10 Minutes

"seni seviyorum"

December 1, 2022
Sanem reflected on the conversation with Metin and Osman as they each expressed their opinions on her decision to extend the invitation to Can, especially at her new place. She knew that they both were very invested in both her and Can. So much time had passed and it had served them well, having plenty of time to reflect. To her surprise it was Osmans words that played again and again in the mind. Their arrival had been a surprise, but so very welcome. They all drove out to her place soon after her impromptu conversation with Can. When she told them what she had done their reactions were not what she expected and now, as she walked along the garden area behind her house she felt a sudden rush of nerves and fears. She closed her eyes and there he was kneeling down next to Cassandra, sweetly telling the sick little girl the sweetest words she had heard from him in a very long time. This was the Can she missed with all her heart. This was the Can she cherished and longed for. This was the Can, that he himself; had taken away from her. She sighed and recalled Osmans words. "Abla, if nothing else you should hear him out for your own sake, if not for his. You have much to tell him as well. Things he doesn't know and should. If I hadn't been so angry with how he treated you, I would have dragged him to you myself. I let my own anger and hurt cloud my vision and Emre was relentless with his own anger. It was a miracle that he and Leylas marriage didn't break up under the pressure and now...". He didn't finish before Metin interrupted him. "Sanem... you know that Can and I were closer than friends. Brothers in all things until this separated us. I love Can. I always will but in my own way I betrayed Can myself. I didn't give him the chance he asked for. It was me that kept him away from you. It was me that decided for you both". She closed her eyes as tears threatened once more. It was true that Metin had chosen between her and Can but would she have allowed her heart to break once more had she been given the choice? At the time she believed he had moved on so quickly and she had more than just a broken heart to care for. She looked down at her phone and her finger hovered over the play button to her voicemails. She had listened to so many by now and each one had brought out new feelings. Between that and his text messages she had felt his pain as intently as if it were her own. Each message ended the same way, with him telling her how much he loved her and couldn't live without her and apologizing for leaving her. They moved her but she still felt anger and resentment until she listened to his longest message yet, by the date on the phone, it had been just two days after she had left Istanbul. It had made her cry and torn open the wound she had patched together with tears and work. Now as she readied herself to play it once again she looked around the garden and looked at all the beautiful flowers that seemed intent on sucking up the remaining afternoon sun. She looked up and let the suns rays fill her up as well and pushed the button once more.

"Sanem...you've left me with no hope. You've left me with no choices or a voice for my sorrow. You've gone and with you you've taken my heart. I'm left with an empty shell and nothing to fill it. I've walked what seems to be the whole of Istanbul and I see you everywhere but you are nowhere to be found. I can't bare to think of my eyes never seeing yours again. Of my hands never holding yours again or of my arms never holding you close to my heart. I have lost you and the right to call you my own. There is nothing worse in this life than knowing that you have wronged someone but there is nothing you can do to right that wrong. I wronged you. Not only with my words but my lack of them when you needed me to hear you. I wronged you when I doubted you and placed my fears and past before your honesty and our future. I wronged you when I took your love and selfishly used it to fill the whole in my heart but left you to the wolves who mercilessly tried to devour you. I left you. I left you and killed myself in one swift move. I have cried and begged your forgiveness but my words have fallen into an abyss. Wherever you are please know one thing. I have loved you like no other. I have loved you with every fiber of my being and my very soul but it was a selfish love in the end. I gathered every ounce of you and would have put you in a glass enclosure in order to keep you to myself. Not because of my fear of any betrayal of yours but because of the fear of my betrayal of our love. In the end, I was right. I'm not worthy of the love you bestowed on me so freely and with such care. In the end I was right. I ran from my future with you because I knew I wasn't capable of protecting you from myself and my own betrayal of you with my doubts and with my selfishness. When I said I loved you in spite of myself it was because I knew deep down.... I knew I could never deserve you and that somehow the genes I carried within me would somehow taint that love with my fears and past hurts. You were never to blame and I knew it. If I had listened to my heart and not my head you would be here with me today. Forgive me for not loving you more than you loved me. Forgive me, for until then I will never be able to forgive myself. Be well my only one, I will always search for you until I can see you once again".