Ines must have been feeling very guilty and worried about Akrem, because she surprisingly turned into a chatter box few minutes after the first words we said, forgetting her eternal hatred for me and our everlasting cold war.
She kept asking me funny questions like: " If the nose bleeds, does that mean the bones are broken?" .." Will Akrem have difficulty breathing in the future? Will he snore?" .. " the doctor said the nose is a fragile area when I was in the hospital, can Akrem possibly have a brain hemorrhage?"
I had so many answers to her questions in my head in fact, like: " I have pain phobia, I have blood phobia, I have phobia from doctors occasionally too, so I don't think you should discuss these horrifying possibilities with me".." my medical knowledge is even poorer than yours, so why are you asking me in the first place?" .. " Akrem was only punched once, Shouldn't you perhaps remember the person who was totally disfigured!"
Of course I didn't dare say any of these logical words to her, she was obviously very worried and didn't wait to receive real answers from me, she only needed reassurance.
Being the understanding person that I am, I kept shaking my head intermittently, and repeating:
_"he's probably fine, a doctor will check him once he comes back."
I did my best listening to all her inquiries until Eliyas finally walked inside the hall again and freed me from her endless terrifying questions.
The moment he closed the door, he looked at me then said:
_"Nana came back safely few minutes ago, I told her you were both asleep already, we probably shouldn't inform her nor father and mother about what happened."
Ines and I both nodded in agreement.
He calmly walked towards me, then while sitting beside me on the sofa he informed Ines:
_" Iyad Lechouni's matter is already settled."
_" Thank you." She mumbled.
And yes, she didn't even ask how it was settled, such detail apparently wasn't so important.
However, she kept looking at him with expectant eyes, probably waiting to hear "other kind" of news, namely "Akrem kind" of news, He eyed her quite coldly though, then said:
_" If you want a suitable man for marriage, I can arrange proper candidates for you, You don't have to go through such unnecessary experiences in the future."
When i heard these words, i thought she would object and throw a tantrum because Eliyas was meddling in her personal life, because this was what Ines Filladi does best: yelling and accusing people.
To my total surprise, she said instead:
_" you do what you find convenient."
I could totally see my history repeating it self again at that moment: the poor Ines marrying a silent boring businessman, because this is the only category of men that he's acquainted with!
At least I knew Eliyas since childhood! I didn't even want to imagine Ines living the same days I had with a total stranger.
I examined the situation intensely then I had this crazy thought regarding her weird agreement to being arranged for marriage: If Eliyas chooses a man for her, wouldn't Akrem be on top of his choice list? Because Eliyas definitely favours and trusts him.
Then, isn't she clearly agreeing to that possibility?
_" Akrem came back safely to the villa by the way, a doctor is now examining him, If he's fine he will join us here soon." Eliyas interrupted my line of thoughts.
Right after he finished speaking, I looked at Ines again expecting to see relief on her face finally, however, she didn't seem relieved at all, instead, she looked even more nervous than earlier.
When the door was knocked few moments afterwards, she even gasped while fixing her eyes on it.
_" Come in." Eliyas said.
Then the door was opened, and Akrem walked inside.
When Ines said he was punched on the face, I expected to see a big red and purple bruise, maybe a swollen face or something.
This wasn't the case at all, his face was perfectly fine, not even a single scratch on it, only his nose was faintly bruised.
On the contrary, his hand and wrist were generously bandaged.
The moment he walked inside the room Eliyas asked him:
_"Is your hand fine?"
Akrem nodded, then explained:
_" it's not broken."
I found his answer quite inconclusive, I mean I'm not very knowledgeable in the medical field, but I suppose there are many other possible injuries except broken bones, like torn tendons, and cuts .. etc, I don't think the doctor would bandage his hand this much for fun.
Eliyas was satisfied with this answer though, and he didn't inquire any longer.
Instead, he gazed at Ines quite severely indicating she should say something at least, thankfully she got the message finally, she stood up then stepped carefully towards Akrem.
When she reached him, she looked at him guiltily for few moments then asked:
_"Are you really fine? Did the doctor examine your nose as well?"
_" I'm fine Miss Filladi, thank you for your concern."
