A chance to love again

X

Can

I feel like a miserable man.
I could leave at this very moment for the Balkans or for any place in the world that might come into my mind and I would surely find a service engagement.
I could go back to my adventurous life touching five continents with no ties or limits.
I could go back to being the famous international photographer who reaches the highest peaks or crosses the most impenetrable forests, and make money and prestige out of it.
I could do all this, I could do anything that comes into my head and instead I just want Sanem... I can't do anything but think of Sanem's smile, Sanem's touch, Sanem's eyes, I want to see her, I don't ever want to let her go, I want to hold her close to me.
I miss Sanem in the agency every single damn moment since she left.
A few days after she left the hospital, her resignation came, I couldn't help but accept it feeling that with that she had severed all ties with me, she had foreclosed any chance of us meeting.
I was going crazy not knowing about her, how she was, how her healing process was going, I wanted to know every detail.
I felt powerless, a lion in a cage, I was restless and couldn't even work anymore, the only person I could talk to with an open heart about what had happened and how I felt was my father.

He is in Cuba at the moment, his treatment is going very well and he is on the road to recovery.

I had called him that night, after returning from the hospital where I had read in the eyes of the woman I loved a sad, terrible truth: I had lost her, I had done too much wrong with her.
He answered on the first ring, he must have realised something serious must have happened to call him at that time of night - Oğlum ne oldu, son what happened? -

Hearing his worried voice broke all my resistance, all my restraints, I started to tell everything from the beginning. He already knew about Sanem, I had called him the night I had revealed to her that I was her albatross, I was as happy as ever and I had confided in him that I had found in Istanbul what I had searched for all over the world without knowing it.
I told him about our estrangement after discovering the lies she had told me from the beginning to cover her manoeuvres in cahoots with Emre and how love for her had pushed me to change, how I had understood that in life not everything is black and white, that there are a thousand shades and Sanem was the most beautiful rainbow for me.
Our being together again only to find ourselves again in a whirlwind of tensions, misunderstandings and lies, my exaggerated anger at discovering that he had kept the sale of the perfume from me and then...
Then I had to tell him what I did that damn night, what happened to her that damn night... I cried with him as even the eight-year-old abandoned by his mother had never done, my anger at Polen's machinations and at the terrible idea Sanem must have had of me thinking I was back with that woman.
I confided in him how ashamed I felt to have treated her so cruelly, to have hurt her so much with my brutal gestures and sharp words, she didn't deserve it, but above all she didn't deserve that I let her leave the hut alone as if she had no importance for me, without caring about her safety, without any regard.
She is a unique being, a precious creature and I should have treated her as such, with all the consideration and care she deserved.

It was a relief to be able to share with someone all the regret I felt, I found in him the support I needed, the friendly shoulder to cry on and since then I call him every night to talk, I think at this point he is the only thing that allows me not to go crazy.
I'm powerless, I have no way of being able to see her and explain, besides why should she listen to me when I didn't when she begged me to listen to her?
It's been two weeks since she was discharged from the hospital, I know because I heard Layla tell Cey Cey that she was back home, the whole agency is going in small groups to see her, only I am precluded from seeing her.
I asked Emre to go with Deren so he can report back to me, I wait agitatedly for his return to the agency, I walk around the office back and forth in agitation, I can't sit still.

- Can? -

- Emre, then? How is she? Did you find her well? -

- Sakin ol, calm down, I'll tell you. She still has her wrist in a cast and I heard her tell Deren that she has to keep wearing a tight bandage on her chest for another week so that the rib is fixed in the right position, she is stiff and limited in her movements because of this constriction, but all in all I found her well, maybe a little thinner but she is fine-.

I nervously pass my hand from my forehead to my hair, how much anguish she's going through because of that damned accident, I'm afflicted by the sense of guilt for not having done anything to prevent it from happening.

Emre looks at me worriedly, I try to disguise my anguish.

- Listen, I have to tell you something, I heard her agreeing with Deren and Guliz to meet for tea on the Besiktas waterfront on Saturday afternoon, you might be able to see her if you're around there, what do you think? -

I feel like I can breathe again after so many days of apnea, I have the chance to see her again, it doesn't seem real, I'm looking forward to Saturday so I can set my eyes on her again.

I have missed her terribly, a sentence comes to mind at this moment that I read some time ago and that now appears to me as a crude truth:

"It's strange how many ways there are to lose someone. You miss the things they did and who they were, but you also miss who you were to them. The way everything you said and did was beautiful, funny and important. How much you mattered"

( Robin Roe)