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.

It was as if life knew that Anila needed him, and since she herself didn't accept such a fact or take a step towards him, life didn't give up on telling Anila through the opportunities it gave her to try for them to be together.

    He had opened the door to a garden filled with colourful flowers and if she agreed to enter there, she would have the chance to not see the same colour over and over in her life.

    Anila looked towards the entrance, wishing that he would come back, and she kept her stare on the door he had just opened, accompanied by a woman and a man dressed in black, whom she immediately recognised as one of his twin brothers.
 
    Only Alketa, Mateo, and Gabriel Nura had photos of their faces on their private Instagram accounts. She had the impression that he was Emanueli, while the blonde woman at his side, wearing a closed pink blouse, a long baby pink dress with sides, and white trainers, was his wife.
 
    The rush, with which the blood was running through her body, asked her for more oxygen to calm down, and Anila took a deep breath while placing her phone on the table.
 
    "Order something, and let's get to work," Griselda instructed, and Anila approved in silence.
 
    Arjana sat facing Anila's table, with Emanueli to her left. For Sidoreli, the chair was left free with its back to Anila, and he sat there.
 
    Anila glanced at him and focused again on Griselda. The feeling left by the mirror a little while ago kept reverberating in her heart.
 
    She hadn't felt terrified at all, but she had only looked at Sidoreli without thinking about anything else, and now she was thinking about how she had appeared to him in those moments and what he had thought of her, was wondering if he was thinking about her or if he had forgotten her.
 
    Could he have been over her in a month? He had erased everything that had happened between them, and he decided to finally erase her from his life as well?
 
    If before, she had felt like an empty boat in the middle of the open and calm ocean and complained that she couldn't see land anywhere, but didn't move either, because she was afraid that she would drown on the way to the land, now the ocean was being stirred by rain torrents and lightnings upon it, to rise in revolt against her and destroy the boat to pieces by Anila's overthinking on how to elaborate on the situation in order to reach the correct end.
 
    If only she had been given a clear sign of whether he had forgotten her or not.
 
    It didn't take long for her to rebuke herself by reminding herself of the promise she had made—that she would start a new chapter in her life without Sidoreli in her thoughts. But why not heal with him by her side?
 
    Sidoreli didn't have to worry about her, but he couldn't stop wanting to go to Anila and ask her if she was okay after staying in front of the mirror a little while ago. She would probably tell him that he had no right to care about her anymore and turn him back. Perhaps she was no longer afraid because she had met someone else who had been able to take away her fear.
 
    Sidoreli had no business with her anymore; he repeated that to himself over and over again, until he left the bar without looking at her at all, to notice that Anila had been following him with a longing look so that he wouldn't leave.
 
    She kept wandering in the monster ocean with wild waves and pearls at the bottom of it because of her thoughts on how to decide, when she already wanted to tell Sidoreli how she really felt, but she was afraid of his rejection and that he would play with her feelings only out of anger for vengeance.
 
    But even to keep going forward without knowing his real feelings, her soul didn't allow her to do so completely, and when the soul didn't obey, the heart supported it in every decision.
 
••••
    Not even the voices of the people who came to the event after three days in one of the meeting rooms at the 'Plazza' Hotel in Tirana weren't able to save her from the mercilessness of that ocean.
 
    She and her work colleague, Suela, were walking the stairs to the third floor.
 
    "A waste of time." Suela sighed about the next training while fixing her short brown hair with her left hand. "A total waste of time. We already know what they will say to us. 'Believe in yourself, and you will succeed.' What do you say, commissioner?' " she quipped with the last question, taken from a cartoon.
 
    "It's not a waste of time," Anila protested, annoyed, not being able to understand in time why Suela didn't think more deeply about the situation but directly drew conclusions. "The mentor, who will come from Australia, will show us different ways to believe in ourselves when obstacles want to hinder us and achieve success. Maybe we won't need such advice, but one of our relatives might. We, because we have participated in this training, know the right advice for them; we tell that to them and create a positive impression on people, as if we know how to find solutions in extremely alarming times, when people get stuck and aren't sure what to do."
 
    "The books and the internet are out now, Anila," Suela pointed out. "No one goes to such training anymore. But say that our boss wants to be on good terms with that mentor, because who knows what the benefit for her is?"
 
    Anila read her mind and what she suspected that benefit could be, and Suela didn't consider proving to her that she was thinking about something else.
 
