Anila had tried to leave the battle of the war, where she had been thrown unfairly, as soon as she had been injured, Sidoreli had offered to help her, she had understood that he had been one of the reasons why she had happened to be on that battlefield, and too late she had discovered something else: that her sister, too, had become a part of that war against her own will!
 
    Focused only on the pain of her own wounds, she hadn't seen Visara suffering.
 
    "I didn't want to hurt him," she swore while sobbing. "I just asked him to stay all of November in Albania and leave in December, since it had been a long time without coming home, and he wasn't sure when he would come again. Even Mom and Dad would be happy with that surprise, and Ildo agreed. I didn't know that they had set a trap for him."
 
    "Enough," Anila muttered, too weak to listen anymore. "Stop talking."
 
    She closed her eyes to pull herself together, and the absolute silence for a few moments helped her to calm down, but she was surprised by the feeling that she was falling into the space of the darkness of unconsciousness, and she couldn't hold on to anywhere.
 
    "Ania!"
 
    Visara's voice drew her to the surface, and Anila slowly opened her eyes to face the blurred image in front of her. Her vision became clearer, and then she could see the fury in her eyes.
 
    'Do you understand, or not?' She read the words on Visara's face.
 
    Had they argued, but she wasn't remembering it at the moment?
 
    She believed it. There was no doubt that it had happened like that, but she just couldn't recall. She knew herself very well. She had always preferred to resolve things through calm and peaceful communication, but when she realised that the opponent wanted only violence, she made sure not to end an argument without psychologically traumatising the enemy.
 
    Visara would have been hurt by her, and she had tried to defeat herself in the same way. Anila had closed her eyes to calm down a bit, but her brain hadn't preserved the memory of that conflict in time.
 
    She prepared apologetic words and a sad face to ask for forgiveness, even swearing that she had no intention of hurting her. She had accidentally lost her patience just for a moment, but she would make up for it.
 
    The words were elaborated only in her mind because two strong hands placed on her belly didn't let her say them out loud; those hands dragged her towards the couches in the living room to sit there.
 
    "Sidorel." She immediately remembered that she loved him when she looked to her left to see who was holding her, and he seemed very worried.
 
    Had he heard them arguing? He must have felt terrible about the negative energy she gave him. That hypothesis added poison to her self-loathing.
 
    Sidoreli helped her to sit on the couch.
 
    "Bring her a glass of water," he asked Visara, and she agreed.
 
    "Did I argue with her?" Anila asked nervously and regretfully, with tears in her eyes.
 
    "No," he realised that she wasn't remembering anything from what had happened a little while ago. "You fainted."
 
    "What?!"
 
    The glass of water that her sister brought her came to Anila's aid to remind her of everything, including Sidoreli's confession about Amarildo and the request that Visara had made to him to come before November 14th in Albania.
 
    Blerimi had taken advantage of that coincidence and killed him. Sidoreli and Visara had felt guilty that Amarildo had fallen into a trap without knowing it, and even if he had come later, he would surely have suffered the same fate. Returning earlier to Albania had already accelerated his murder.
 
    "I want to go to my room," she stood up, and he remained by her side.
 
    Visara brought her another glass of water there, and Anila drank it all.
 
    "Can you take the glass to the kitchen?" She asked Sidoreli, with a look, to leave him alone with Visara for a while, and he immediately agreed.
 
    "Ania," she squeezed her hand in fear that she would be pushed away in disgust. "I didn't want it to end like this."
 
    "I know," Anila touched her face wet from tears. "It wasn't your fault."
 
    It was hers that she hadn't told her the truth about the murder of Amarildo from Blerimi; she hadn't lied about the way she had found out about how they had lost their brother, without Visara suspecting if Anila had paid any price to have that information. The fear that Visara would look beyond the mask and discover the truth had forbidden Anila from telling her anything.
 
    "I met the sister of the man who killed Amarildo a few days ago, and she told me about him."
 
    "Why had he killed him?" Visara looked stunned.
 
    "Amarildo had offended his family, and that person had killed him out of pride."
 
    "Are you sure?' Visara found it unbelievable. "Why did she tell you this only now?"
 
    "She was afraid that we would take revenge for Ildo and kill her, and she asked me to leave it at that. I accepted."
 
    "Where is her brother?"
 
    "They're both dead. He was killed two years ago, while she killed herself yesterday from depression."
 
    Visara looked frozen and speechless at Anila's lowered eyes.
 
    "How did such a life come to us, Ania? I don't understand where I am. I have no idea where to go."

    That feeling, to which even Anila sometimes surrendered, the latter elaborated in silence. There were all those unanswered questions that tried to get in her way, to stop her from moving forward, and to disorient her.

    Why had Amarildo decided to stay at that hotel outside the city that night? Had he made plans to meet someone there? A girl perhaps? If so, had she been working for Blerimi and he had convinced her to ask Amarildo to come to Albania, or had she been dating Amarildo and they had decided to secretly meet there?

    Who had been the woman who had told Leonora about Blerimi and Anila? Had she told anyone else about them?

    Who had killed Blerimi? Had he left it at that, or had he also targeted Anila and Leonora?

    Anila could even meet them by chance in the future and not know them, while they would have the advantage of knowing her and would try to harm her.

    She really wanted to believe that everything sad about those issues had remained in the past, and only if she stirred the waters would she destroy everything. She decided to avoid such a path. If there was a reason why she didn't know the answers to those questions, it was probably because they wouldn't do her any good, so there was no reason to kill her happiness. Anila would be ready, and if those answers came to surface, she would know how to control their existence in her life.

