Page 3 of Unravelling: Aria & Crispin
Aria blinked hard, wrapping her arms around herself, as if she could somehow hold the memory closer, for just a little longer. She swallowed against the ache that rose in her throat.
Here, there was no one carefully selecting husbands or weighing her worth or cleverness.
Here, she belonged only to herself. There was no one else looking out for her.
But today, at least, there was a reason to smile.
Lule was coming home.
Her sister-bright, stubborn, unstoppable-was on a train from Oxford. Twenty-nine years to her thirty-five, studying computers and apps and something about UI or UX, Aria could never quite follow. She just nodded and smiled when Lule showed her colour-coded mock-ups or flow diagrams.
Aria couldn't wrap her head around it, but she didn't need to. Lule was going to be someone important.She already was.
She could almost hear her little sister's voice, animated and quick, telling her about her bursary, her flatmate, the hackathon they won last month. Aria had heard all about it already, but she'd listen again. She could listen forever.
Her stomach churned, and she placed the cereal bowl in the sink without eating.
She turned to check the clock. Time to move.
The shift was calling. So was her life.
And Cris? He wouldn't text until late, if at all. That was the unspoken rule-his world and hers existed in parallel, never intersecting in daylight.
Just like they'd agreed. Just like she'd told herself she wanted.
*Gjyshe (Albanian-maternal grandma)
Chapter 3
Aria
Aria pulled on her worn jeans and buttoned a plain navy shirt, tucking it neatly despite the threadbare collar. Her fingers absently traced the carefully patched hole over her right pocket. Her stomach churned, a tight, restless knot she had long since stopped paying much attention to. Hunger, nerves and exhaustion all blurred together these days. She was nervous, so she couldn't eat. And since she couldn't eat, she was tired.
In the corner of her living room, draped across the sagging arm of her third-hand sofa, the quilt waited, half-finished.
A patchwork of faded cloth scraps, stitched by hand at night when her eyes blurred and her fingers cramped. A square from an old tartan curtain, remains of an abandoned shirt someone had tossed in the stairwell, a scrap of the pale baby-pink cotton Aria had once dreamed of turning into a dress.
It wasn't much, but it was for the baby.
The neighbours four doors down, the Al-Mutairis, had very little. Three small children who clung to their mother's skirts, wide-eyed and solemn. The husband worked long shifts at a warehouse, hauling crates and mopping floors for little more than minimum wage. They had moved in a month ago.
Once, in a rare moment of weakness, the woman had let slip that one of her sons-an older boy-had been lost while crossing the border into France.
Her voice had broken then, just for a second, before she swallowed it back down.
Aria hadn't asked questions. The loss she saw reflected at her was a mirror image of her own nightmares. She simply nodded, handed over a packet of sugar, and pretended not to see how the woman's hands trembled.
This new baby-the one they hadn't planned for, the one they couldn't afford-was still a gift. A stubborn, beautiful gift.
And maybe,Aria thought,even scraps could be stitched into something warm enough to keep out the cold.
She grabbed her rucksack and rushed to the door, stuffing a half-unzipped jacket over her thin frame.
Outside, the stairwell smelled of damp and something sour. Litter fluttered in the corners where the broken tiles met the walls, and the peeling paint bore angry scrawls of graffiti-mostly old and faded, but some new and crude.
The council had sent letters promising repairs for two years now. Nothing changed.
Her ancient bike was chained against the railing at the foot of the stairs, rusted and clunky, but still faithful. She vaulted down the steps, late as always, when a voice caught her.