_" I apologize for the words I said earlier, I should have been thankful for your help, but I blamed you unfairly instead, I regret my behavior towards you."
He remained silent for moments, then he finally replied:
_" you don't need to apologize Miss Filladi, it was I who crossed limits when doing my job, I should have been more thoughtful."
After he finished saying these words, he immediately looked at Eliyas and said:
_"Mr Filladi, thank you again for settling this matter on my behalf, have a good night."
You see, the Filladi siblings are just a couple of heartless people, When Akrem simply walked out, they didn't even try to stop him.
Was I really the only one who noticed that Akrem didn't raise his eyes to look at Ines not even for one second?
Am I the only one who felt how much pained his words were?!
Some people indeed live with rocks inside their chests!
I felt quite unsatisfied with them both so I soon left the guest's hall and went to my room to sleep.
Few minutes later, the empty spot on the bed beside me was finally occupied by its heartless owner.
When he shamelessly sneaked his arm in the gap under my arm and he pulled me towards him to hug me to sleep, I coldly faked being asleep, and pushed him away "in my sleep".
The following morning, there were two trending headlines on every news channel, on every daily news and even online, the first was:
Eliyas Filladi's wife finally revealed!
Followed by my picture wearing the dark red gown with a huge diamand necklace on my neck, holding Eliyas's arm with a somewhat indifferent face while he's looking at me like if I'm the rarest element on planet earth and smiling for me, and yes, my face wasn't blurred.
Other pictures of us were on different sites, and all these pictures shared one weird thing in common: me looking cold, and Eliyas looking like a fool in love.
I bet with my life that these pictures were not taken by the journalists themselves! They were instead taken by photographers personally assigned by my dearest husband, otherwise how would that expressionless creature who thinks opening the mouth to speak is already a burden, how would he miraculously smile in every freaking picture!
You see, I found these pictures very provoking, I looked like a mighty wife who is controlling her husband like if he's a ring on her finger.
There were no additional information about my background and my past so I assumed the public affairs bureau at filladis must have been tightly controlling all the content which was published.
While reading the news I came to realize that my days of freedom were officially over, I wouldn't be able to work as a field journalist, maybe a news anchor was the fairly the only last option, but even if I was offered that position I wouldn't take it since it won't be the result of my own effort.
As for working at fillladi, just forget it, I surely have no chance in going back to where I worked before and I'm not "qualified" for another position according to the CEO.
So currently, I guess I'll just put this matter aside and see what I can do about it later.
As for the second headline which was in competition with "my" news, it was:
Iyad Lechouni seriously injured in a car accident.
Which is wrong in fact, Iyad lechouni, namely Ines's ex, was not involved in a car accident, he was beaten.
The related articles had pictures of Iyad who I met the previous night, to my surprise, he turned out to be a pretty famous model who newly turned into an actor and stared in a hit movie, since I was absent from the media for long months I had no idea about his unexpectedly very famous identity.
Some articles described Iyad's "car accident" injuries, it was mentioned that he had a head injury that I already knew about. But they said he had both his arms broken! Which according to Ines's story, they were not hurt at all!
While reading the news I had goosebumps realizing that the broken arms were probably the doing of another person, someone who ruthlessly believes that it has to be "100 eyes for an eye, 100 teeth for a tooth", namely my husband.
Indeed I felt Iyad should be punished for abusing a woman, As for my husband's ways of punishing him, I preferred not to get involved in the matter so I didn't comment at all.
Speaking about Ines and Akrem, whom stay at the villa is seeming permanent by the way, things only seemed going downhill for them the few next days,
they both spoke rarely to one another in the past, after their incident though, they stopped talking all together.
Not only that, even when they met they never looked inside each other's eyes, and tried to avoid doing that at all costs.
Since they hated seeing one another so much, I didn't understand why they didn't just leave the villa and get peace of heart?
I understand why Akrem didn't leave, Eliyas found his stay quite beneficial for their work, plus the villa already had many servants permanently living in it so adding one head wasn't a problem, but why didn't Ines go back living with her parents when her health became even better than mine!
Being a third party, I suppose I really was missing an important detail, a fire was igniting between them that I couldn't see, I thought about this when I spotted Akrem smoking again in the garden.
