Ruins of Autumn

68• In Front Of The Mirror

    Anila woke up to a blue hour the next morning, and the shade of the closed, soft colour of the sky had quietly invaded Tirana, leaving the stage after a few hours to the golden colour of the sun's rays.
 
    The dark train of her thoughts, which only brightened when she thought about Sidoreli, continued, presenting only one condition in order to stop: that Anila had to meet him and tell him, that she admitted, that she was wrong in her decision for thinking that she could only heal from the past without anyone's help, but as long as she had the opportunity to share that weight with someone who wanted to help her, it wasn't a problem at all to use that chance; that she had realised that she hadn't kept her promise, to not make the same mistake as Blerimi, when it came to hiding how she really felt, but she had acted point by point like he had done. Blerimi hadn't accepted Anila's help to set things right for the past, and she had also rejected Sidoreli, who had been willing to be on her side no matter what had happened to her.
 
    Would he be waiting for her if she agreed to stop that train? What if she was too late, and Sidoreli had chosen to finally give up on her because he had met another woman?
 
    She wasn't sure that if she knew what was going on in his life, she would be comforted just a little, and despair wouldn't drown her like the sea drowned a bird that dared to go closer than it should to the harmless waves, but they, at the moment when the bird didn't expect it, devoured the creature mercilessly, to play with it until they killed it.
 
    She had repeatedly written the first letter of his username on Instagram, and sometimes the second one too, but she hadn't had the strength to continue any longer. The videos of the company "Bruce & Ashton" had appeared several times on her feed, but she had ignored them with a frozen chest, thinking that she would see Sidoreli in them.
 
    She had changed her work account on Instagram to match the new company where she worked and deleted the previous company's posts. He probably didn't know anything about her either, and he didn't care at all.
 
    What if they never met again? She hadn't thought that, by cutting the invisible red thread that had held the two of them together, she would also hurt herself, and she couldn't ask Sidoreli for help because of the fear that she would be rejected by him.
 
    But maybe he wouldn't refuse her?
 
    She silently turned her right cheek to the clear sky, whose blue colour was changing to a sweet cerulean. A noise from Visara's room prompted her to think about her family.
 
    She had permanently closed her chapter with Sidoreli. It was time for her to be prudent and stand by the decisions she had made. She would leave him alone to live his life happily while she continued hers on a different path and didn't think about him anymore.
 
    She would try to create a peaceful life for herself so that her parents and her sister would be happy for her. She would heal slowly, and when the day of her freedom came, she would be able to look in the mirror without thinking anything of her past.
 
    That day would definitely come. Anila only had to believe.
 
    She thought about marking the beginning with her new job. With the adrenaline that had just found comfort in her veins from the optimisation that she had created before the spring sunrise, she took her phone from the bedside table, turned it on, looked at the time that was 06:15, and checked the day's agenda for work.
 
    The company "Yuri's Luck" had stricter rules than the previous one where she had worked. Once a certain level of management was reached, it was mandatory for the employee to attend the events organised by the company, regardless of whether one was afraid of mirrors or large crowds of strangers.
 
    During that week, Anila and another colleague would participate in a business motivation training, while that morning she would meet her superior, Griselda, who had chosen the meeting place.
 
    Anila had never been to that bar, nor had she found its account on Instagram or the location on Maps, so she did not know if there were mirrors or not. Optimism brought her to herself, recalling the promise she had just made that she would no longer retreat from the war and would try to change, whatever the price required.
 
    Light blue jeans, a jacket of the same material and colour, trainers, and a white blouse seemed the appropriate outfit for that meeting, and she didn't think about other alternatives.
 
    After an hour, she was in front of the address sent by Griselda on WhatsApp, still thinking, with a stiff lump in her throat, how many mirrors that place could have. She didn't know that life had been barely waiting for its confirmation—to move forward, to throw challenges in front of her.
 
    Her breath was cut even more by the tightening of that knot as she entered the bar.
 
    She fixed her gaze straight ahead as if she were looking at the environment with broken pieces of glass in front of her and, with confident steps and gaze, that she looked beautiful, and she had nothing to fear from anything or anyone.
 
    She walked towards the table near the end of the bar when she saw Griselda, who had tied her dark blonde hair with white clips near the top of her head, and with her legs crossed, she was using her phone.
 
    She couldn't stop herself in time, not to turn her head to the left, and before she met herself, reflected in the large mirror placed between the two windows, and took another traumatising stab from the past, the latter was stopped by the same face as that of Sidorel Nura to the right of Anila, who stopped walking towards her, when he noticed Anila looking at him through the mirror.
 
    She suspected only from his alarmed look at her reaction to the mirror that it was really him, and not someone else who was wearing a maroon blouse, wheat trousers, and white trainers, who looked a lot like him.
 
    She turned her head with longing instead of oxygen in her lungs, and her eyes were almost watering from meeting him. The broken pieces of glass disappeared, and she was now seeing clearly, with no obstructions ahead.
 
    Sidoreli hadn't believed his eyes, while he had been waiting for his brother and his sister-in-law, when he had seen her enter the bar with her classic walk, all proud of herself, the same beauty and strength in her vigilant warm brown eyes, her hair loose and thrown over her back and shoulders, and the seductive energy of someone who followed all the rightful rules in life, an asset that had given her the ability to make people who met her think that she was perfect.
 
    He had immediately stood up, as if she had been going towards fire, to be burned by it, when he had come out of the enchantment of Anila, noticed her approaching the mirror, and had walked towards her to stop her in time so that she wouldn't look herself at that mirror.
 
    With the predicted future, as soon as she had turned her head to her left, he had frozen in place, too late to save her, but to his surprise, Anila hadn't been frightened by the mirror at all. She had been surprised to meet him in that bar, and he had seen the same feeling of longing in her sad eyes.
 
    Sidoreli changed his worried look into an indifferent one at her presence there and went to the exit of the bar, passing by Anila. She lowered her gaze with all her cells in submission to him, from being that close, and walked towards Griselda.
 
    "Hi," she sat down in front of her boss.
 
    "You're here." She left the phone smiling and stood more straight in her chair. "Did you find the bar easily?"
 
    "Yes."
 
    Life no longer seemed the same monotony for Anila. That coincidental meeting with Sidoreli had been a sign of unexpected, beautiful events that were waiting for her to live.