The life started just like that. "Naila, I won't be here most of the time. I come here only for rest or work, mostly weekends and other days I have my modelling gigs so I stay in the city. What I mean to say is be prepared to live alone. It's a good protected place, there is nothing to worry about safety, but yourself. You should be yourself. I mean eat well, sleep on time, and.." he went on.
"What is the rent?" That's all Naila could ask. She was worried. She was sure she would not be able to afford such a good place.
"I was about to talk about it," Luke said. "You don't have to pay. I don't pay either. It's my cousin's place. Family owned," He informed her. "I stay here whenever I feel like I wanna escape the city life, dull, busy, and boring. So my cousin gave me a job. My family is behind this construction company. This is their cottage. So I took a role. I make sure the work is progressing and community needs are met till the association by the dwellers are formed," he explained. "At the end of the cottages, an apartment is being built, so till that gets over, I will stay here," he said and picked up the bottle from the refrigerator.
"But that's not fair, I should..." Naila tried to reason but he did not let her.
"You should not. If you feel you should, then make sure I'm well fed when I'm around. How about that?" He asked. He was aware the Naila cooks well. He had always seen her stories she updated of all sorts of food she made.
Naila smiled. "That I can do," she accepted.
And like he said, he did not show up for the one whole week. He left the day he handed the keys and they were no sign of him except his frequent texts.
"Have you settled in?"
"Is everything okay?"
"Did you walk around the community? Made any friends?"
"Is everything resolved at school? Did they mistreat you?"
"How are you commuting to school everyday? Is it far? Is it manageable?
"Did you cook?"
"Are you sleeping well?"
"Are you scared of staying alone?"
"I will be away for another week,"
All of his texts sounded like he is worried most time but Naila did not get it.
She replied to all of his texts indeed but she was glad that she got to live alone. She developed a new routine for herself.
She would wake up around 6 AM, make a light breakfast, walk around the garden for sometime, making sure the plants are tended to, then eat her breakfast and get ready. She would catch her bus by around 7.30 AM front the entrance and reach school by 8.00 AM and the classes begin by 8.30 AM.
Similarly in the evening, she would leave the school by 4.30 PM and reach home by 5 or stay back to complete work and reach home around 7. She would make a simple dinner again or buy some snack and finish off early.
If the work is still not over, she would feel all anxious and finish it all in a stretch. Everyday, she dedicated half an hour to contact Danish at all cost, for the divorce. But he would always dodge the calls. He would text her asking her to not disturb him during work and then say the excuse that when messaged she was already asleep. He promised her that when he gets back home, he will immediately begin the proceedings with her. She also tried to convince him to sign it digitally.
"No. I don't want to do it. My lawyer has concerns," he would say. As every single day passed, Naila lost her patience more and more. There was an anger in all the time now. Frustration and temper couldn't be easily controlled.
And the temporary solution she found to control them is cleaning. She would play the music loudly and start cleaning the whole house except his room since she did not wish to invade his privacy. She would then sing along. Another way she found was teaching herself to drink. Someone who never had the habit of drinking got a bottle of vodka and wine. But she did not dare open them. She would sit on the carpet leaning against the couch with a wine glass. But she wouldn't break the seal or pour it.
One night, as usual, she sat there hugging her knees. She rested her head on her knees, staring outside the window. "What am I trying to do? What am I even doing here?" She would ask herself. She felt sad but she could not tell why at that particular moment. Tears poured down her eyes. It was Friday and she was looking forward to it. Two more days of school and she would have her Christmas break. But it felt kind of lonely as the time she looked forward to approached. She wondered what she would do for Christmas. She wanted to go to the market again. She wanted that hot chocolate again. She wanted to go get a cake. But she did not step a foot outside the house apart from work. Sony also stopped talking to her for not telling her about the husband and moving in with him.
"Do I have a goal? Do I even have a future? What is the point of all this?" With every passing day, Naila felt herself sinking deeper into a hopelessness she could no longer name.
Danish, meanwhile, seemed to be doing just fine.
His social media was filled with photographs of beautiful places, good food, casual smiles, and moments that made it look as though nothing in his life had changed. As though there was no divorce hanging between them. As though their marriage had not fallen apart. As though he had nothing to regret and nothing to mourn.
And that hurt her more than she cared to admit.
Every time she saw his face on her screen, something inside her cracked a little further. She hated how unaffected he looked. She hated that he could smile so easily while she struggled to get through an ordinary day. She hated herself even more for checking his posts when she knew exactly what they would do to her.
But she kept doing it.
Perhaps she was hoping to find something in his eyes, a hint of sadness, a trace of regret, anything that would tell her that she wasn't the only one hurting.
She never did. She never found them.
Eventually, Naila stopped trying to be a part of the world altogether.
She withdrew from everyone. She stopped answering messages, stopped making calls, stopped checking in on people. There was no one she could talk to at the end of the day, no one to text when she couldn't sleep, no one to call just to hear another voice. There was no one to wish good morning or good night.
And perhaps the saddest part was that no one really knew how badly she was doing.
She didn't want them to.
She didn't want questions. She didn't want concerned voices asking what had happened. She didn't want pity, advice, or comforting words she knew she wouldn't believe. She didn't want to sit across from someone and pretend she was okay just to stop them from worrying.
So she chose silence.
She convinced herself that being alone was easier than explaining her pain.
But loneliness had a cruel way of growing in the spaces people left behind.
The quieter her world became, the louder her thoughts grew. The walls of her room seemed to close in around her, and the days began blending into one another. She had shut everyone out to protect herself, only to discover that she had also shut herself away from the very things that might have kept her from falling apart.
And somewhere between the endless silence and the thoughts she couldn't escape, but she
realized she had never felt this alone in her life.
As she stared outside the window watching the branches move, she suddenly heard someone rining the doorbell. "Who is it at this hour?" She got up from the floor.