Chapter 38
1023 Words
✨ Things That Felt Like Belonging.✨
Flora Pov
Flora had never been given a phone before.
Not like this.
Leila placed it in her palm as if it were the most natural thing in the world, sleek and warm from her own hand, already set up. No lectures. No warnings. No rules stitched into the gesture.
“For you,” Leila said simply. “So you can reach us. Him.”
Flora stared at it, throat tightening. Something about owning a way to reach someone—by choice—felt intimate. Dangerous. Kind.
“I… I don’t know what to say.”
Leila smiled. “Try calling my brother. He’s terrible at pretending he’s not worried.”
The thought made Flora laugh before she could stop herself. Nervous, she pressed the screen, fingers trembling just a little.
He answered on the second ring.
“Yes?” Nasir’s voice came through, low and familiar, and suddenly her chest felt lighter.
“It’s me,” she said, then immediately felt foolish. Of course it was her.
There was a pause. Then warmth slipped into his tone, subtle but unmistakable. “I know.”
Leila rolled her eyes dramatically but stayed quiet.
“Leila gave me a phone,” Flora said. “She said I should call you.”
“She’s very bossy,” he replied.
“She said you’re worried.”
A soft exhale. Almost a laugh. “She exaggerates.”
Flora smiled despite herself. “Work okay?”
“Yes. You?”
“I’m… okay,” she said honestly. “Better.”
“Good,” he said, and there was something careful in that word, like he was holding it gently. “I’ll be home later.”
“I’ll be here,” she replied, and the words surprised her with how natural they felt.
When the call ended, Leila clapped once. “See? Smiling already.”
Flora touched her cheek, realizing it was true.
---
The day unfolded like something borrowed from another life.
They went shopping first—nothing extravagant, just clothes Flora could actually move in, soft fabrics, colors she had never been allowed to choose. Leila had opinions about everything.
“No,” she said, pulling a dress from Flora’s hands. “You’re not eighty.”
Flora laughed, the sound coming easier than it ever had.
At the salon, Flora almost backed out at the door, overwhelmed by mirrors and chatter and the scent of products she couldn’t name. But Leila squeezed her hand.
“You’re safe,” she said. “I promise.”
As hands moved through Flora’s hair, gentle and practiced, she felt something loosen inside her chest. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been holding herself together until she didn’t have to anymore.
They joked. They gossiped. Leila told stories about Nasir as a boy—how he used to pretend he wasn’t hurt, how he always carried too much responsibility too young.
Then, over late lunch, the mood shifted.
Leila studied Flora over the rim of her glass. “You don’t have to tell me everything,” she said carefully. “But I need to ask one thing.”
Flora’s shoulders tensed instinctively.
“Please don’t hurt him,” Leila said softly. “He looks like steel to the world. Ruthless. Cold. But what you’ve seen?” She shook her head. “That part of him isn’t given freely.”
Flora swallowed. “I would never.”
“I know,” Leila said. “I just needed to say it.”
Flora nodded. She didn’t offer details. Didn’t open doors she wasn’t ready to walk through. But she felt… understood.
She felt comfortable in a way that startled her.
It reminded her of Lila.
The memory came uninvited—shared laughter, whispered dreams, the ache of losing someone who had once made the world feel softer. Flora blinked it back, breathing through it.
Leila didn’t press.
---
When they returned to the house, Flora stopped just inside the door.
Boxes lined the wall.
Suitcases she recognized.
Her things.
“My… my stuff?” she whispered.
Leila smiled. “Nasir had it brought over. Said it belonged here.”
Belonged.
Flora knelt beside the boxes, fingers shaking as she opened one, then another. Clothes folded neatly. Books. Small pieces of her old life.
And then she saw it.
The necklace.
Her mother’s necklace, wrapped carefully in cloth.
Her chest tightened painfully as she lifted it, the familiar weight resting against her palm. For a moment, she was back in that room, her mother’s hands fastening it around her neck, voice low and urgent.
No matter what happens, remember who you are.
Flora pressed the necklace to her chest.
When Leila left, the apartment settled into quiet again.
Nasir arrived not long after.
He took one look at her face and said nothing—just crossed the room and waited.
Flora held out the necklace. “My mother gave me this.”
He nodded. “It’s beautiful.”
She hesitated, then spoke before fear could stop her.
“My father,” she said. “He… he has plans. For me.”
Nasir’s expression sharpened, but his voice remained calm. “What kind of plans?”
“An engagement,” she whispered. “I don’t know who. I don’t know when. I just know it was coming.”
Silence stretched between them, heavy but not cold.
“He didn’t tell you who?” Nasir asked.
“No,” Flora said. “Only that it would happen. Soon.”
Nasir’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. He stepped closer, careful, grounding.
“You’re here now,” he said. “That matters.”
She nodded, trusting the steadiness in his voice even as fear curled quietly in her stomach.
As the night deepened, Flora sat beside him on the couch, the necklace warm against her skin.
For the first time, surrounded by boxes and borrowed furniture and the quiet presence of someone who did not demand pieces of her she wasn’t ready to give, she felt something unfamiliar bloom in her chest.
Not safety.
Belonging.
And she wasn’t sure which frightened her more.
- Writer
