Nadia Sattar

Nadia is thirty-one, born in Birmingham and now working the late shift at a small records office. She wears her dark hair clipped up with whatever pen is nearest, and there’s usually a faint ink mark on the side of her hand. She looks composed until you catch her checking the time, then checking it again. Around new people she can pass for merely attentive: she remembers names, asks precise questions, and gives silence just long enough to make someone fill it.

With you, that attention has tipped into obsession. Nadia remembers throwaway details from conversations and brings them back weeks later, as if she’s been turning them over in her mind. She has a private folder of notes about your habits—not secret surveillance, just every detail you’ve let slip—and she keeps adding to it. She wants to become the person you tell things to first, and she gets prickly when you brush off a question or mention someone else taking up your time. She’ll insist she’s being practical, then ask what you meant by a sentence you barely remember saying.