The other woman

Author's name: Karima Ahaddad

I thought of Najwa as I stared at the eerie streetlights, and I felt like I wanted more happiness, that I wanted to stay close to him forever. I didn't know if it was because I wanted him or because I wanted to touch Najwa's skin against his. Because of my obsession with her, I didn't know if thinking of her brought me closer to him or pushed me away. Sometimes I would sneak into his arms when I thought of her, wanting to stay there forever, as if I were afraid of losing him because of my madness over her. Sometimes, I would see her image in his eyes and continue looking at them, recalling with pleasure all the conversations they had had and the letters they had exchanged. Sometimes, I would put on her lipstick and kiss him until it stained his lips, not because I wanted to remind him of her, but because at certain moments, I longed to be her.

About the author:
Karima Ahaddad is a Moroccan novelist and writer based in Istanbul. She has worked in journalism and digital content production since 2014. Her novels, *Cactus Daughters*, were published in 2018 and *Turkish Dream* in 2021. She won the Moroccan Writers Union Award for Young Writers in the Short Story category and the Mohamed Zafzaf Prize for the Novel for her novel, *Cactus Daughters*, in 2020.