Always and forever

68 - Believe in us

Sanem

Today Can woke me up early in the morning because he has decided that he absolutely has to teach me how to surf, he says you can't live in San Diego without getting on a surfboard. During breakfast he tells me funny anecdotes of when he himself learned many years ago in Bali, Indonesia.
We reach a nearby beach that is famous among surfers, we rent two boards and take them to the shore, I feel slightly uncomfortable as I take off my clothes, once in my bikini I look up at him and find him motionless and looking at me rapturously while I, in turn, cannot remain indifferent to seeing him in only his board shorts, he is breathtakingly beautiful.
We both shake ourselves up, trying to pretend nothing has happened, and, board under arm, we head into the water where, first of all he tells me that I have to learn how to balance on the board, I try and try again all the day, falling all the time. I try and try again, falling over and over again. I have a great time but at a certain point, after the umpteenth fall, the tiredness of having climbed up onto the board hundreds of times begins to make itself felt and I have trouble getting back to the surface, it's as if I had lost strength in my legs and arms and couldn't understand the direction in which I was trying to emerge.
Eternal moments pass in which panic begins to assail me, also because I feel that I am beginning to run out of air, my heart is pounding loudly in my ears and I feel a chilling fear.

Suddenly I feel a firm grip on my wrist and I feel myself being pulled hard, I emerge when I have no more oxygen in my lungs and in my ears I start hearing a dark buzzing sound, I feel the grip around my waist as he swims towards the shore, as soon as we get to a point where we can touch he takes me in his arms and holds me tightly putting his hand on my cheek - Sanem, Sanem aşkım, my love, are you okay? - I open my eyes on his worried face, he is beautiful as always, but this time there is something in his gaze that I think I have never seen, not even in the eyes of the old Can, there is a love so absolute and desperate that it touches the deepest points of my heart, now I am breathless not for lack of oxygen but for emotion.
Our eyes search each other for moments full of meaning, my breath is short from exertion, fear and... I can't resist, I can't and don't need to wait any longer.
I love him so deeply and I know that he is respecting my time, I must be the one to make the first step if I want our relationship to move forward and grow.
The days we spent together, the sensations we felt, the looks we exchanged, the whispered words follow one another in my mind and everything suddenly becomes clear to me, I finally feel that there is a future for us, that there is a chance to give birth and grow a new love even if he should not remember what we shared.
We can and must give ourselves a chance, I must give us a chance to be happy together again.

I take his face in my hands and kiss him like I've never done before, not even during our first night together, there's a whole different emotion now, there's love, desire, curiosity and belonging. I feel I am happy as I haven't been since the magical night he proposed to me a few months earlier, my heart is opening up to a new hope, to a love for the man who is him but is not him and, if possible, is even more fascinating in my eyes.

My heart has found the courage to open up to his that has learnt to express his feelings, as he had never done before, promising never to let go of my hand again, never to make me suffer again, to make me happy and asking for forgiveness for the actions that made me suffer in the past.

His embrace, his lips, his caressing hands on my back, my body recognises him as the one and only one capable of making me feel these sensations, I'm stunned by the intoxication and exaltation of this love that has never faded and, if possible, has taken on even more vigour and strength after months of distance and the despair of believing I had lost him forever.

He holds me tightly in his arms as this ravenous, desperate kiss says a lot about the need we have for each other, the devastating lack we have felt in these months of separation.

He interrupts the kiss and takes my face in his hands - Sanem, my sweet Sanem, seni çok seviyorum, I love you so much, I have understood for a long time that you are the only woman I could ever love, the only one who has been able to touch my heart, who has bewitched it and made it his -

I freeze and he with me, we look intensely into each other's eyes in amazement, we both realise - I've already said it haven't I? I remember it perfectly Sanem, I remember perfectly my marriage proposal, I remember giving you the ring with the amber stone, asking you to marry me, I asked you to be my beloved, my bride, my everything. I remember perfectly that moment Sanem, I remember our happiness under that cascade of lights, I remember clearly that when you accepted I felt like the luckiest man in the world, I touched the sky with my finger -

Now I am the one who takes his face in my hands - Oh Can, I am so happy that you remember that very special moment for both of us, it was the crowning of a love that was able to find its way in spite of all the difficulties... like now, in this moment I feel as happy as then because I found you again aşkım, my love, even if you won't get back completely the memories of us it is enough for me to know that you found again in your heart the love for me, I needed only this to believe in us again-

He takes me in his arms and carries me to the shore, he sits on the shore holding me tightly in his arms and kisses me for a long time with passion and veneration, the same that I felt in my Can and I understand that now I am more and more the same person, maybe more complex but just as wonderful.

We remain for a long time in a tight embrace on the shore, lost in our gazes and our kisses, with an amazing Californian sunset as our witness, but we are unaware of it, for us there is nothing else in the world but the other, finally back exactly where we wanted it to be, tight in our embrace, eyes to eyes and heart to heart.