Ruins of Autumn

53• I Am Not Guilty.

    Sidoreli turned upside down the sky-blue-covered notebook with white A4 papers where he was drawing on the desk when Anila knocked lightly on the glass door of his studio and he stood up.
 
    "Tattooist?" She walked in with the usual smile of positivity, which she spread. "Are you drawing your next masterpiece?"
 
    "You will decide that."
 
    His deep appreciation for her managed to add brightness to her smile.
 
    "Your new studio is very beautiful," Anila took in the entire space with a quick look at the details. Compared to his old studio with all dark colours, Sidoreli had chosen only the white colour for the walls, the ceiling, floor tiles, and the four-drawer desk on the right, the grey one for the armchairs around the table and the sofa to the right of it, and the black colour for the artist's chairs, the one where people sat to get the tattoo done, and the shelves at the top of the studio for working tools.
 
    "Of course it's beautiful now," the owner emphasised the importance of her presence there.
 
    "Thank you," she blushed at the compliment. "What are you drawing?" Anila narrowed the lids of her eyes, staring suspiciously at the hidden work, and smiled inquisitively at Sidoreli.
 
    "I can't say anything without finishing it." He waited for Anila to sit in the armchair to the right of the desk, and then he sat down in the chair in front of her. "I don't usually show any project without finishing it all. This is near the end."
 
    "Oh, I'm sorry that I interrupted. Your inspiration must be gone now."
 
    "On the contrary, you added it," he removed the sadness from her face, took the notebook, and returned it with the drawing to himself while holding it against the edge of the table so that Anila could not look at the work.
 
    "Do you put titles on your drawings?"
 
    "No," Sidoreli took the B1 pencil off the table and continued drawing on the work.
 
    Anila gazed in smiling contemplation at his calm features while he drew, unbothered, and she allowed the emotions of admiration to be attracted more to him by the way he moved his hand over the paper as he drew, the way he looked at the work, and the standing and stopping several times to think. He was making her want to start drawing too and look and feel as good as he did when he drew.
 
    "You can keep talking if you want to. I don't get distracted at all," said Sidoreli. "If you wish, you can put a title on this drawing."
 
    "OK. I became so curious now." Anila put her hands together in the fusion of the smiling face and the bleary eyes.
 
    He liked her playful enthusiasm. He was learning that that side of extroversion, humour, and jokes was her true self, which Anila was slowly discovering as she built more and more trust in him.
 
    He tried not to express in his eyes the curiosity to know what had changed her from six years ago, when she had left the impression of an energetic and adventurous person—only the death of Amarildo or another event?
 
    He went back in time; when he had met her in June, in a bus, he had helped her not to fall and had offered her the place where he had been, but when Anila had noticed two men sitting next to him, she had been discomfited and scared, admitting that she would rather risk falling again from standing without holding on than to stay next to two strangers.
 
    Had it been just a precaution on her part, so as not to attract unwanted attention, or something more? Had someone criminally hurt her?
 
    "I'm almost done." Sidoreli looked for the rubber on the table.
 
    "Here," Anila took it in her hand as soon as she noticed it next to her and pushed the rubber on the table towards him.
 
    "Thanks," Sidoreli looked deeply into her eyes, and she held her breath under her narrowed throat for a moment from that look.
 
    "You're welcome," she replied in a soft voice to his gratitude in a calm, flirtatious tone, and she looked away from the glass walls at the people passing on the street next to the studio.
 
    "Very well, it's over." Sidoreli put the rubber on the table.
 
    Anila felt like he threw icy water on her face with that statement.
 
    Was he...
 
    History repeating itself with Blerimi seemed more real to her than ever. What had she done wrong now? Had she talked too much? Had she become annoying with her humour, which Sidoreli had never considered as such but had pretended to, or had he simply realised that he had no real feelings for her and wanted to give her his hands? Had he really intended to use her to make Arbeta jealous, and now that he had succeeded and Arbeta had asked him to get back together, he wanted to get rid of Anila?
 
