Without You ✔️ (completed)

XXV. companion: آشنا

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[wrote it at 3am again... so to all the BabySisters... please forgive me🤣😂]

"Do you need anything?"

He had both of his hands under his pillow, his head resting on it. He was staring at her side. She was lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. He could see the regrets starting to make a home in her eyes. 

"No." She shook her head.

"You haven't eaten anything since last night." His mind was a battleground, a war of helplessness. He wanted to... no, he needed to take away the reminiscent of pain from her.

"I'm not hungry. My stomach is too queasy to handle anything at the moment." Her words were hush, only if somehow he could know her thoughts, he'd give anything to hear them. The skeletons of her past still haunting her eyes.

"I'm sorry." He moved his hand, gently holding her hand, interlacing their fingers in the safe space between them. "I'm sorry you relived it because of me."

"I wanted to tell you. I wanted to do it so bad for so long," Her fingers tightened around his. "But it was hard. I couldn't do this. I feel like I'm thrown back in that moment, suffocated by own memories."

"I'm sorry."

He pulled her closer, giving her the time and space to stop him if she couldn't handle the emotions or touch, but she melted in his arms, letting every wall around her crumble. He could see the bare bones of her scarred soul. The torture left scars for eternity on her.

"I promise you, Ayla, I will never bring your past again. I promise I will never throw it in your face or demand that you should've told me. You survived. You don't owe anyone any explanation for that. You will not be ashamed for choosing to survive or however you chose to go about it it, okay?" 

"Thank you. I needed to hear that. Will you remind me that when I forget to remember it?" She looked up into his eyes, a chaos of their own, a storm was still swirling in them.

"Everyday." 

"Do you think...  will I ever heal?" Her words carried a lost hope. She was broken, the stars that once danced in her eyes were merely like ghosts of the past now. 

How did he stay angry at her for so long? Why didn't he try? Why did he not follow his guts? Why...?

"You will heal, Sunshine, you will heal. But I don't know if you're even broken in the first place. He robbed you of your consent, you power to say No... he hurt you physically and emotionally, but you're too strong to have been broken by him."

"But my dignity... my honor, Z. Your wife had another man's hands on her?"

"Only if I could cut those hands-off, but for the reasons, I mentioned earlier. And since when do you fall into that cultural trap. I don't understand since when did anyone's honor was between a woman's legs and that too when you had no choice." He wrapped his hands around her face. "In no way, I will ever disrespect your trauma, your pain, whatever happened to you... but it was something out of your hands... out of your say... just like an accident. When you fracture a bone or hurt any part of your body or get into an accident do you think about the so-called honor being lost? No. Ayla, you got hurt, physically and emotionally. He traumatized you. And Yes, your pain matters, your healing matters and that are all that should matter."

"Not everybody thinks like that. You of all the people should know... you have seen cases."

"That is exactly why I know. I have seen women in court fighting for their justice, dragging those fuckers across the court on their knees. They taught me that this incident didn't define them. They chose to define what it was. Don't let this define you, love."