It was a cool evening, nothing happened at work as far as I knew and no problem happened at the villa as well, but he was smoking heavily again.
I was standing at Eliyas's Bureau at the time, while my husband was busy working like the usual, I felt so idle and decided to open the window and enjoy the breeze, once I did that I was surprised to see a cloud of smoke polluting the air instead of the thin clean ear I expected to enjoy, when I checked its source, I saw Akrem standing at a corner in the garden with a cigarette between his fingers inhaling it like if it was his last breath on earth.
I felt very bothered immediately, and pensively said to Eliyas:
_" I'm reminded of baba ( my father) a lot these days."
_"Babak ( your father) ? " He asked while focusing on his work.
I continued:
_" Yes, Baba used to act quite cheerful most of the time with me, he would bring me candies behind my mother's back and take me to tour the city, but he was only doing his best in front of me, I would often spot him smoking heavily when he thinks I'm not there, he spoke little to nothing too and never expressed his true intentions, it must have been very hard on him to be Buelguassem's brother, Nana's son and mama's husband, he must have been belittled for a very long time."
I observed Akrem lighting a new cigarette and added:
_" It was his fault to care fr people who didn't appreciate him, while he smoke with a heavy heart none among them tried to comfort him, when he died alone they all soon forgot about him. After all, it is a mistake to love the wrong people."
Once I finished speaking, Eliyas stood up and he slowly stepped towards me, Once he stood behind my back he followed my eyes to see what I was looking at.
He soon realized I was looking at Akrem.
He then said:
_" It isn't a mistake to love, but it becomes toxic once we let unnecessary emotions take lead over us and ruin our better judgment."
I held his arms and made him circle my waist with them, then i rested my head on his chest and commented :
_" Of all people, you should be the last to talk about having better judgment in love Eliyas Filladi, marrying me was insanity."
He rested his chin on the top of my head just to remind me how short I am compared to him, and he whispered:
_" marrying you was the conclusion I came to after years of thinking, the one decision I never regretted no matter how hard our days together were, It would have been an insanity if I willingly gave up the only girl who made me spend years thinking about her, wouldn't it?"
I wanted to say : "so, you didn't marry me because you loved me eventually, you just didn't want all those years of thinking to go to a waste! Such a typical behavior of a businessman!"
But I didn't say this of course, considering the fact that my expectations to hear romantic words from him are already inexistent, so I just behaved like an understanding wife and I replied:
_"Indeed, marrying me was the wisest decision."
He kissed the top of my head, then as he retreated his arms and walked back to his office again he commented to my surprise:
_" You have never been so mindful about other people's business, lately you're paying too much care to my sister, surprisingly you're caring even more than that about my employee, and I don't know how to think Noursine, should I be thankful or should I be guarded?"
I didn't reply to his unnecessary comment at first, we both stared at one another without saying a word, which only increased my anger and disappointment, I mean What the hell that man is even thinking!
I needed to have great amount of tolerance before I finally replied:
_" I'm only acting humanly, if that should make you guarded, then I'll assume you have no trust in me."
Once I finished saying these words, I naturally walked towards the door planning to leave, but the man I left
behind haven't finished emptying his heart's content apparently, he quickly added the moment I held the door knob:
_" I didn't mean it that way Noursine."
I slowly turned to look at him, so he explained:
_" what I meant was that I trust Akrem to the point where I wouldn't question any behavior of his, but seeing you acting wary around him is making me wonder if I should be careful too."
So yes, I immediately realised that it was I who mistook my husband again and acted silly.
I took a deep breath, then I said:
_" I'm not wary, I'm just curious Eliyas, I'm curious to know whether Mr Houdil will walk out of this place with his pride kept."
I don't know Akrem Houdil that much, but I know for sure that if he chooses to confess to Ines and to persuade her, he will be very miserable, and if he gives up her love, he will be very miserable as well, but he will at least keep his pride.
So I'm really curious to know whether he will make the same choice as my father, if he will live with a woman who thinks she's too better for him, who will treat him worse than an animal.
I wonder if the talented and smart Akrem Houdil.. Will be another stupid in love.