    "What is over?" The colour of her face was gone, and no additional words to make it seem as if she wasn't hurt for being played, because she had been aware since the beginning, and she had made her plan too, was not coming to her mind.
 
    She was going to break. She would openly express how hurt she was by that stab in the back by him. Why hadn't she persisted, so as not to risk so much, but had consciously made him part of her life?
 
    "The drawing." Sidoreli handed her the paper.
 
    "Oh."
 
    The blood came on her face again, and she took the work in her hand.
 
    "Wait," Anila furrowed her eyebrows vaguely from the immediate recognition of the portrait on the paper. "This is me."
 
    She looked intently at herself, drawn in profile on the right, her hair tucked behind her ear, her sad eyes fixed on the hands placed on the glass of a door, and someone else's hand placed on her right shoulder. She remembered right away what moment in her life Sidoreli had drawn.
 
    "How do you know this? Has someone told you?"
 
    "It's the first time we met on a bus. You didn't hear the bus conductor when he asked you about the ticket because you looked lost in thoughts with your back to him, and I drew your attention by placing my hand on your shoulder."
 
    "That was you?!" She replayed every moment of that fragment in her mind from what she was hearing.
 
    "Yes. I thought you noticed me, but you chose to ignore me, from the way we parted that day in the studio when you came with Blerta Mino."
 
    "No, I didn't see you at all. I thought about turning my head to know whose hand was that on my shoulder, but the doubt that you would misunderstand my look stopped me." She shook her head in surprise. "That's why you asked me for which time I was talking about when I asked you if you recognised me that day, that we met on that bus." She looked at his hand drawn on her shoulder and then at him.
 
    "I recognised you that time too," Sidoreli looked at her with the same intensity. " 'That girl,' I said."
 
    This was going far. They both knew that it was no longer a matter of dating only because they just liked each other, but because that feeling was deepening and asking to be taken more seriously by them and to be considered a part of each other's lives for quite some time.
 
    Anila broke the eye contact first because the burning of her heart was going beyond the level of her handling, and she looked at his work in detail.
 
    "You really draw sad eyes." She experienced once again what she had felt that day when she met Leonora Vitori. "Although I am convinced that in this case it wasn't hard at all."
 
    Sidoreli smiled slightly in the affirmative.
 
    "Can you make a copy for me?" Anila asked.
 
    "You can have the original. I drew it for you."
 
    "Thank you," she didn't risk looking at him, because she knew that she would express more than gratitude in her gaze, and in those moments she was afraid that she would feel more shy if he understood, which she had no doubts, that he would understand with only a look, which he would give her, how Anila was feeling about him at that moment, and she tried to constantly avoid looking at him during the ongoing conversation, an action that gave the result of being more obvious.
 
    "I have to go." She got up with a heavier weight of oxygen in her lungs than she remembered having when she had gone to the studio. "I have agreed to go out with Visara in the evening..." Her cheeks turned red from the arching of his lips at her obvious lie. "Goodbye," she cut short, and headed for the exit.
 
    "You forgot the drawing." Sidoreli took the paper from the notebook, held it in his hands, and waited for Anila to approach him.
 
    "Oh," she reacted with the exclamation like she usually did, every time she was surprised or came out of the distraction, she kept her eyes fixed on the drawing when she went to him and placed her hands on the corner of the paper on the other side of his fingers. "Yes, the drawing."
 
    Sidoreli deliberately tightened the paper when she tried pulling it away to make her look into his eyes, blushing even more from his teasing gaze, and his purpose was accomplished.
 
    "Thanks." Anila smiled shallowly as a sign of greeting and left.
 
    He had an ear-to-ear grin on his face for the rest of the time in the studio that day, and as he drew sketches for the next drawings with her appealing face in mind and the shy look that accompanied her talking, he thought confidently that she had begun to have deep feelings of romantic love for him.
 
    He was ready to love her. He didn't care if there was some traumatic event from her past that still affected her because it had left unhealed wounds. He would help her as much as she wanted, as long as he was close to her and had her love.
 
    Even years aren't enough to get to know someone completely, but intuition often comes to our aid and tells us in a much shorter time what kind of person someone is.
 