    "Suela, is that you?"
 
    The two co-workers turned their heads, and Anila studied the brunette, who looked like a peer of hers with black hair tied back in a ponytail, wearing black leather trousers that flared to her ankles, a cherry crop top, and black heels, and was looking at Suela in amazement.
 
    "Wow! I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me," she kept her laugh as she approached her. "How are you?" She extended her hand and tried to kiss her on the cheek, but Suela kept her distance, not even shaking her hand.
 
    "Alive, and safe, and sound," Suela answered with all the possible irony. "I heard you ask Adelina a week ago, 'Is that Suela alive?' and I was surprised, to be honest, because you follow me on Instagram. So how come you haven't asked me yourself? Now, I know that I'm dangerous, but so much so that you're afraid, even to text me..."
 
    "Your attention can't be gotten differently," the accused justified her mockery. "How are you?" She turned to Anila and held out her hand. "Sorry. I only talked to Suela and forgot to say hello to you. It seemed like I didn't respect you."
 
    Someone who pretends to be a good person to create a positive image but only wants to benefit from the kindness of others—that was the energy Anila got when she shook her hand.
 
    "I'm Arbeta Gjura."
 
    Anila immediately removed her hand, as if Arbeta's hand had turned into embers. She saw the woman differently than before, and with Sidoreli in mind, she related her to him. Was she that Arbeta?
 
    "Anila Idrizaj," she deliberately said her full name, to know if Arbeta had heard of her, and from the realisation in her slightly more squinted eyes, she understood that she had.
 
    Arbeta had searched for her on the Internet as soon as one of her friends told her that she had seen Sidoreli in the company of a woman and had obtained information about her.
 
    Anila's photos on her Instagram account had shaken Arbeta's self-confidence, and driven by the perceived inferiority of her radiant energy, she had thought that Sidoreli had easily forgotten her the second he glanced at that girl, who in front of her looked even more sun than she was in the pictures that she had posted.
 
    Sidoreli would have felt like the moon when it came to her. The moon, in order to shine, needs the light of the sun; otherwise, it remains nothing but a seemingly lifeless piece of celestial body. No other star could replace the sun. And even if it got the right amount of light, the fact that that star wasn't the sun lost its importance to him.
 
    'You're pretty,' accepted Arbeta's slightly mocking look, which hid her jealousy towards Anila, before she turned to Suela.
 
    "You have changed so much. I didn't believe the photos you posted on Instagram. I could easily swear that you did Photoshop because you have also blocked the comments so that no one would say the truth like me and shame you."
 
    Anila narrowed her eyes at the impressions given to her bluntly. Such a person needed Visara to talk to.
 
    "And I believe that you have come here to take photos," Suela hypothesised with irony.
 
    "Of course," Arbeta agreed. "I'm a photo girl, you know that. I like that kind of art. You'll take some photos of me later. I'll tell you when. Don't leave, OK? You're a great photographer. Take advantage of the opportunity I'm giving you and reveal your talent."
 
    Suela seemed as if she was used to her character, which had led Arbeta to give orders and not expect any objection from the others, like it was their duty to obey her without making any kind of revolt, but Anila wanted to put her hands on her throat. Who did she think she was, not to politely ask for a favour? Anila was sure that Suela hadn't agreed in advance to take photos of her.
 
    "But I can't deny that you have changed." Arbeta kept talking about that detail about Suela. "You used to look like a girl who would never get married, but now I wouldn't be surprised if I heard that you're engaged."
 
    Suela guessed how tense Anila's nerves were because of Arbeta's lack of ethics, and on the one hand, she wanted Anila to lose her temper and fight with Arbeta.
 
    In the company, everyone had created the impression that Anila was a flawless person, very ethical, and minded her own business; she dressed with class, spoke with discretion, and did not neglect to make remarks when she saw a lack of culture from someone to her. It was considered high respect by her, if they were accepted in her social circle; they could become as perfect as she was, and the others would create the same positive impression on her friends as on her.
 
    "I have lived with Suela and another girl, Adelina, for a year in a rented house when we started university," Arbeta explained to Anila, although the latter didn't ask her. "We used to play a game. We used to say what a person looked like from our point of view when we met them for the first time."
 
    "The two of you used to play, not me," Suela specified.
 
