His bedroom had never aroused so much interest in him to go there as that night, when Anila was waiting for him in his bed, half raised at its head.
 
    His smile had already become reflexive the second he looked at her.
 
    "Are you comfortable?" He sat next to Anila and put his hand on her leg.
 
    "I am, but not completely," she removed the blankets to make room for him on her left.
 
    He ran his hand along her leg and approached the lamp on the bedside table to the right of the bed.
 
    "Shall I turn it off or leave it on?"
 
    "On," she put her head on the pillow.
 
    "OK."
 
    Sidoreli laid on his back first and then turned to Anila, whose face, in front of him, was associated with the memory of her body under the water in the sea.
 
    That image would haunt him for a very long time if he didn't try to replace it with other beautiful images of her, like those moments when Anila was next to him, smiling, her brown eyes shining brightly like a flame in the middle of the moonless night, and her dried hair was lying behind her back.
 
    "I'm so sorry about your phone." She touched his calm face and bent her lips from the renewed force she felt, which lifted her heart and expanded her chest to breathe more deeply.
 
    It was the same feeling she had had when she had been submerged underwater. The energy of the sea had seemed bleak and depressing, but when he entered the water and touched her body to pull her out, the entire expanse of water seemed to come back to life, and the heart of the ocean had begun to beat briskly, as if a defibrillator was used specifically for it, to get that organ working again.
 
    Sidoreli kissed the palm of her hand and gave her the same deeply intense look as a moment ago.
 
    "You don't have to," he said. "The phone can be replaced, but you can't."
 
    Anila took refuge in the reassuring embrace of his arms, and he relished the private comfort she gave him, which he had never gotten from anyone else and did not want to, except from her.
 
    "What about the documents you had in it?" Anila created a short distance between them.
 
    "I have saved all of them in an email address." Sidoreli rubbed her right arm, and she looked suspicious, lest he be lying to her, in order not to make her sad. "Everything is alright," he insisted. "OK? You don't have to worry about anything. Just don't give up on life. That's all I ask of you."
 
    "With your soft green eyes, ready for manipulation," Anila remarked with dismay.
 
    "You're not leaving me other choices," he laughed lightly, and they fell into a relaxing silence.
 
    Anila began closing and opening her sleepy eyes. Sidoreli followed her lids with attention while smiling, when they were completely closed and the process of falling asleep had never seemed so beautiful to him, as in those moments, when he had witnessed it, being realised by her.
 
    "Good night." He wanted to hear her soft, sweet voice once more before falling asleep.
 
    He had almost missed that opportunity the day before. He had almost lost the chance to see her face again, to hug her, and to spend time with her. The world would have been deserted, he would have been disoriented, not knowing where to go in life, and the latter would have become meaningless to him.
 
    "Good night" were the words spoken like a lullaby from Anila, the last one that Sidoreli heard that night before he fell asleep a few minutes later, and when he didn't see her the next day next to him in bed and nowhere in the house, he suspected anxiously that they had been the last forever.
 
    It was only after he returned to the bedroom, studied the surroundings in more detail than when he had been awake, and asked for her presence that he noticed a white paper folded once on the nightstand to his side.
 
    He took it with the thought that it was a note from Anila, and their breakup was the keyword that he predicted he would read in that letter. Her handwriting was neat, like that on a computer, as if she'd typed slowly and carefully, which he doubted. She must have thought she didn't have time for something like that, because he could have awakened from moment to moment, and therefore she had written down the words that she thought in haste.
 
 
    I didn't want to die with no one beside me; that's why I chose you yesterday to be with me in the last moments. I don't know why I was afraid to leave this world alone, and I felt like nothing would make sense in the end if no one would accompany me until there. You understand me. This is your curse, and I wanted to save you from that curse yesterday. I thought that you would risk helping me, but I said that you would be too late, and everything would end in favour of both of us. I'm in time to put an end to this agony, and with my leaving, I'm doing just that. Forget everything that happened between us. This action will be your ultimate extrication.
 
