In the Interlude

Chapter 32 - The Smile She Faked

It was close to four in the afternoon when Aïcha finally signed off on the last items the movers had brought into her apartment. She let out a breath and sat in her living room, surrounded by all her boxes.

It had been a long bloody week. A week of sweat and insomnia. A week of trying to keep the contractors on schedule as one delay could jeopardise everything. She knew her plan sounded like a house of cards about to collapse. But she couldn't do better.

Not alone.

Not in this apartment, where each switch, corner, door, wall reminded her of the life she once had.

Not when it was so damn hard for her to be back to the place she once called home, without Idriss's reassuring presence anymore.

Aïcha had been trying all week to contain herself, to keep her emotions in check. Whenever she talked on the phone to Mia, her mother, Tom, Sofia or anyone for that matter, she would plaster a smile on her face. She knew they couldn't see her but didn't someone say that a smile could be heard? So, she smiled and smiled some more.

As if by smiling all the time, she might trick herself in feeling its warmth deep inside.

She smiled to everyone she encountered. Even smiled to that wanker next door who still wasn't reciprocating her hellos and how-do-you-dos.

She smiled to the contractors even as they painted her daughter's room a bright pink when she had asked for plain white.

She smiled to the cleaning crew as they broke the hallway mirror only God knows how.

She smiled to the movers as one of her boxes went flying down the stairs.

But now, sitting in her living room, surrounded, no, drowning in her boxes, the smell of fresh paint still lingering in the air, she couldn't fake that smile anymore.

It physically hurt to keep that smile. It suffocated her.

If Idriss were here, he would've told her she didn't need to fake that smile. That rooms can be repainted and mirrors can be repurchased. And that everything, eventually, was going to be just fine.

But he wasn't here. And he never would be.

Pain swelled in her heart, pushing at its walls, rising to her chest, filling in her throat. And then they fell.

Hot salty tears. Pushing through her lashes. Burning down her face. Dripping on her shirt.

She heard her own wailing sound, raw from the inside.

Clasping the couch for support, she stood up and pressed her heavy forehead against the cold walls looking for some relief. The sobs started to quiet down. But the pain in her soul still needed a sacrifice.

Demanded it.

And Aïcha just broke down again until her throat dried, and her head ached.

She splashed some water on her face and stared at herself into the bathroom mirror - eyes meeting those of a woman, her swollen ugly face a picture of devastation and misery.

More tears began streaming down her already wet cheeks. She let them. She won't be missing them. Wasn't sixty per cent of her body made of water?

And then they stopped, seconds or minutes later, she couldn't really tell. She felt hollow from the inside.

Hollow and empty.

And she knew.

She knew she needed to buckle up again. To kick herself where it was needed to face the days ahead.