and then completely over.
 
    She was threatened to waver from the decision made regarding the work only when she noticed Sidoreli walking the stairs to the second floor, where the event was being organised, and he approached Majlinda, Ilirjana, and her husband, Bruno.
 
    The disturbing embarrassment from the judgmental thoughts that Sidoreli would surely have created for her in reaction to her harsh rejection took the form of a heavyweight in her chest. Anila quickly lowered her gaze to the off-screen of her phone, hoping not to be noticed by him, and she breathed deeply to normalise the excessively frequent breathing brought on by the whole whirlwind of raw emotions about her.
 
    It was the consequence she was suffering because she hadn't tried to explain to herself why she felt that way, but she had piled up unexplained emotions somewhere in her mind, and in those moments, it wasn't the right time at all for silent therapy. She had to be content with the words, spoken out loud, that there was nothing between them, and stay true to the plan that she had made on how to end that day. 
 
    "This is the last time that I will speak as an administrator here." Majlinda was starting to miss the job without yet leaving. She would miss that place, even though she was quitting because she wanted to enjoy her pregnancy without any other commitments.
 
    She was thirty-nine years old, had two sons and a daughter, and was waiting for the three-year-old to give her a sister for her birthday. Ten years at Bruce & Ashton had enabled her to build a successful enough management career if she wished to work again, wherever she wanted.
 
    She had only told her husband and some of the employees about the decision to leave the company. She would have to discuss it with the superior responsible for Europe first, and then she would talk with the founder of the company, Xhesika Naomi in America, before notifying all the employees in the company in Albania about her departure.
 
    "Maybe you will come to work again," Bruno said.
 
    "I don't think I will return to Albania anymore to live," Majlinda shook her head, objectively. "But it's better when a story ends and you have beautiful memories from it than to continue it grudgingly and ruin the whole thing, right?"
 
    "True," Ilirjana agreed.
 
    Sidoreli looked at Anila in front of him, who continued to stand alone with her eyes fixed on the phone held in her left hand. He was facing her to see if anyone would approach her, with the deep desire for him to have the opportunity to be there with her, and he felt bad that he was being selfish and thinking only of himself. Anila was probably very uncomfortable with his presence there, given the conversation they had that day in the company.
 
    Sidoreli hadn't been able to control his eyes in time when he had seen her after just entering the corridor, and he didn't know for sure if she had noticed his gaze fixed on her.
 
    The right thing to do was to leave, but he couldn't continue like this all his life. It was better to look dismissive and let Anila know that he was no longer interested in her.
 
    But what if she had started to like him? She had rejected him that day out of fear that he had the intention of using her, and if she noticed his indifference, she would finally give up, afftected by the thought that he had no feelings for her, when in the meantime the latter were coming and were only adding to the tattooist's feelings towards her?
 
    He couldn't stop thinking blindly, convinced that something catastrophically bad had really happened to Anila in the past, and she had been guilty as well, but Sidoreli was ready to consider skipping that part and being by her side because she deserved such support from him and because she was worth trying once more for her.
 
    Sidoreli wanted to try. He wanted them to talk about their lives while they looked at each other, and Anila felt good in his presence, in a way that she had never felt with anyone else. 
 
    He was taking advantage of the opportunity that Anila was using her phone, and he was staring at her intently from time to time. He dared not to look away when she raised her head from his side, and Sidoreli felt that he exceeded the limit with the expression of feelings in that look.
 
    Anila's breath froze in the form of an invisible tangle in her throat, and then her whole body followed that freezing flow when she immediately deciphered the meaning of his serious gaze: "I like you. I think you're very beautiful and a very good person, and I also have romantic feelings for you."
 
    "Wait!" She kept her stunned eyes on him for a few moments with the suspicion that maybe she was misunderstanding him, and Sidoreli wasn't looking at her in the way that Anila was realising he was, but he kept the same posture without closing his eyes for even a second. "Oh!" she immediately broke her gaze before fainting from asphyxiation from not coping with those feelings, expressed by Sidoreli, that had attacked her by surprise, had managed to get under her skin, and before she had been able to recover from the hit and defend herself, they had immediately found their target, her heart, and they were building a home there.
 
    She was probably misunderstanding everything. It was impossible that he had the thoughts that Anila suspected Sidoreli had, that he really thought that she had the classic, seductive beauty that had managed to make him not take his eyes off her, affected by the emotions that she had created, and now he wanted to make her more part of his life.
 
    Even if she looked at him again to confirm those suspicions, Anila didn't believe that she would get the result she wished for. Maybe he would look at her the same way for the reason that he had made a plan to take revenge on her because Anila had behaved harshly with him and he wanted to hurt her pride.
 
    Nearly two hours. The event wouldn't last longer. She only had to endure two hours, and then she would easily turn her back on everything. She saw the others entering the room, and she went to the open doors too with her headphones still on.
 
    Sidoreli, Majlinda, and Bruno, along with Ilirjana, stayed to enter the last.
 
    A hard slab weighed on Anila's chest when she approached Sidoreli, and her eyes sought to look at him to see if he would look at her again as before, but she hurried her steps towards the entrance so as not to do such an act and leave the impression that she too had begun to feel for him.
 
    The feeling that he was close to her drew Anila to turn her head and see if she was right, but the large square mirror with a golded frame, placed on the left side at the head of the room, the walls of which were hidden by navy curtains, stunned her in place, and Anila widened her eyes in shock, remembering the last time she had met Blerimi. 
 
    "Mirror!" she muttered and quickly turned back, as if the reflector of everything that was placed in front of that mirror had stabbed a dagger in the centre of her heart so that she would run away as quickly as possible, but her rush was stopped by the slight collision with Sidoreli behind her, who had immediately put his hands out in front of him.
 
    He looked at her, confused and just as worried about her as Majlinda.
 
    "Anila, what's wrong?" The administrator put her hand on her shoulder.
 
    "I..." Anila took off her headphones. "I have to call my sister to give her an order," she told them the first newly thought-up excuse without looking at Sidoreli. "I won't be late," she smiled dryly at Majlinda, to be trusted that she would keep that promise, and she headed to the stairs.
 
    They must have put that mirror up for anyone who wanted to take photos and post them on social media. How many were there? At the bar and the product room, she hadn't spotted any mirrors. Were they going to put them there later? She would never go to that company again.
 
    Sidoreli kept looking at the door, waiting for her return, rather convinced that Anila had lied and almost completely sure that the reason was the mirror at the top of the room, which he had heard Anila mention just before she promised that she wouldn't be late, but she didn't come anymore to that even.