    "Yeah," Arbeta ignored her correction. "It wasn't always too obvious what type someone was, but sometimes it was. I also have an opinion about you now."
 
    Suela waited impatiently for Arbeta to give her impression of Anila, guessing that they would fight later.
 
    "I'm sorry, but you look like no one wants to stay with you." Arbeta laughed in Anila's serious face, who understood that she would have found out about her breakup with Sidoreli.
 
    Although she had often encountered such bullies, sometimes it all seemed to her like a far-fetched drama and not at all real. To have all the opportunities to act rightly and yet to prefer ignorance, knowing that this way they were only harming themselves, seemed to her totally unusual, but here she was, in front of someone who was considering how negatively her words could affect Anila and how bad she already felt because someone else might have said harsh words to her, considering that she could fall into depression from other traumas in the past and finally convince herself to attempt suicide, and it seemed as if Arbeta had exactly that goal.
 
    Well, Anila didn't want to kill herself in those moments.
 
    "Ask your boyfriend. Maybe he wants to stay with me," she winked at Arbeta and clearly expressed with a look of pride, except for her anger, what she had meant.
 
    "What?" Arbeta furrowed her brows and looked at her with disdain, to make her feel inferior and as if she had no right to speak to her like that, but Anila didn't fall into that trap. In her eyes, Arbeta was nobody to doubt the words she said.
 
    "What is this irresponsibility from the organiser of this event?" Anila returned to Suela. "They're not at all interested in knowing what kind of person comes to the training and how well-mannered they are with the other participants." She deliberately ignored Arbeta's reaction and turned to enter the hall. "Lack of professionalism."

    "Oh, please. Like they care?" Suela supported her, happy that they were behaving like that with Arbeta, and she was feeling offended. "They do everything for money."
 
    She followed her with a glance and a smile from ear to ear as she left, unlike Anila, who didn't turn her head at all to know where Arbeta was going but paled in her face when a man stopped her a little further on, and it looked like Arbeta was clarifying the moment before between her and Anila.
 
    "Anila, I think she's talking to her boyfriend."
 
    Suela's suspicion made Anila turn her disinterested gaze towards the man in question from the right side and collapse inwardly to the ground when she saw Sidoreli in front of Arbeta, enraged by what she was telling him.
 
    "Oh, God! This woman lives to play the victim." Suela vented, angry with herself, that she had fallen prey to the pretence of Arbeta in the past and had tried to behave as nice and gentle as possible with her.
 
    Anila was trying to find proof in the sight before her eyes that the two of them weren't dating, but all she could think about was the fact that he still loved Arbeta and probably had loved her while he had been dating Anila.
 
    She wanted to go to them and have him tell her that she was being misunderstood, but his sharp look at her, as if he were blaming her for having talked to Arbeta in that way, broke her even more.
 
    Sidoreli had completely forgotten her. He had multiplied by zero every beautiful moment between them and by infinity every mistake of hers, and now Anila's existence didn't affect him at all.
 
    She had the proof now that she had to give up. She was late. He had found someone who loved him enough to fight for him, and Anila didn't have the right to ruin their happiness with her presence in their lives.
 
    She had strength, only to see them as they left for the stairs. Forced, as if someone were dragging her, she went to her chair, where she was going to sit.
 
    She didn't notice Sidoreli when he walked in with Arbeta and sat at the other end, only when a woman in her thirties with dark brown hair, parted in the middle, and pulled back in a ponytail, wearing a light blue shirt, black trousers, and heels, walked up to her and caught her attention.
 
    "Excuse me," she smiled awkwardly. "I have an order from the organiser of this event to ask you to leave."
 
    "What?" Suela asked rather rhetorically.
 
    Anila immediately looked at Sidoreli, who had been looking at her with hauteur and as if she deserved what they were doing to her, while Arbeta in the chair next to him was looking at her, extremely elated about the treatment that she was getting.
 
    "I see," she slowly handed over the strap of the white bag to her right arm.
 
    "No, what is this?" Suela protested. "What's the problem?" she addressed the employee. "Why are you asking her to leave?"
 
    The employee didn't answer her and just looked at Anila as she stood up.
 
    "I'm leaving too." Suela got up as well. "This place disgusted my soul."
 
    "No, you stay," Anila stopped her. "I'll fix this problem myself."
 
