A Small Disaster
It was one of those unbearably hot summer days, the kind where the sunlight doesn’t just shine but sears itself into my skin, leaving behind a golden haze that clings to me like memory. The air shimmered with heat, thick and heavy, and the evening dragged on like a spell that refused to break. Even the shadows seemed to glow. The night stayed distant, as though held back by some invisible force. Eva sat beside me, her gaze adrift, following the tender figure of the dark-haired, olive-skinned waiter with a softness in her eyes that seemed to forget I was there. I stirred my drink absentmindedly, poking at the floating ice cubes with my straw, hoping they’d give way. They didn’t.
A group of tourists stumbled past, half-drunk and over-sunned, their laughter bouncing off the narrow walls of the old street. Their presence was obnoxious, and yet something about their loud joy made me ache. I watched them disappear into the light-drenched distance and felt a strange kind of longing - not for their company, but for their carelessness. How’s Adam?
I rasped finally, my voice rough from the dry air and disuse. I didn’t really want to know, but the silence between us had become too loud, pressing in on my temples. So much time had passed since we’d last met, and still I couldn’t muster any real curiosity about her life - or about the man who was part of it.
Good,
she said, and that was all. A single syllable, flat and polished, as though rehearsed. It hung there a moment before she volleyed it back to me: “And how’s Sina?” Her name, that name, struck like a slap, unexpected and sharp. It shot through me like electricity, woke something up I had been trying to forget. My fingers twitched, and in a careless second, the glass slipped. It hit the concrete with a crystalline crack. Cocktail, ice, fruit - all of it sprawled out in a mess of sticky color and shards. It was a small disaster, and it felt like relief. I stared at it, oddly satisfied, then looked up and smiled - the kind of crooked, absent smile that doesn’t quite know what it’s for.