The Love I Leave Behind

Out in the Open

"Abi-" I look up to the voice of Engin coming through the door. 

"She's not coming back Engin." I tell him as he comes closer with a sad look on his face. " She left everything I ever gave her behind." I say pointing to the box while tears fall down my face. 

Engin sits down next to me and waits for me to continue. 

"I hurt the one person in my life that always believed me. When everyone turned their back on me, she was right there with me." I wipe away the tears and grab the papers. " And you wanna know what hurts the most? While I was out there in the woods with Selin, Eda was here keeping my life together, because she knew that's what I would have wanted her to do."

Engin nods his head at me like he knows that I need to get everything out. 

"Engin she bought the stars for me. She bought one for my whole family, she even... she even..." I couldn't get the world out because the pain was just too much. So I just handed the papers to him. He takes them and reads them, his head shoots up after reading the name on the paper.

"Serkan....she bought a star for your brother?"

"Yeah she did one for him, me , anne and even dad. The man took her family from her but she still showed him kindness. And I yelled at her and called her a manipulating bitch." I yell. " I swear to God I am going to ruin Selin for doing this ." I say with a dark tone. 

"Abi first calm down." Engin sighs and puts the paper back on the table and looks at me. "Serkan you have to understand, when you first disappeared Eda fainted and we had to take her to the hospital. " I look up at that. "What? Nobody told me that, what happened?" I ask in a panic.

"Yes physically she was fine, but when she woke up she had to go through losing you again. I still have nightmares about her screams that night in the hospital. " I cringe at the thought and Engin visibly shudders. "The doctors had to come in and give her a sedative to calm her down. " Engin pauses and looks at me. 

"Engin what?" 

"Abi I don't know if I should be the one to tell you. You already have a lot to process." 

"Engin tell me. I need to know." I plead with him. 

"Abi...Serkan." He pauses and grabs my hand. "Eda almost died."

I freeze trying to process the information. I pull my hands back from him and shake my head.

"What? No she's fine, nothing happened to her." I stand up and pace the room. 

" Your right. She is fine now, but those first two weeks were like hell. The light died inside of her Serkan. I don't think you understand you going missing broke something inside of her." 

I continue to pace at the news, I mean anne told me that she wasn't eating but she didn't say it was this bad. I look back to Engin. "Keep going I need to know everything." He clears his throat and wipes a stray tear that had fallen. 

" When Eda was discharged from the hospital we tried taking her back home, but she refused saying that she needed to wait at the apartment for you. So we had no choice but to take her there. We don't know what happened in those two weeks at the apartment, nobody saw her. We knocked on the door, but she never came to the door.  Sefyi and Afyer hanim would drop off food, but the food was always in the same spot the next time they came. Eda had lost so much weight we were all worried about her. " I don't want to hear anymore. It was too much."

"Then something happened. She suddenly came to work one day and started to handle clients. It was like a switched was flipped inside of her. She had come back but different, she was still kind Eda that we all love. But closed off and quiet, she just came to work and then back to your apartment. " 

"What caused her to come back to Artlife?" I ask wondering what changed for Eda to go back to work. Engin hesitates to answer as if he was afraid. I stopped pacing and looked at him. 

"Engin what happened?" 

"Deniz. Deniz happened Serkan." Engin says with a quiet voice.