Everywhere Still, A Continuation of Everywhere You Are

Chapter 5

Selin stood in the doorway of the spare room, smiling to herself as she remembered the day Demir had taken off his shirt to wipe paint from her eye.  Shirtless Demir in front of her had given her such butterflies in her stomach. She was already so attracted to him by that day, and he was still trying to drive her out of the house. She smoothed her hand over the wall and imagined the possibilities for the room. Maybe a map of the world on the wall or something inspired by their travels. She walked down the hall to the other room and did the same. She played over and over in her head Demir's words... childrens' rooms.

"Yeh," Selin said out loud sweetly and smiled at the thought.

She climbed the steps up to the third floor and looked around. Her travels with Demir brought about a deeper love of both him and photography. He suggested when they return to Istanbul, she take some time to explore it as a career. She fed ChiChi and looked around the room, knowing she could make a studio for herself and still have enough space to accommodate a desk for Demir. They could share the space, but from now on, no more containers for pens and pencils sitting on a desk. All of those would be placed in a drawer or she'd find a way to secure the containers to the wall.

"Chi Chi, would you like me to work here with you all day? Of course you do!" 

She purposely walked over to her bed and picked up the framed picture of herself with Demir. She hated to hide it away and wished she had given it to Demir to take with him. She walked over to one of her locker cabinets and slipped it inside a folded up sweatshirt. 

Her snow globe on the shelf caught her eye as she closed her closet door. She picked it up, turned it upside down to see the snow falling and thought over their conversation in India one afternoon in their hotel. It was the first of many conversations clearing up their shared past.

"Come sit down for a moment." Demir led her to the bed by both hands. "It's important to me that you know a few things," he said as they both sat down.

"Tamam," she replied.

"I never had feelings for Alara. No matter what she said to the contrary or tried to put you through. No matter how it looked to you on any given day. No matter what confused thoughts you contrived in your head based on things I said or how I acted in front of you." 

"But you often seemed to show her affection and importance," Selin said. "And before you left, you were so cold to me because of the lie to Vedat that I was Merve."

Demir cupped his hand to his forehead. "It was a very confusing time. You and I kept sharing all of these moments that I kept fighting against. There was this war going on inside me. Wanting to trust you. Wanting to ignore you. Then wanting to ignore everyone in the world around me, except you. That uncertain part of me I wanted to keep hidden from everyone, so I tried harder at the part of me I had come to rely on--the businessman who sometimes used his charms. But that side of me was tested greatly. That side of me lost many battles in the war too. I could feel myself lose deep inside every time I looked at you. After the lie, maybe a part of me wanted to hurt you, but only because I was hurting so much."

Selin thought over his last words about hurt. She had remembered this from the mountain house.

"It only hurt so much because you...wait a minute, Demir are you saying you already loved me at that point?" she asked.

Demir's eyes narrowed but caught the sunlight as it streamed into the room across his face. How did she not know?

"Very much so," he answered.

"Awe, Demir," she cooed as she leaned in and kissed him sweetly on his cheek. She looked around their room. "But in Paris, didn't you also share a hotel room like we are?"

"Absolutely not!" Demir said adamantly.

"But you took her on a date to the opera, didn't you?" Selin reminded him, having heard that story.

"I prefer to say I attended the opera with her. Do you know why I agreed to escort her to the opera when she asked?"

"Why?" Selin inquired.

"Remember when you asked me if I had rented a tuxedo?"

"Yes," Selin said remembering their difficult sausage and tea breakfast after the meeting with Yildrim bey.

"I could have done so, rented one that is, but I decided going out to buy one gave me an excuse to be without her for a couple of hours, as I told her I needed to buy something suitable to wear to the opera if I was to attend such an event with her."

"Ohh!" Selin responded brightly. "She didn't insist on going with you?"

"Of course she did, but I persuaded her that it was something a man preferred to do alone."

"Yeh," Selin said sweetly starting to understand how he escaped Alara's clutches.

"When I went out shopping on my own, that's when I bought you the snow globe and scarf. And when I brought it home to you, I wanted to show you as much as I could how much I thought of you while I was away. You were all I thought about while I was in Paris. But you were so..."

"I didn't know... I mean I didn't understand what you were trying to tell me. Oh Demir!"

"I know. Alara's sting was too poisonous at that time." Demir sighed. "If you only knew how much I wanted you to wrap your arms around me and hug me to thank me, the same way you had clung to me after your nightmare."

"Demir? Really? This is what you wanted from me?"

Demir looked into her eyes, almost afraid to see how she would react to his self-confessed vulnerability.

"I wrapped the scarf around your shoulders and, for one moment, pretended I was your boyfriend. If you only knew how much I wanted to hear you say that you missed me terribly, but all ..." Demir stopped.

"All I did was give you a hard time, over Alara."

Demir nodded, a pained expression on his face. Without hesitation, Selin pressed her lips to his forcibly, bringing her thumbs to his face and rubbing his cheeks. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"I'm sorry, too," Demir replied, sliding her  slender arms up and around his neck, letting her hug him tightly. He breathed in her hair and rubbed loving strokes along her back.

"Oh Demir, I love my gifts even more now," Selin cried and clung to him desperately. "I love you even more now, too. Thank you for telling me."

Selin heard the doorbell ring, pulling her out of her memory, and braced herself for whatever torture she was about to endure at the hands of her own parents.

- - - - - - - - - -

A/n...every time I come on wattpad I completely forget how to add a new chapter lol I'm new and this whole wattpad thing works differently than I expected. 

It never fully felt like Selin knew for sure that Demir didn't have feelings for Alara. She went back and forth telling herself (or talking to Sakyz) if he did or didn't. I wanted her to know definitively, straight from Demir. So now Selin knows he didn't kiss Alara and Demir knows she didn't kiss Arda.

A little spoiler: Demir is going to have another revelation from his time with Alara and Yildrim that will affect him and Selin later--I look forward to sharing that. thanks for reading.