THE DIVER

PART 26: OUT OF MY DEPTH

NASLI POV

She's staring at me.
Should I go on? Really tell her. He's not going to be happy but I've started now...
We both look at Can, his eyes closed and then I guide her into my office and close the door. Her eyes are drawn to the photos of him on the shelf.

"Sanem, Can is an Olympic Athlete. A Gold medal winner. The best in the world at something. Diving.  Do you understand what that takes?
It's not by accident, or chance, or luck!
He trains, hard. He studies, hard. He works, hard. He does everything..."

I stop because she's gone a bright shade of pink. Her head falls down to inspect her fingers and she presses her lips together.
I think she gets my drift.

"He pushes his body to the limits. He knows exactly what it can do and what he needs to do to make it work for him.
When he dives, he will make minor adjustments, from a pointed left toe to a 2 degree angle of his head. An extra stretch or placement in a finger or joint. He's worked out how heavy he needs to be and where he needs to build muscle to be more effective.
He's perfected breathing techniques in and out of the water. Measures the correct amount of breaths he needs while in the air, rotating, ready to hit the surface of the water at 35 mph. Oxygen levels in the lungs, training them to expand and contract.
He can slow his heart rate down at the precise moment he decides, to prepare himself.

The old saying "My body is a temple."
I always think of Can with that one.

And then he met you and I'm sorry if this is over stepping the mark, but he quite simply, couldn't control himself! End of!"

"We were drunk!"

"Exactly. He was drunk in love with you! He just couldn't stop his body from reacting. His brain was high on the dopamine. The bodies natural love drug.
You must have felt the same...no birth control? Either of you? And you still did it. You let him... "

She puts her hands over her eyes and I go to her and hold her shoulders.
She regains some composure and sets herself to look at me again.

"Sanem, I'm not trying to shame you, really I'm not. I love that Can has found you and that you are who you are. Because you are perfect for him.
And Deniz is... Well, I could cry with happiness.
When I had Elif, Can was so broody. They say a woman's biological clock is ticking as she approaches 30. When he held her for the first time, he sounded like a bomb ready to explode."

She holds herself around the middle.

"And then that morning, when he stood in front of me. I saw the panic in his eyes, searching for you. I felt his heart, as a joke, and it was almost pounding out of his chest. And he couldn't stop it...
Because he was thinking of you...knowing he'd let you slip through his fingers."