To Get There

Chapter 7

Warning: in this chapter there's a story about anxiety connected with events. Don't read this part if this topic doesn't make you comfortable.

PS: we lay a solid foundation for the benefits these two enemies will discover from the next chapter... I've warned you! ❤️‍🔥😏

Eda's POV

I never felt the need to share my story with anyone.

I never felt the need to open that drawer of my memory with anyone.

But there was something inside him that looked like what I had inside of me, and that made me feel even closer to him.

Serkan smiled at me, without saying a word, because he understood that at that moment the words had to come out only from my mouth.

No one had ever listened to my words, some had only heard me speak: listening means understanding and understanding means welcoming in yourself the emotions that the other is trying to convey to you.

I loved my brother Efe very much but I realized that in his eyes I still was the little and defenseless sister: a filter that I would probably carry with me for my whole life, not a fault for him but a limit for me.

I had never been able to tell anyone, including Efe, what happened that night when I was nineteen.

My parents had visited Efe during his first year of the university over the weekend, and I was alone in Mardin's big house where we lived.

That night, on my way home from the library, I smelled a harsh, pungent smell in the air, a sign of an imminent storm.

I had never been afraid of rain, thunder, the beating sound of water on the window, and the lightning in the sky.

Until that night.

I entered my room and settled down to spend a quiet evening, dining alone and dedicating myself to reading a book before going to bed early.

Outside my bedroom window, I noticed the branches of the trees swinging widely, the sky glowing with silvery discharges before booming heavily into the air.

I had always loved the rain but at that moment I felt under my nose a smell too harsh to be a normal storm.

I was staring out the window when a louder noise than the roar of thunder snuck up on me, making me leap and turn to the source of that frightening sound.

I was in my pajamas and I squeezed my fingers on the sleeves of my sweater, clinging to the scent of home that my clothes emanated.

My steps moved towards the door of my room and when thunders interrupted the silence interspersed with the clinking of the pouring rain, my stomach writhed for the first time in fear.

And every thunder that choked that silence was for me a bite in my heart, that burst pulsing in my body.

I went down the stairs in a cautious way and arrived at the foot of them, letting the wood under my feet squeak.

And a vase fell, a vase that wasn't near me.

My breath choked in my throat from the fear of not being as alone as I wanted, on that night when I wanted everything to be okay.

I felt a warmth enveloping my body, a warmth so cold that my extremities froze. My hands trembled together with the shivers that vibrated on my body, my eyes dense and full of tears that I was afraid to let out because they would betray me with their noises.

And then, some steps.

Noisy steps more than thunder, uncertain in advancing because not able to imagine, like me, who could hide behind the column that hid my motionless body at the foot of the stairs, unable to breathe, unable to understand what was happening.