Life slowly settled into a strange rhythm.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't waking up every morning wondering what new problem was waiting for me.
My business was beginning to breathe again.
Not thriving.
Not yet.
But breathing.
I had started with whatever little I had left. One customer became two. Two became five. Some days were still painfully slow, and there were moments when I questioned whether I would ever recover everything Mohammed had taken from me.
But I was trying.
And trying felt different when I wasn't trying to save someone else.
James was there too.
He had become a familiar part of my days again.
Sometimes I would wake up at his house and hear the chickens making noise outside before I even opened my eyes.
Other mornings, I would wake up because a mosquito had decided my leg was breakfast.
"James!"
He would laugh from the other side of the room.
"What?"
"Something bit me."
"You have blood in your body. What did you expect?"
I would throw a pillow at him.
"You are not funny."
He would laugh harder.
Those little moments made me happy.
They reminded me of the person I used to be before everything became complicated.
During the day, I helped him at the poultry farm.
The work was exhausting, but somehow it gave me peace.
There was something therapeutic about being busy with my hands.
Feed.
Water.
Cleaning.
Carrying things.
Sweeping.
Sometimes we worked under the scorching sun until my clothes were soaked with sweat.
I'd complain.
"My back is finished."
James would look at me.
"You said you wanted to help."
"I wanted to help, not die."
He would laugh.
And I'd pretend to be angry.
At night, we'd sit together and talk about ordinary things.
My business.
His farm.
Food.
Money.
Family.
Our plans.
Sometimes we even talked about the future.
Those conversations made me believe that perhaps we really had become stronger.
Maybe the nine months apart had taught us what we had failed to understand before.
Maybe we finally appreciated each other.
But then there were the little things.
Things so small that I couldn't even call them problems.
Not yet.
One morning, James's phone rang while we were eating.
He looked at the screen.
For just a second, his face changed.
It wasn't fear.
It wasn't exactly excitement either.
It was recognition.
Then he stood up.
"I'll be back."
He walked outside to answer.
I watched him through the window.
He stayed away longer than I expected.
When he returned, I smiled.
"Everything okay?"
"Yes."
"Who was calling?"
"Someone from work."
I nodded.
"Okay."
I didn't ask again.
After everything I had experienced with Mohammed, I had promised myself I wouldn't become paranoid.
People were allowed to have private conversations.
People were allowed to have friends.
People were allowed to receive calls without explaining every detail.
I didn't want to become controlling.
I didn't want James to feel like he was being punished for the mistakes of another man.
So I let it go.
Another day, I noticed he had bought a new shirt.
I stared at it.
"Since when do you wear this style?"
He looked down at himself.
"What is wrong with it?"
"Nothing."
"You don't like it?"
"I didn't say that."
He smiled.
"People change."
I laughed.
"Apparently."
He looked at me for a moment.
Then he walked away.
The statement stayed in my head.
People change.
Of course they did.
I had changed.
James had changed.
Nine months was a long time.
We couldn't expect to pause our lives and resume them exactly where we had stopped.
I understood that.
Still, sometimes I felt like I was learning James all over again.
There were names I didn't recognize.
Places he mentioned that I had never heard of.
New jokes I didn't understand.
New habits.
New expressions.
Nothing suspicious.
Just unfamiliar.
One afternoon, we were walking home from the farm when I noticed him checking his phone repeatedly.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then again.
I finally laughed.
"What are you waiting for?"
He looked at me.
"Nothing."
"You've checked that phone five times."
He laughed.
"You're counting?"
"Maybe."
"You haven't changed."
I smiled.
"I have."
"How?"
I looked at him.
"I notice things now."
For a moment, his smile disappeared.
It was brief.
So brief that I almost convinced myself I hadn't seen it.
Then he smiled again.
"I know."
I didn't respond.
We continued walking.
The road was quiet.
Our shoulders occasionally touched as we walked.
I wanted to reach for his hand.
I did.
He squeezed mine.
And just like that, the strange feeling disappeared.
Or at least I wanted it to.
That evening, while James was showering, his phone vibrated.
I wasn't looking for it.
It was sitting on the table beside me.
The screen lit up.
My eyes automatically moved toward it.
A message.
I saw only a few words before the screen went dark again.
I hope you're okay. I…
That was all.
I stared at the phone.
My heart beat faster.
Who was that?
Why were they checking on James?
Was it a friend?
A relative?
Someone from the farm?
Someone from work?
I didn't know.
I looked away.
I didn't touch the phone.
I didn't open the message.
I didn't even mention it when James came out.
He walked into the room drying his hair with a towel.
He looked at me.
"Why are you quiet?"
"I'm tired."
He nodded.
"Come and sleep."
I followed him.
But that night, sleep refused to come.
I lay beside him staring at the ceiling.
The message kept replaying in my mind.
I hope you're okay.
There was nothing wrong with those words.
Absolutely nothing.
People said them every day.
But my heart didn't understand logic.
It remembered.
It remembered Mohammed.
The lies.
The excuses.
The things I had ignored because I wanted to believe.
I turned toward James.
He was asleep.
His breathing was slow and peaceful.
I studied his face.
This was the man who had held me while I cried.
The man who had listened to everything Mohammed had done.
The man who had opened his home to me when I had nowhere else I wanted to be.
The man I had once left.
The man I had returned to.
I didn't want suspicion to destroy what we had rebuilt.
So I told myself to stop thinking.
Maybe it was nothing.
Probably nothing.
And yet, somewhere deep inside me, a tiny voice whispered:
Something happened while you were gone.
I closed my eyes.
"No," I whispered to myself.
I wasn't going to destroy a second chance with fear.
I wasn't going to accuse James without evidence.
I wasn't going to make him pay for Mohammed's sins.
So I chose silence.
For that night.
But silence doesn't erase questions.
It only gives them time to grow.
And mine had already begun growing.
The next morning, James kissed my forehead before leaving for the farm.
"See you later."
"Okay."
He smiled and walked away.
I watched him until he disappeared.
Then I looked down at my phone.
A strange feeling sat heavily in my chest.
I didn't know what it meant.
I didn't know whether it was intuition or simply fear.
But I knew one thing.
The nine months we had spent apart had left behind pieces of a life I knew nothing about.
And sooner or later, those pieces were going to find their way back to me.
I just didn't know what picture they would create.