    His intuition insisted in its opinion about Anila that he should not give up on her, and Sidoreli had absolutely no intention of acting otherwise.
 
••••
    She looked at the drawing in detail for minutes, locked in her room, as she remembered herself once, standing for hours in front of the mirror and admiring the physical appearance she had. Her portrait in front of her eyes was accompanied by his face in her thoughts, which was not getting out of her mind and set her heart rate on fire as she remembered every moment with him.
 
    Falling in love with him seemed obvious to her, like the clear sky that evening, and that action was giving her nothing but the feeling of being free, and that only happiness awaited her in the future from Sidoreli.
 
    Visara was surprised, as if she had been told, that she was going to live with an alien in the house when Anila appeared the next day on the threshold of her room with a pair of cream-beige jeans, a white off-shoulder flannel that she was carrying on her right forearm, and a thick satin shirt of light rosemary colour along with dark brown trousers held on her left arm. With the excuse that there was an important meeting at the company, Anila asked for her opinion on what to wear.
 
    "Will I exaggerate at the shoulders if I wear this shirt?" She pointed to the cloth hanging on her right forearm.
 
    "Mm," Visara frowned. "This seems more suited to summer. I think you should wear the shirt and the trousers."
 
    "OK," Anila did not linger any longer and left her sister at the open door of the room, still confused by her cheerful behaviour.
 
    If she continued that condition and got rid of that depression, Visara would throw a party for her.
 
    Anila told Sidoreli that she would go to the company that afternoon. To know how he would act and with her emotions at their peak, because they would meet and look at each other differently and deeply than usual (she felt that the feelings had deepened between them), she arrived earlier than she had said at the company, parked the car near the building, and went straight to the latter.
 
    The excitement got stuck in her throat as soon as she recognised the woman standing by the main gate, dressed in a honey scarf, coat, jeans, and black trainers.
 
    She had tied her red hair behind her head with a white clip and left a few straight strands on the right side of her face.
 
    No! Anila couldn't take such a devastating hit now that she thought she was being rewarded for the opportunity she had given herself to put the past behind her. It wasn't fair! Leonora Vitori wasn't supposed to be there. She wasn't supposed to appear in Anila's life at all. Why was this happening to her? Had she dreamed, in vain, that one day she would be able to leave everything behind and focus only on making herself happy?
 
    Leonora had put a curled finger on her lower lip and was looking at the entrance of the company as if she were about to cry with fear. Maybe she hadn't come for Anila? Denial instantly answered in the latter's mind. She was there for her. Anila felt it in her soul that Leonora wanted to talk to her.
 
    She had to go back. She couldn't look her in the eye. She couldn't even approach her without thinking of Blerimi and what had happened between them. Along with her inexplicable fear and weakness towards her, she felt sick with nausea at the thought that Leonora had slept with him, knowing what crime he had committed.
 
    That hypothesis infuriated Anila. Where did she find the courage to go to her workplace? What? Because she was a bit pretty, she thought she could compete with her and brag that Blerimi had chosen her because, compared to Anila, she was much better? She let out all the venom and hatred towards the enemy she had never spoken to before, and she deliberately made a noise with her black heels to get Leonora's attention. 
 
    Her strength grew when Leonora froze as if she had seen the person who was about to kill her, as soon as she turned her head in her direction and was riveted by Anila's sharp, judgmental gaze, which seemed to say, 'You're the woman Blerimi chose instead of me? What a moron! He threw away the jewel for a mediocre piece of stone!'
 
    "Hi..." The word, spoken in a frightened voice, was cut in half by Anila's hand placed on her left arm and her violent pull along the road next to the company's yellow railings.
 
    Leonora made no resistance. She silently agreed that it would be better if they talked somewhere where no one could hear them. Anila took the turn to the left, continued a few more steps, and placed Leonora, who was shorter than her, right below her eyes in front of her.
 
    "What do you think you're doing here?" she asked her as if Leonora were her subordinate, and she had an obligation to answer her. "How did you find this place?"
 
