Sudden decisions

35 - Lies, only lies.

Can

I press my foot on the accelerator because I want to get away from her as soon as possible. I need to distance myself from that woman I now know I don't know and from her words, from the truth she has decided to reveal, or rather from the many lies she has told me since I met her.

I drive without seeing the road lost in those revelations that have turned my world upside down. Stopping at a traffic light, my gaze lost in the void, I bitterly think back to that world I built around a girl who lives only in my head and who never existed in reality.
Allah Allah, how could I have been so stupid? She lied and manipulated me the whole time and I suspected absolutely nothing.
The horns of the cars behind me bring me back to the reality of a green light, I start off without hardly seeing where I'm going, or rather I know I have no intention of going back to my father's house, I'd better avoid coming face to face with Emre for the time being. I don't know what reaction I might have knowing that he is the cause of everything, that his machinations are the reason why my father has practically forced me to stay in Istanbul at the head of the agency.
I still can't believe it, how can he plot to destroy Fikri Harika when he knows that doing so would destroy our father who has invested forty years of his life in that company?
I don't know how I managed to get as far as the hut either, all I know is that I find myself stopping the off-road vehicle in the grassy space where, one day in what seems like a lifetime ago, I helped a beautiful girl get out of my car by untangling herself from the mountain of coral tulle that enveloped her. No, I don't have to think about how beautiful she was and how magical the evening I had spent with her had seemed. I get out of the car and at a weary pace reach the shed, open the large glass door the moment the notification sound of a message arrives. I throw the keys on the table and take the phone from my inner jacket pocket, activate the display that illuminates the interior of the shed still immersed in darkness: and darkness is precisely what reigns in my heart as I read her pleading message.
"Please Can, allow me to explain, lutfen please."
I switch off the phone and leave it on the table next to the keys to go back outside into the darkness of a freezing night lit only by a thin crescent moon.

I scramble to light the fire in the big brazier in the middle of the garden, where I cooked the meat for her...
Enough! I must stop going back to that evening! I sit down on the ground in front of the flames as I feel the anger growing within me, fuelled by the bitter disappointment at having deluded myself that I had found a rare pearl. I spend hours going over his every word and reliving every moment of our story in the light of what he confessed to me. For weeks I wore myself out at the idea of desiring a woman who already belonged to another. How I longed to kiss her when in Agva I held her against my chest to save her from her disastrous fall from the rocks. I had never longed for a woman like that before, in that embrace I had found that unique scent and the softness of the theatre stranger's body and I never wanted to let her go. I longed to place my lips on hers again, to hold her more, to feel her closer, but the idea of that ring and a sense of honour prevented me from doing so out of respect for her and for a secret boyfriend.
Ah Can Ah! How naive you were.
All that you experienced: the candlelit evening in Akif's print shop, the trip to Agva, the tenderness felt towards the naive girl wounded by Deren during the inspection in the agencies and then, when she came looking for me in the middle of the forest after the suspension of my leave, how could I resist her sweetness? I had cherished every moment together with her as a precious memory, fragments of something unique that was being born between us and which, after the hasty engagement, I was determined to make work at any cost.
It is not easy to accept now that her every action was nothing but a lie, a deception, all calculated to achieve one's goal.

I spend the whole night stoking the fire in the brazier and the anger inside me for having been so stupid, cursing myself for having allowed her to get as close as I had never allowed anyone in the past. All the while I brood over who I thought she was and who she turned out to be. I try to reconcile the idea of the pure and naive girl I had of my fiancée with that of the cold and calculating woman I discovered in Sanem. As the moon disappears over the horizon and the morning light slowly repels the darkness of the night, I get an idea of what I have to do. I stand up, numb in body from the many hours spent in the same position, but with a clear idea of what must be done, right away.

I enter the shed to pick up the phone and send a message. "I need to talk to you, I'll be with you in an hour."

I sit down on the sofa, letting my head fall against the backrest, my eyes closed. I mentally list first of all what I have decided to do to unravel the skein of intrigue that could grip Fikri Harika in a lethal grip and destroy her. Then I set aside concerns for the company to instead ask myself what will happen to the solemn commitment I made to her in front of her family. I lower my gaze to the ring on my ring finger, the one we exchanged no more than two nights before during the evening of kiz isteme. I pull it off and lift it as I drop my head back against the back of the sofa. I look at it for a long time, turn it over and over between my fingers, thinking about how I felt when I bought it in Izimr, when I put it on my ring finger, tied with a red thread to the one on her ring finger, and what I feel now that I know I have tied myself to a woman I don't know at all.

I drop it into my fist clenching it in an angry grip and then drop it into my jacket pocket never to be seen again. My gaze wanders around the shed barely illuminated by the first rays of the sun until it settles on the photos I left to dry after printing them the last time I was here.

The photograph. My life, my soul, my authentic view of the world. I cannot think that his machinations, his and my brother's, have jeopardised all this, my truest essence. Of all of them, this is the intrigue that has hurt me most. 

I let myself fall forward, rest my elbows on my knees, bringing my hands to hide my face. How can I think of tying myself to the person who has tried to take away everything I have lived for until now? It is impossible to even think that at this moment.

I can't give myself peace thinking about how I could allow her to get so close to me as to destroy me.

Call me what you want, I'll be what you want
I've been here a thousand times
Falling in love , I don't even care
I could do this all my life
So tell me if you want why I have this feeling
I wanna hear you say it cause I can't believe it
With every touch of you, it's like I've begun to dream
I guess heaven's not that far away
You're destroying me
You're destroying me
You're destroying me I'm right here dancing to the beat
The rhythm that you play when you break my heart
You know I can't get you out of my mind
Yes, from the start, you've been playing with my heartYou're destroying me.
You're destroying me
You're destroying me