Wherever You Go

Chapter 10

“Did you two felt sorry for me? The helpless little orphan and decide that you two will bear the burden of it? How could you be so cruel not only to keep it from me but also to pretend another complete lie?” His voice is rising and he is angry. But it is the undertone of agony and utter inability of him to comprehend everyone’s betrayal that destroys Hazan. Helpless to do anything else, she clamps her mouth shut with her hands to prevent great sobs from escaping.

“ The two of you probably laughed behind my back. You cried with me about your love for him and went back to him and maybe laughed with him at me. The poor orphan who shouldered everyone’s problems” Maybe he is getting angrier, but his voice was getting more desolate than angry.

This must be how people feel when a bomb goes off Hazan thinks. His words penetrates her skin like tiny particles of hot metal would be doing, negligent in isolation but the end effect was devastating. She tightens her palms over her mouth, determined to take them as long as they last. Though, by the way the room is spinning around her, she doubts she will last long.  She risks a glance at him and immediately regrets it.

His eyes are red and face is twisted in pain. His hands are raking non stop through his hair. Hazan has only seen him so rattled in two instances, when they believed Mr. Hazim was dead and when he dug her out at the cemetery.

“I always knew you as a very compassionate person and it amazes me why you were only cruel to me. Perhaps you were blinded by love for Sinan” Yagiz says in a final tone. It is the softest tone that he has spoken since he started the rant and he seems to be exhausted and running out of steam. But it is when Hazan loses her carefully maintained control.

Yagiz sees Hazan scoots closer to him until she is practically on his lap. Even through the red haze covering his eyes he registers her tear streaked face, red and swollen and eyes absolutely miserable. He watches as in a trance as she grabs his collar by both hands and draw him towards her.

“You can kill me even but do not say such nonsense. There was no love. We did not discuss anything. Sinan as usual decided on the spot and told her that he is her son. I didn’t even know about it until he had done it.  Once I knew what sort of a person she was I did not have the heart to expose you to the truth. Yes I was blinded by love. By love for you. I am sorry I am so sorry that it ended up like this. It is my fault for keeping it from you for so long. I was hoping like an idiot that by staying quiet it will just go away and you will not have to be subjected to any pain. I never thought he will be so cruel and vile"

Hazan stops and pants because it feels like her chest is about to explode and there are dark spots appearing in front of her eyes. Yagiz keeps staring at her, like a statue, though he feels like he is riding in a roller coaster, horrifying and thrilling at the same time. What Hazan is saying and her proximity is both a pleasure and a pain for him. What do the doctors do when the poison and the antidote is the same thing, he wonders idly as she tightens her grip on his shirt collar and gently shakes him a few times.

“ You can scold me all you want and say anything you want. But how dare you keep alluding to love between me and Sinan? You know that there was no love between us. There is no one who knows it better than you”  She says passionately and Yagiz feels his dying temper flaring up again.

“Yes, I am wrong. There was no love between you two. Only you loved him like you are blind, put up with all his shitty behavior, took him back every time, kissed him and tried to reform him. In the end you ended up keeping secrets with him which was not yours to keep in the first place” He says, evenly but furiously, his nose dangerously close to touching hers. Hazan’s swift intake of breath is audible through the silent apartment as she moves closer to him, if such a thing was possible.

“ I cannot believe you are saying these Yagiz. I took him back because you also urged me to. Didn’t you forcibly put us together?” she asks, not very sure of what she was saying or whether any of it is making sense.

“Yes I did” he fires back as he gently but decisively remove her fingers from his collar and put some distance between them, before he does something stupid like taking her quivering face in his hands and kiss her with all the passion and anger he feels right now until he cannot feel anything anymore. This gesture of hers is too similar to the one she made at the gym, when she dragged him to her and kissed him and despite the anger and sadness raging in him, he is not sure of himself to behave.

“Yes I did that. Because unlike you I want the happiness of people that I love, whether it hurts me like hell” Yagiz says. Hazan flinches as if she was physically struck and her hands automatically go to clutch her chest. Her swollen and reddened eyes ,now dry, never leaves his face as she tries to focus on him in the still rotating room.

“ That is what I wanted too Yagiz. To keep you happy. So we both failed. I will not say sorry because those are empty words. I will listen to anything from you. Please do not say that I loved Sinan and sided with him. We have been through more than that surely.” Hazan says and gets up and immediately sways sideways. She leans on the couch again to steady herself and walks towards the room, closing the door with a soft click.