RamBel

Part I: Nothing hurts more than a love left unfinished...

It was a beautiful November afternoon. The sun was almost setting, and a light autumn breeze was playing with Sibel's hair hanging loose on her shoulders. She stood on a bench at their neighborhood park, thinking about how everything around was dying and yet it was so magical. The leaves now yellow, were almost all on the ground as if they were building a golden path to heaven. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath for just one second; afraid that her son would disappear if she kept them closed for much longer. They had been living there for months now but Sibel still felt as insecure as day one. Quickly opening her eyes, she found her son, Pamuk at the same spot as before, playing with his friend and his father. Relieved, she waved at him; he waved back.

"Hello," – she heard a voice say. Sibel turned to her right to see that the voice belonged to a woman, probably in her fifties, who had been sitting there this entire time. – "If I may ask, who are you waving to?"

"That's my son over there, dressed in black."

The woman gave Sibel a look that made her feel safe somehow, something she hadn't felt in a long time.

"What a beautiful family you have."

"My only family is my son" – she replied, after a short pause of looking at Pamuk, struggling to find the right words.

"Oh, I am sorry; I didn't mean to hurt you. I thought that was your husband playing with the kids"

"It's alright, no need to apologize" – Sibel said forcing a smile.

"What happened, where is his father?"

The question hit like a sword pointed at her heart. She started chewing on her lower lip, tears threatening to spill but she would not let them fall, not now. With every thought of Ramo, her eyes bled with pain as memories raced through her head creating a film, she didn't like the ending of.

Sibel was born in a mafia family, one of the most powerful in Adana. Her life was constantly under threat, so her father had hired Ramo for protection. Sibel did not like him at first but soon after, that feeling of hate turned into a passionate love. This story of passion took a new turn three years later when Sibel got the news of her father's death. The man she loved deeply had killed her first love, her father. Sibel felt betrayed, played with, and rightfully wanted to take revenge. While not yet having processed the fact that Ramo had killed her father, she also learned that marrying him was the only way to end the enmity between the families. Ramo showed Sibel the true face of her father who besides doing illegal business, had also killed innocent people, one of them being Ramo's father. Meanwhile, Ramo having witnessed his father getting brutally killed, had dedicated his life to revenge. His plan to make Sibel's father trust him was rather perfect but there was something he had not calculated, love. Ramo had fallen madly in love with Sibel as well, knowing that he was going to break her heart in the end. Distancing himself and forgetting her was impossible because his heart and body wanted only one thing: HER. Sibel was his love and weakness, but he could not let that get on the way of revenge. After knowing Ramo's story, Sibel could understand his pain but not forgive what was done to her. She turned their marriage into an opportunity to take her own revenge by stabbing him. In the moment, the flash of anger had protected her from the pain although seconds later, she realized what she had done and how much she still loved him. They knew then that their love was bigger than revenge and decided to build a new life together.

Lost on her thoughts, Sibel quickly pulled herself together. "We are not together anymore" – she said with a trembling voice.

"Oh, I am sorry, I didn't know you were divorced."

Divorce... Memories of the dreadful times she had sentenced Ramo to prison and asked for a divorce played out in Sibel's mind, the scenes flipping in her head like photos in a coin-operator machine. Ramo would have been killed by the big mafia bosses he got involved with, if she had not testified in court against him. The images of how he looked at her the day she visited him in prison will never leave her mind. She sat there watching him burn, killing herself with him trying not to give anything away. Everyone was convinced she hated Ramo, however, she had started working undercover next the mafia boss trying to save him. Sibel could not tell Ramo the truth because he would never allow her to be put at risk for his sake.