Intrepid Hearts

30: Hiraeth

THIRD PERSON'S POV
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA.
14TH JUNE, 2022.

11:50pm

Zira had just returned to her apartment after working from 9:00am till 11:00pm. There was extra work stored for her the whole day and it became like an endless loop. Fortunately for her, Zayn chose to stay in the office and not roam about LA like how he does most times, so she was mostly there. Though, she had dropped Sarah at the mall before 4:00pm. Amani was still on break so she wasn't an issue.

She also had to drop off Sarah and Zayn at their mansion before returning back to the office to complete her assigned tasks for the day. Adam had also left her for the day, to complete other private errands for Mahmud. She hadn't eaten anything since after her sandwich breakfast. Unbeknownst to her, Zayn had called Mabel to inquire about her favorite meal in which she gladly filled him in on. He ended up ordering lunch from her favorite diner for her.

By lunch, meaning a whole chicken and Vanilla Milkshake.

Although, Zira being Zira didn't exactly show her full gratitude to him but deep inside her sheathed heart she was extremely grateful for his act of kindness.

She stood outside the door of her apartment contemplating whether to burst into tears or to just sleep it off. After long hours of typing, writing, moving from one department to another, she was beyond exhausted. But if she was being sincere to herself, she knew that wasn't why she was at the verge of breaking down.

Everything that has happened in her life till now was heart wrenching. There are times where she had questioned herself about the whole revenge scheme. Can she really pull it off, alone? Can she avenge her family's death? If she manages to tackle that, what's next?

Will she be happy like she was sixteen years ago? Will she come back to how she was before? Will she change her name from Zira to Zainab? Will she finally come out to Mabel on who she really is? What about the new characters that had just recently joined her chapter? What about Aryan?

She knew the answers to most of those questions but then again, what's the point of it all? Yes, she'll be satisfied to know that her family's murderers get what they deserve but one thing was certain. Zira was never going to be the same after that.

Scrapping out the vengeance, what's the point of her life?

She was tired. She was tired of everything and everyone. Living was so much harder than dying and she was a living experience to that.

Hiraeth.

That was what she has been suffering from for sixteen years till now and it almost feels like a mental illness at this point.

Hiraeth; a homesickness for a home to which
you cannot return; a home which maybe never
was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the
lost places of your past. A blend of homesickness and nostalgia and longing for your past.

Swallowing her emotions and deciding to just sleep it off, hoping that the next day could be better than the previous. That was all she could do. Hope.

Inserting her key into the little hole, she twisted the door knob and made her way into her apartment. But was she met right in front of her made her heartbeat skip continuously. She couldn't move from her spot, not like she attempted to.

Zira felt completely overwhelmed and disoriented. Her mind was racing as she couldn't focus on anything. Her heart was pounding in her chest and her body felt like it was shaking. It was like everything around her had suddenly become blurry and couldn't make sense of what was happening.