    Anila looked up sharply and only rationally at her sister.
 
    "We're born alone, and that's how we are until the end. Everything and everyone else are like illusions. They may disappear from moment to moment. We can only love them if they deserve our love; as long as we have them in our lives, that's all."
 
    Visara silently accepted her point of view and touched her hands. "I'm very content that I have your support, and you're so strong."
 
    "You give me a lot of strength," Anila kissed her left hand.
 
    Her sister smiled at her gently. "Shall I call Sidoreli?"
 
    Anila hesitated. "He must have gone already." She didn't blame him if he had acted like that. "I was very unfair to him."
 
    "He will understand you."
 
    "No, he's not that... illogical. I have crossed all the limits."
 
    "I'm telling him to come," Visara stood up, and Anila didn't object.
 
    Sidoreli entered a few seconds later, and she read in his green eyes that he was only thinking about the fact that he loved her.
 
    "I thought you left," Anila said when he sat next to her.
 
    "I did think about leaving because it would make you feel better, but I couldn't. I didn't want to leave without talking to you one more time."
 
    "If this day isn't a sign that you and I can't be together, I don't know what else has to happen to us to accept it," she lowered her head, ashamed of her choices. "I drew the line to you instantly."
 
    "Almost anyone would have done the same thing, Anila.' Sidoreli didn't push her to raise her head without her own will.
 
    "For sure, you wouldn't."
 
    "I haven't lived a life with so many challenges like you have. You've been in chaos for a long time, and now it's normal to be afraid that someone may try to throw you in there again. That's why you act like this. I understand you very well."
 
    "I haven't always been like this," she muttered with her head still down and her voice fragile, bursting into tears from moment to moment. "If someone had told me that there would come a day when I would fall so deeply into depression, I would have said without a doubt that it would never happen like that. I used to be very optimistic and have a lot of confidence in myself. I didn't let my mood go down so easily, and I didn't have any negative thoughts at all. That day, when I came to your studio with Blerta, I was dating someone."
 
    The name 'Blerimi' came to Sidoreli's mind.
 
    "Amarildo had known him before, but I hadn't. He had dated his sister and had hurt her." She gritted her teeth in shame that she had had a blood relation with such a criminal and from what she would say next. "Blerimi decided to take revenge on Amarildo by behaving equally terribly with me." Anila lowered her head more, wishing that she had rather been buried alive than to have confessed that crime to Sidoreli and feel as if he had witnessed everything with his own eyes that night because she had told him.
 
    "Where is Blerimi?" Sidoreli hid the plan in his quiet voice to make him pay for hurting her.
 
    "He's dead." Anila was blithe that he wouldn't get into trouble for her.
 
    "Don't lie to me." Sidoreli warned her with a dark tone of voice.
 
    "I'm not. He died three years ago. And... he had made some videos of me. His ex-wife told me that he had deleted them all, and no one had seen them, but... I don't know."
 
    "If they are posted somewhere, we will find them and delete them all."
 
    Anila remained silent, feeling victimised by his help.
 
    Sidoreli lowered his gaze with all his exhausted strength because he hadn't been able to protect her. Who knew what sign had been given to him—that he should have done something for her when she had come to his studio over six years ago, but he had neglected it?
 
    "It wasn't your fault."
 
    She sneered bitterly at his comment. "Blerimi's sister killed herself because of what Amarildo had done to her. Blerimi simply returned his crime to him with the same coin. It was my duty to suffer the same fate." She knew that she was talking under the influence of suffering, and not that she really thought so.
 
    "Anila, listen to me." Sidoreli asked emphatically. "You had no fault and no obligation. You shouldn't have been a part of that war at all. Blerimi should have dealt only with Amarildo. Even if you had been completely naked in front of him, he had no right to touch you without seeing approval in your eyes. He should have gotten away from you."
 
    Anila allowed herself to be soft and weak in front of him. She pursed her lips as her vision was clouded by the tears, and her body shook while silently crying from the traumas of that night, the loneliness of being alone, and no one coming to her defence no matter how hard she had tried to scream.
 
    She sobbed when Sidoreli hugged her, and she took refuge in his arms along with the innocent twenty-two-year-old, who had also died that night but had now found peace thanks to the true love given by him.
 
    "I love you," Sidoreli kissed her neck. "I want to do everything I can to always have you in my life."
 
    Anila wiped the tears from her face and looked at him with still-red eyes.
 
    He was mesmerised by the sparkle in her eyes, the usual glow and light that she had on her face as if that sun above her never went out, and he realised that his heart had skipped a few beats, only when he took a deep breath, and it continued beating furiously.
 
    "The brown of your eyes is my favourite colour," Sidoreli said suddenly, as if he were programmed to talk like that, and he smiled defiantly at her when she put her lips on joy, jubilant from his words.
 
    The present promised a very beautiful gift, which was already in front of her if Anila chose it, and she did. She gave up dwelling just in the past, where only the dead stood, and returned to the present, where she belonged to be with the words she said to him, certain that she wouldn't regret their expression.
 
    "I love you too, Sidorel."
 
    He understood that if he accepted them, he would never, but never want to be separated from her again.
 
    "Very much, or very, very much?" he asked teasingly.
 
    "Very, very much," she smiled excitedly.

    Sidoreli kissed her in full acceptance of her love, and Anila willingly returned his kiss.