The albatross journey

20 - Fear of losing her

Can

Emre and I enter the meeting room of HXC Cosmetics shortly after Deren and Sanem. I watches her as she begins to prepare for the presentation and my heart can't help but feel at home again just being there, close to her, being able to look at her again even if from a distance.

It's in the next few moments that the same heart has to force itself to calm down when I see a man approach Sanem, lean in to whisper something in her ear and receive one of her beautiful smiles in response.
I take a deep breath to try and remain calm, who is that man?
What is he doing near Sanem and why all that confidence?
Shortly after I get the answer to my questions, he gets up and approaches the big screen to make his presentation, he introduces himself as Hakan Demir, creative director of Hyal Etmek. His design isn't bad, but I don't think it has anything to do with the incisiveness of the one prepared by Fikri Harika, and it's in those moments, when it's her turn and Sanem takes the floor, that I realise how much the campaign he's created concerns me.

Every word he says about how a perfume can be an obsession for a man, how it can haunt him until he loses his mind, is now a punch in the gut.

When I first saw the campaign I immediately liked it, but only now that I am aware that it was Sanem who designed it do I understand how closely it affects me what she states so confidently at that moment:

- Who has never felt beyond reason because of the scent emanating from his woman's skin?

I can say that I have felt exactly like that, that I have lost the light of reason also because of that perfume, that I have been somehow obsessed by it and have done something that I have bitterly regretted.

Her gaze pointing at me confirms this beyond any doubt, my actions and behaviour were an inspiration to her when she devised this campaign, her disappointment at what I did to her must have led her to think that mine was nothing more than an obsession with that damned perfume.

She finishes her presentation to a roar of applause, I approach with Emre to congratulate her as the others have already done. I shake her hand while I try with my gaze and a few words to make her understand what I feel:

"A perfume is able to make a man lose his mind... I might add, however, that it can only do so temporarily, it will never be able to make a heart that intends to fight give up because it feels it is beating only for a woman".

We remain for endless moments lost in each other's gaze, hands still clasped, I would like her to say something, I would like to say something else myself to explain my behaviour, but we are interrupted by the arrival of the representatives of HXC Cosmetic.

I see her shortly afterwards leaving the meeting room alone, I have to follow her, I absolutely have to talk to her. I run out of the room and down the corridor, putting my hand on her arm to stop her just before she reaches the lifts. She raises her gaze to me, a gaze that seems surprised at first, then somehow enraptured by mine which is scrutinising her intensely, then decidedly cold and distant.

- Sanem please, can we talk? -

She moves to move my hand away from her arm taking a step to the side and looks at me with an icy gaze that I've never seen her give to anyone before.

- Can Divit, we have nothing to talk about, it was all said and done before you left the agency several months ago to get on a plane with your ex-girlfriend.
Everything is very clear for both of us, I'm sure, now excuse me but I have to go -

- Sanem... Sanem... -

I'd like to counter, but I remain motionless watching her disappear beyond the door leading to the stairs without having given me a chance to utter a single word.
Damn it! Can Divit won't be easy, be prepared to overcome impassable barriers.