    Leonora swallowed and felt psychological pressure from Anila's bitter, contemptuous look before telling her. "On Instagram. The company has published on its account a video of one of the events organised by it, and they filmed you as well, while receiving an award for the promotion at work." The trembling voice wasn't helping Leonora at all, to not be seen intimidated by her.
 
    She felt as if from moment to moment she would receive slaps in her face from Anila, and there was no doubt that they would burn, as if she had put an ember in the form of a plate on her cheeks.
 
    "Shame on you!" was the reaction that Leonora expected from her. "How dare you get in front of me?"
 
    "Blerimi has deleted the video."
 
    Those words stunned Anila, and the underestimation in her eyes towards Leonora was replaced by fear.
 
    She knew about the video?! Oh, God! She was going to threaten her with it!
 
    "That's why I came here—to tell you this. He has erased everything, and nobody knows anything about them. Blerimi told me himself, before he..." Leonora lowered her head and tightened her jaws so as not to shed more tears.
 
    "How impudent!" Contempt succeeded in dethroning fear in Anila's eyes. "You even cry for him."
 
    Leonora looked at her in need of compassion. No matter how hard she tried, it wasn't that easy to turn her back on all the memories with the person who had saved her when no one else had, and although she didn't waver from the decision she made to get him completely out of her life and she would never change her mind, even if hundreds of lives were offered to her, she often woke up with the hope that it had all been a nightmare, that Blerimi hadn't committed such a wicked crime against Anila, and when Leonora turned her head, he was in bed next to her, sleeping.
 
    "I'm sorry," she apologised regretfully with her head down. "I should have come long ago and told you about the video and the photos, not to have left you imprisoned in the fear that someone might publish them, but..."
 
    Anila was even more savaged by rage.
 
    "What on Earth are you saying?" She couldn't help but raise her voice. "Don't play the role of a compassionate person to me, unless you want to see yourself at the Hospital of Trauma!" Anila added the threat to the gaze fixed on her. "Do you really think that I don't see what kind of snake you are? It's like you also want to be my friend."
 
    "Anila, I don't want to hurt you." Leonora widened her eyes, pleading for compromise.
 
    "You, to hurt me?" Anila laughed mockingly. "Do you ever see yourself in the mirror, or not?" Being aware that she herself couldn't be seen increased her hatred towards her because Leonora had such an opportunity. "You are zero for this job! Zero! Do you know the meaning of the word 'non-existence'? That's how you are."
 
    Her understanding of the fact that Anila was behaving rudely, not to show how traumatised she was by the past, and the question, which she read in her sad eyes, infuriated her more.
 
    'Oh, Anila!' said the light brown of those tired eyes. 'This is how you see yourself?!'
 
    Now it was Anila who wanted to hurt her, just so Leonora would suffer too. Who did she think she was to feel sorry for her?
 
    "But I..."
 
    "Nora!" Anila interrupted her categorically again so that she wouldn't dare interrupt her. "Get out of my sight, since you haven't disgusted me even more, and you may only go dead at home to your family today. Get lost!"
 
    Leonora immediately obeyed her and left her alone in that alley.
 
    Anila's irregular breathing became frequent from the shock, as if she had also met Blerimi a little while ago, and she hurriedly turned to the company to go and wash the hand with which she had touched Leonora's arm.
 
    She let her hair parted in the middle in front of her face so that no one would notice that she was about to burst into tears, ignored the curious glances of her colleagues as to why she looked nervous, and headed for the toilets without mirrors.
 
    She closed the main door, made sure there was no one there but her, and turned on the sink faucet in the middle of the others.
 
    She ran her nails several times through the pink-streaked, bleeding skin of the hand she wanted to wash and let out a sob, gasping with tears streaming down her face.
 
    She hated Leonora, hated Blerimi with all her heart, hated herself for being so blind to the trap set for her six years ago and the fact that she was trying in vain.
 
    Anila would always be a worthless ruin of her past, carved into every cell of hers that had been defeated by the war, and that part of her life would accompany her in every moment until her end.