 
    "Wo..." He closed his eyes, exhausted, and sighed deeper than usual with the paper in his hand. "She has taken the traumatising of my soul so seriously."
 
    He left the paper on the bed and got ready to go out with a clear intention in mind about what to do. Now there was no chance he would understand her anymore. He would sit Anila down somewhere and ask her, one by one, about everything that had happened to her. He wouldn't give her any more time. He would tell her about himself and Amarildo too, and they would finally close that chapter of the past.
 
    Wait and wait until the right moment comes; it will be too late when it is understood that that kind of moment was always the one that was thought to solve that knot right then.
 
    Sidoreli bought a new phone and number and called her right away.
 
    "Hello?"
 
    He could tell from the sound of her voice that Anila had guessed who was calling her with an unknown number.
 
    "Where are you?" he asked more harshly than he had planned, but he didn't regret it. The fury from her avoidance was at its limit.
 
    "At my parents' house," said Anila calmly.
 
    Of course, he thought ironically, irritated; she had created the belief that Sidoreli wouldn't go and make a scene in front of her family if she didn't agree with him on the phone, and therefore she was unbothered by the danger that he could surprise her.
 
    "Come to my house. W6ell talk," he ordered categorically, not accepting objection, while he was leaving with fast steps there, too.
 
    "Did you read the letter?"
 
    "Yes, because you weren't in front of me to say those words to my face," he criticised her.
 
    "Sidorel, this is the right thing to do." Anila tried to reason calmly.
 
    "Let us meet, and I'll show you what's the right thing," he promised more than ready. "Or wherever you want." Her comfort seemed more important.
 
    "Listen. When..."
 
    "No. You will listen to me first, and then I will listen to you," insisted Sidoreli, determined not to change the plan. "Tell me where you want us to meet."
 
    "Sidorel," Anila did not want to drag that conversation any longer. "When we both met for the first time in your studio, I was dating someone else."
 
    He slowed his steps.
 
    "That person had lost his father when he was very young; his sister had killed herself a few years later; and his mother had died of despair from her death. He was the only one left."
 
    Sidoreli could bet she was barely holding back her tears.
 
    "He was dead from the inside, and he didn't tell me anything. I was too late when I found out about his state. I'm not sure whether it was because he was very good at hiding it or because I was too stupid to notice, no matter how many signs I was given. I think the latter is the correct alternative."
 
    "No," Sidoreli protested. "It was his fault."
 
    "I won't make the same mistake with you, like he did with me, by not telling. I am dead, Sidorel."
 
    "No," he returned to the sea again and underwater, pulling Anila to the surface, but this time he was too late to save them both.
 
    "I have been playing with you until now, but I didn't want to admit it," she continued. "This is the correct answer that Visara and you should have heard that day. Consider the good things you have done for me an asset for the future. When you need support, if you meet someone and you have many obstacles ahead, take advantage of the fact that you have taken those actions, and you will make it."
 
    "Anila, come and talk to me." If only five minutes of time were given to him, Sidoreli would convince her to change her decision. She was just depressed, and that's why she had such thoughts. "Or let's not meet for a few days. Take some time to think carefully, and then we'll talk."
 
    "No, I don't want to waste more of your time," she seemed very determined. "I'll tell Visara to bring the key to the house you found for me to the studio. I will no longer live there, nor will I work at the company. You can quit the job there too if you want."
 
    "That person, with whom you had been dating then, has hurt you?" Anger replaced the plea in his voice. "Where is he now?"
 
    He was going to skin his soul alive. The excessive force and motivation to commit such a crime, just so that Anila could feel free from that criminal, didn't scare him away from himself, nor did the fact that he was willing to cross that kind of line for someone he loved.
 
    Her silence let him understand that Anila had guessed what Sidoreli was talking about, although they had never openly discussed that topic, and no matter if she affirmed it or denied it, she would concretely confirm that his strong suspicions had been correct and that she had truly been hurt by someone, as he was assuming.
 
    "I don't have a heart to give to you, Sidorel," were the steely words that Anila used to avoid his questions and end the conversation with him.
 
