Comeback

30 - Her soul for me

Can

We stay like this for hours, she needs this obviously and I don't want to put pressure on her, I don't ask for anything better than to hold her on my chest and caress her back and hair slowly.

The sky at sunset is filled with a thousand shades and now shows off a myriad of stars that not even in my long sea voyages have I seen so many and I'm in the only place in the world where I want to be, with her.

I feel her move and I lower my gaze to look into her eyes, there is something new in her look, she puts her hand on my cheek and whispers:

- Teşekkür ederim, thank you for your enormous patience, I need some time, I need to understand and assimilate the situation and then we will talk, tamam, okay? We will talk about what happened-.

- Whatever you want Sanem -

He gets up, takes me by the hand and we walk back to the cottage, it's strange this new situation but it's clear that we are both happy to have the chance to start again, a blank sheet of paper on which to write pages of a new life, a life to live together I hope.

While Sanem is getting changed I begin to get busy for dinner, I see her enter the kitchen and join me to prepare and set the table, she tells me about Mihriban, Bulut and Denise, about her new life at the estate and about the creams, she avoids mentioning the clinic. There will come a time when I will explain to her exactly what role I have played in the last few months, but not now, as we eat she tells me about the book, how it was crucial for her to get through a bad time.

At a certain point she gets up to go to her room, she comes back to the table with a notebook in her hand, I recognize it, I saw her writing in that notebook for days and days in the garden of the nursing home, she hands it to me.

- I would like you to read it, here you will find all my mistakes, my reasons, my regrets, I have tried to explain how I felt and why I made certain decisions, let's start from here, from our past together then we will face what drove us apart. What do you think? -

I didn't expect something like this, I was afraid that she would reject me, that she would push me away, that she would be resentful for having abandoned her, instead she's putting her heart in my hands, what an exceptional woman she is I realize every day more and more, it's incredible.
I accept it with emotion, it's the greatest gift she could give me, I'm touched, it's a gesture of unconditional love, she's giving me her bare soul.
I look into her eyes and there is no need for words, she nods and returns to the table.

When we finish eating we set up the kitchen together, I'm slightly embarrassed I don't know what my place is right now, I want to be close to her but I also don't want to suffocate her or deprive her of her space.
She removes me from any embarrassment by slipping on a heavy cardigan and, taking me by the hand, leading me out of the house.
We walk in silence along the paths in the woods illuminated by the light of the moon, I have often followed her in the previous nights on her nightly walks without her noticing me.
She tells me how wonderful it feels to live in this place, the sense of freedom and the ability to breathe that she has regained thanks to these places, it's a pleasure to listen to her and I wish she would never stop.

We pass by the pier and stop again to look at the stars, she turns to me.

- I don't know how to thank you for what you did for me yesterday, I thought it was all a dream but that was reality too, wasn't it? I fell into the sea and you saved my life -

-Yes, you don't have to thank me, Sanem for you I would give my own life without hesitation, I would do it again right away if necessary -

She hugs me and lays her cheek on my heart, at the level of the albatross tattoo, we sigh in unison for the sense of bliss that that moment gives us, it doesn't seem true to us to be there together in that moment, we enjoy each other's presence for moments that seem eternal, then again she takes my hand and we go back to the cottage.

We sit on the couch and she simply snuggles against me, once again there is no need for words, just being together is enough.