Too Little, Too Late

52

"I want a divorce, Ibrahim...Please."

Ibrahim couldn't breathe. Not when the pain was cutting him into way too pieces. Not when every part of him screamed yet nothing came out of his mouth. Not when Ayra sat on the other side of the island, staring at him with a smile that killed him inside while her eyes reflected everything she was trying to hide.

His voice was raw when he finally found it. "Ayra...Ayra, please. Ayra, I'm begging you, please don't do this."

She stopped smiling and it killed him even more than her smile did. Her eyes glassed over with tears that she held back and Ibrahim had never wanted so badly for the ground to swallow him up or for it all to be a nightmare he'd wake up from.

Ayra spoke with the strength she knew she didn't have. "I'm not changing my mind, Ibrahim." Not even with how she internally tore apart over and over with how hurt he was and how hurt she'd been for months. Not when a part of her that she didn't know existed begged her to stay; begged her to forgive him. "I've had a lot of time to think about it so please do not think I just came up with it because I don't know better. I want a divorce and I'm not going back on that decision."

"Ayra..." He moved on his body's instructions. The legs of the island chair he occupied scraped against the ground as he pushed it back and stood but he didn't care about the sound. He walked around the island and fell on his knees. "Ayra, please. Ayra, I'm going to do anything you want and I'll give you whatever you want, no matter what it is, but please. Please. I won't survive this, Ayra, please..." His sob wrecked him whole. "Ayra, please..."

Ayra looked away, blinking furiously so no tear slipped. There were more knives in her chest and all of them were twisting with all their might, hurting her all at the same time and ensuring she knew what pain actually felt like. Letting out a shaky breath, she sniffle and turned back to him. His tears were arrows and they hit their every mark. His pleas were deadlier weapons that ensured they worked perfectly well.

"There's only one thing I want, Ibrahim, and you really can't give it to me no matter how hard you're going to try."

"Let me just hear what it is, Ayra, please."

Salt rubbed on her wounds and it stung, in every part of her. "Take me back to where I was before I met you, Ibrahim, and then leave."

Ibrahim died a thousand times in that very moment. "Ayra..." He couldn't do that. He knew that all too well. "Ayra, please..."

"On that day in August, I had plans to surprise you with lunch or dinner." Recalling everything that happened that day had never hurt so much. "I was over the moon, Ibrahim, and all I wanted was to have that one meal with you and tell you just how much I loved you and how much I was grateful to have you. You came home early and I hid behind the wall that separates the foyer from the living room, waiting to jump on you once you walked in and then laugh in your ear. But that never happened and do you know why?"

A tear slipped and slid down her left cheek. "Because you were so into Bella and making things right between the both of you with sex and everything else that you had no idea I was right on the other side, listening to every single thing and doing my best to not make a single sound."

If her asking for a divorce and then asking that he took her back to where she was before he came into his life had been painful, finding out she'd been right inside the apartment that day in August was a death by beheading sentence for Ibrahim. Shame, regret, pain...everything rolled into one and he had never been sorrier in his entire life.

"You have no idea how it felt listening to the both of you. You have no idea how it felt to not recognise the both of you; people I'd loved and looked up to you for most of my life. You'd called me Sevigilim before and I had no idea it was by accident and that it wasn't meant for me until that afternoon. And then to find out that the trip to Santorini was never meant for the both of us? That killed me, Ibrahim. Everything killed me!"