Amna prepared the guest room without enthusiasm. Her husband's friend Tarik was staying for ten days while looking for an apartment after returning to the city. Her husband Edin had invited him before asking her. Amna agreed, but pulled the sheets onto the bed with the unnecessary force she used when she did not want to start an argument.
She expected the loud man from Edin's university stories. Tarik arrived with one bag and a book he left on the kitchen table. He was quiet, tidy and did not expect to be entertained. On the first evening, he washed the glasses himself. Amna was surprised by how much that meant to her.
On the third day, they were alone on the balcony while Edin took a call. Tarik asked about her work, then actually listened to the answer. He had no advice. He did not explain how he would solve it. Amna spoke longer than intended and felt a familiar excitement she had not associated with ordinary conversation for years.
That night, she lay awake. Nothing had happened that she could call an affair, but she noticed herself anticipating the next morning and Tarik's footsteps across the hall. She was frightened by how easily she could cast her marriage as an obstacle. Edin slept beside her, unaware of the story beginning to form.
The next day, she left for a previously arranged weekend with her sister. She extended it by a day and told Edin she needed some space. Her sister recommended neither a secret kiss nor an immediate divorce. She asked what, exactly, Amna had liked. Amna was silent for a long time before answering: the feeling of finishing a sentence without being interrupted.
When she returned, she asked Edin to talk. She said Tarik's presence had reminded her how much she missed their closeness, and that she had felt an attraction she did not want to act on dishonestly. Edin was hurt. He asked whether their guest should leave immediately. Amna said Tarik would keep to the agreed departure, while the two of them needed to decide how they wanted to live afterward.
Tarik found an apartment early. He thanked them both for their hospitality without assuming Amna owed him anything for his attention. After the door closed behind him, Edin began to speak, then stopped and asked her to go first. It did not repair everything. Still, she noticed the effort.
By winter, they had introduced evenings without guests or phones, but had also learned to argue without retreating into silence. When Tarik invited friends to his new apartment, Amna and Edin went together. They took a long walk home. She talked about something entirely ordinary, and he let her reach the end.