Her deliberate absence from her family at Christmas, meant to be a shield, soon proved to be a hollow refuge. The silence of her own apartment became oppressive, a vacuum that filled with the dark, insistent echoes of the past, memories of Zayan's deceptions, the sting of Zahra's hidden rivalry, and the crushing weight of her own misplaced trust. Loneliness wrapped around her tighter than any winter chill. đ
Inevitably, she found her true sanctuary at the AZ Studio. Immersing herself in work became her only solace. She buried herself in the year-end financial audits, the meticulous filing of documents, and the logistical planning for the coming quarter. The busyness was a blessed anesthetic.
Her schedule lost all rhythm. She could be found at her desk at dawn, during the quiet lunch hour, or deep into the night. A perpetually cooling cup of coffee became a fixture on her desk, and the electric lamp burned through the darkness until morning. The studio, empty of its daytime creative bustle, became her solitary kingdom of numbers and ledgers. â
Sometimes, the paperwork was not enough. She would venture into the storage room, where the physical ghosts of Zayan's passion resided. She would sift through his finished canvases, his preliminary sketches, confronting the legacy of the man who had built this place. Among them was the last portrait he had been working on before his deathâa painting of Zahra. Anisa would sometimes stand before it, not with jealousy, but with a cold, analytical curiosity, studying the lines and hues, trying to decipher what he saw in her that was so different from herself.
The final week of December passed in this suspended state. Anisa didn't so much live through it as she endured it, one task, one ledger, one silent hour at a time, within the walls of the studio that was both her burden and her only safe harbor. đ„