    Suela sat down in complete disobedience, and Anila headed for the exit, certain that she had the triumphant gaze of both of them on her and that she was paying with the same coin the misjudgment she had made years ago towards Brunilda, herself, and the underestimation of Sidoreli.
 
    How naive she had been in hoping that she would win the tattooist and Brunilda's company again, only because that's what she wanted and she would no longer suffer from their absence in her life. Had she seriously thought that she would get away with it just because she had only repented? In what illusions had she been deceived like that?
 
    Her eyes could no longer be strong and hold everything inside them. They wanted to show the pain she was feeling through tears, but Anila didn't allow them. The bones below her eyes and next to her nose began to ache as if they were being cut with a knife, but she didn't give up. Crying was for the innocent and the righteous. She had made all those mistakes and didn't deserve that opportunity.
 
    She wanted to leave there as soon as possible and lock herself in her room. She would quit that job and find another one, which required academic knowledge of the English language and a Bachelor's degree. She couldn't bear to suffer any longer. All her hopes that she would be happy in the future were dead.
 
    Though, until she worked somewhere else, she was obliged to continue in the present, attend her events, and attend meetings.
 
••••
    Visara found Anila wearing black trainers the next afternoon when she was going into the kitchen to prepare fruit juice and saw her gloomy, depressed face.
 
    Anila hadn't even met Brunilda those days, with the argument that she wanted to stay alone.
 
    "Are you going to work?" Visara asked rather, just to hear Anila's voice.
 
    "Yes," she said sadly, and adjusted the strap of the white bag on her right shoulder.
 
    Anila's phone rang in the left pocket of her black jeans as she placed her hand on the gold handle of the front door of the house.
 
    "Hello?" she answered to Griselda.
 
    "Today's meeting has been canceled. The manager said that she would notify us on WhatsApp tomorrow about its organisation."
 
    "Why?"
 
    "The rooms of the 'International' Hotel are occupied by the company 'Brus & Ashton'."
 
    "All of them?"
 
    "Anila, inform your group that there's a change of plan."
 
    Griselda ended the call, and Anila put only one person at the head of the culprits, Sidoreli.
 
    "What happened?" Visara asked.
 
    "Goodbye." Anila opened the door fiercely and closed it in the same way.
 
    He was making all that drama on purpose because she had upset his delicate girlfriend, Arbeta, and he wanted to take revenge for her, the gentleman.
 
    To the Drin River with both of them! Even if she had been a sinner all her life, she wouldn't allow them to punish her and sit in silence, as if she accepted that they had the right to destroy her life as they wished.
 
••••
    Sidoreli knew who had just knocked on his company office door, having called him himself, yet he kept his eyes fixed on the door as that person entered.
 
    "Are you ready to leave?" Leonardi asked.
 
    "One more document to check, and I'm done for today."
 
    They had agreed to go together to their parents' house and stay there that weekend.
 
    Before sitting down on the chair to his left, Leonardi took his phone out of the pocket of his midnight blue jeans and read the message from his wife, Melodia, who was asking him if he was going to be any more late.
 
    He replied that he would be with Sidoreli there in a little while, left the just-turned off phone on the desk, and after sitting on the chair, he looked around.
 
    A small measure to protect their sister against Anila Idrizaj had led to that conclusion; Sidoreli had become the main manager of the company.
 
    "Have you met Anila Idrizaj since she quit the job?"
 
    "No." Sidoreli didn't raise his head when he answered.
 
    He had only told Leonardi that she had left with her own free will, but he would stay in the company for Alketa's safety anyway.
 
    "Good that we got rid of her easily," Leonardi said, relieved, and looking at Sidoreli with his eyes fixed on the document. "You haven't said anything to anyone, have you?" he doubted.
 
    "What?" Sidoreli asked vaguely.
 
    "That you have killed Anila's brother."
 
    "You're not okay," he closed the file angrily and stood up. "Let's go," he said gratingly, with the indifferent look he held while heading for the exit.
 
    Leonardi didn't stir him further and followed him in silence.
 
    Sidoreli's momentum was immediately halted when he opened the door by the presence of Anila on the threshold, whose ferocious gaze froze him, as if he had been frosted on command, and her eyes, brighter than ever by vengeance, were skinning his soul alive without a trace of mercy because of what she had heard from Leonardi about him and Amarildo.
 
    'You murderer!' They were screaming with too much power of hate.