Page 2 of Unravelling: Aria & Crispin
But she knew better. That was the kind of decision that turned into regret.
Gallan wouldn't care if she overslept; he'd just dock her pay without a second thought. Worse, he'd give the overtime to that smug girl from Barking who always sprayed herself with cheap perfume and left her section half-cleaned. Liz, she was named, but nemesis would have been a better fit. Aria sighed and flicked the kettle on.
She was running low on milk. A sharp sniff confirmed what was left in the second bottle had curdled. A few lonely drops were left, barely enough to coat her cereal. She peered into the creamer jar-definitely past the expiry date, but still usable, probably.
"Expiry dates are for people who have choices," she muttered to herself, hearing her neighbour Khalid's voice echo in her mind.
When he wasn't debating politics through his window, he was rummaging through her recycling bag before bin day.
"These are perfectly fine!" he'd proclaim, holding up an empty yoghurt container. "You can store lentils in this. Ziplock pouches, Aria. Gold. You must wash and reuse them."
And then he'd lean against the wall and start again, always the same opening line, “When I was in Syria..."
She smiled softly. He was a relic of a more beautiful time, a walking, talking archive of stories she half-listened to while folding laundry or scrubbing her stove. They shared balconies, and he liked to talk. He missed Damascus with an ache that hung off every word, and every time he brought her karabeej and nataf, he would shake his head and sigh. "It's not the same...not like at Souk el Hamadiyé."
Aria shook herself from the memory, warming her hands on the chipped mug. She moved to the small window over the sink, squinting into the faint grey drizzle that painted the rooftops in dull tones. The council flat wasn't much, but the old man next door and the silence between night shifts were comforts. The flat belonged to Aria for the time being, and privacy was a treasure to be cherished.
Still, mornings like this made it harder to be positive.
She let her gaze drift to the street below. The cracked pavement, the litter dancing in the wind. This was the life she'd accepted when she first let Crispin kiss her that night in the janitor's closet.
She had known even then. Knew exactly what he was and what she was not.
The son of the duke of something, riding fast on the coattails of his father's empire. A future peer in the House of Lords. She was a cleaner on the night shift, her papers barely dry from the Home Office's reluctant stamp. She had no illusions. She wasn't his type; she wasn'tanyone'stype.
She poured the last of the milk into her cereal and stirred mechanically. The tea was bitter. The creamer didn't dissolve fully, floating like tired ghosts on the surface, yet she drank it anyway. The warmth was a welcome companion against the morning's chill as she gazed at nothing through the dirty windowpane.
The morning light blurred against the glass, and for a moment, Aria imagined she heard Mami call her name.
The mug was warm between her hands, the hum of the street below growing distant, replaced by the scent of flour and frying onions.
She was small again, barely eight, feet dangling from the rough wooden chair in the kitchen. The room seemed bigger in her memory, the corners shadowed and golden. Mami stood by the stove, her hands swift and sure, a cloud of flour rising with every roll of the pin. Mami always worried about hair getting into the food, so a red-and-gold-printed scarf covered her head.
"Come, little star," her mother had called, a smile tucked into the corner of her mouth. "You must watch carefully. One day you will make byrek for your family, eh?"
Aria remembered the heat of the kitchen, the sheen of sweat at her mother's temple, the way sunlight caught on her bangles and made small suns dance across the walls. Sulking, she had dragged herself closer, her small fingers tracing idle shapes in the flour dusted over the table.
Mami had pressed a scrap of dough into her hands, guiding her clumsy fingers.
"Not too much filling," she murmured, her voice soft, low, full of secret knowledge. "Too much, and it tears apart. Just enough to be generous, but not greedy, like a good life, my mami used to say"
Somewhere beyond the open window, her father's voice floated in, laughing with a neighbour, his words in a language Aria barely remembered. His laugh had been rich and deep, the kind that filled a room without trying.
Later, in the hush of the evening, she had lain awake and heard them.
Mami and Babi, murmuring low as the house settled around them.
"She is not clever, not like Lule will be," Mami said, though not unkindly. "She dreams too much. Best to find her a good boy, someone kind, someone steady."
"And she will bring happiness," Babi said, his voice a rumble of certainty. "You will see. She has a heart like the spring rains."
The words drifted over her like mist, wrapping around her small body under the patchwork quilt that hergjyshehad made for her birth ceremony. She hadn't understood it all, not then. Only the soft cadence of their love, the way, even in their doubts, there had been pride, tenderness, and worry.
That world-warm kitchens, the scent of cooking, her father's laughter-felt thin as mist now. Something precious she'd lost, like a treasured jewel slipping through her fingers into deep water.
The kettle clicked off, dragging her back to the grey morning.
And for just a moment, as she turned away from the window, she thought she caught the faintest smell of smoke in the air.