    He touched the green phone icon to call her again, but the reality of the situation convinced him to leave Anila under the water and give up on her. He had to accept the truth and not risk anymore for someone who wouldn't reward his efforts at all, as he expected, and that person wasn't obliged to reward him.
 
    He had been used. Anila had taken advantage of his feelings to break away for a while from the past by dating him. She had realised that she was wasting her time and had decided to end the relationship between them. All that time, she had pretended to have feelings for him; she had really manipulated him, and now she had taken off the mask because she had no interest in playing any longer.
 
    And maybe that person of six years ago was made up by her; Sidoreli would have been the reason that she had wanted to drown in the sea, or maybe she hadn't intended to kill herself at all but to leave the impression of a depressed woman so that he would give up on her himself, but when she realised that Sidoreli didn't have such a goal in his mind, she had asked to break up with him. It was certain that she would hook up with someone else in a very short time and completely forget about him.
 
    He returned to his home with the loss of the last round in his pocket and the discovery too late that a fellow player who was forced to participate in that unfair game and who he had offered to help her win had, in fact, been the organiser of the game since the beginning, and now she had no interest in continuing any longer.
 
    She wanted to go on without him? Fine by him. He didn't care at all. He would erase that chapter from his life, as if it had never happened, and he wouldn't even remember that he had known an Anila Idrizaj in the past. If there was one thing where he excelled, it was ignoring. She was used to getting attention by appearing like the perfect woman, but when it came to him, the saw would meet the spike to her one day. He was sure that they would meet again, and then Anila would understand who had suffered more consequences from that game.
 
    But after a few days, he noticed the consequences only in himself when Visara went to the tattoo studio and handed over her sister's work contract along with the keys to the house where Anila had lived alone.
 
    "Ania said that only your signature is needed to quit the job. There is no tedious procedure."
 
    He agreed with his head heavy by overthinking about the sister of the girl in cream slacks, a white blouse with yellow horizontal stripes, and white trainers in front of him, about whom he had thought that he would be introduced under different circumstances, and he took a blue pen from the black box with four more on the table.
 
    He held the paper in front of him, and a disregardful heartbeat of his alarmed heart, not to give up on her that quickly, stopped him just when he was about to sign.
 
    "I'm trying the pen on a piece of paper first, whether it writes well or not. I don't want my signature to look like a scribble." He pretended to check through the desk drawers without looking Visara in the eye so as not to be noticed, and she understood his avoiding gaze.
 
    She had had suspicions that perhaps Sidoreli didn't love Anila, but now, without talking to him at all, she was thinking convincingly that she had doubted in vain, and if it weren't for his pride, it seemed as if he was ready to beg Visara for her to talk to Anila one more time so that she would change her mind about the decision made for the two of them.
 
    She moved towards the glass wall and turned her back on Sidoreli to give him a moment of privacy. She felt wistful that he had fallen prey to Anila's strength—to draw the line to someone too easily and not give them another chance.
 
    Anila had given almost no explanation to Visara as to why she had broken up with Sidoreli; she just notified her about that, asked her sister to take her stuff from the rented house a while ago, to send the work contract to his studio, to finally leave the company, and hadn't talked anymore about that topic.
 
    Sidoreli scribbled on a notebook first and then placed the contract in front of him once more. He was being given a chance to get rid of Anila once and for all, and he had to use that chance wisely. Since she wanted this, let her get out of his sight along with her selfishness.
 
    He moved the pen over the space where he was supposed to sign and immediately removed his hand.
 
    Why was she being so weak and not fighting for them? Why didn't she understand how much strength she had within herself and use it? Maybe that person from six years ago was threatening her with something, and Anila, to protect Sidoreli so that he wouldn't mess with that criminal, had broken up with him? No, he was creating such hypotheses only because he didn't want to accept the truth that she had never had or still had feelings for him.
 
    Sidoreli had to choose himself, and to make such a decision, he decided to start by giving up on Anila by signing her dismissal.