Erkenci Kuş: Broken Promises

Part 5: Sanem

Song: She used to be mine by Sarah Bareilles (lyrics)

It's not simple to say
Most days I don't recognize me
These shoes and this apron
That place and its patrons
Have taken more than I gave 'em
It's not easy to know
I'm not anything like I used to be
Although it's true
I was never attention sweet center
I still remember that girl

She's imperfect but she tries
She is good but she lies
She is hard on herself
She is broken and won't ask for help
She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time
She is all of this mixed up
And baked in a beautiful pie

She is gone but she used to be mine

It's not what I asked for
Sometimes life just slips in through a back door
And carves out a person
And makes you believe it's all true
And now I've got you
And you're not what I asked for
If I'm honest I know I would give it all back
For a chance to start over
And rewrite an ending or two
For the girl that I knew

Who be reckless just enough
Who can hurt but
Who learns how to toughen up when she's bruised
And gets used by a man who can't love
And then she'll get stuck and be scared
Of the life that's inside her
Growing stronger each day
'Til it finally reminds her
To fight just a little
To bring back the fire in her eyes
That's been gone but it used to be mine

Used to be mine

She is messy but she's kind
She is lonely most of the time

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The rest of the day passed in a blur. Going through the motions, she had pasted a smile on her wan face and chatted with the regulars as they'd shopped. The prospect of the impending conversation with Can filled her with hope and dread in equal measure.

She knew, from painful experience, that it was her chance to be heard. Can's penchant for seeing the world in black and white only meant there was no room for hues of grey. So ignoring the voice in her head which was screaming at her not to make a fool of herself, she let the tiny sliver of courage she'd summoned up buoy her on. She was beyond caring about propriety. Things were over between them but she wouldn't let them end before she said her piece.

Twinkling in the distance, the night ligths of Istanbul skyline bathe the coast in a soft mellow glow. The salty wind gently caressed her warm skin and tousled the few tendrils of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. Sanem sat, her legs dangling over the edge of the rocks.

She felt, rather than heard Can approach. For such a large man, his tread was uncharacteristically quiet. He was a man mountain, yet so nimble. As light as he was on his feet, whenever she was in the same vicinity as him, even without clapping eyes on him, she sensed his presence. The essence of him was so tangible. Something seemed to shift in the air, as though the atoms rearranged themselves to accommodate him. Sanem had heard of synaethesia but until she'd met Can, had never experienced it herself.

Refusing to look at him so as not to lose her nerve, she stared ahead. Haltingly at first, her voice low, she started, but soon her voice grew stronger. "I shouldn't have been so gullible, or fallen in so easily with Emre bey's version of events but I did try to put a stop to it. I stopped doing what he asked, and threatened to tell you everything. But I couldn't bear the thought of pitching you against your only brother. Many times, I begged him to come clean with you but Emre bey told me that if you ever found out the truth, you would leave. Knowing how much you cared for him, I couldn't bring myself to drive a wedge between you, to split you up again, just like your mother did when you were both so young.

I tried so hard not to love you. I told you that we shouldn't be together. I told you that if you knew what I'd done you wouldn't love me. I begged you to leave things be." Her watery voice broke. She inhaled deeply but didn't stop.

"Several times, I even tried to confess all to you, and each of those times, you wouldn't let me. You reassured me that the past didn't matter, that we didn't need to discuss it. You told me that there wasn't anything that could make you stop loving me."

She finally looked at him. Can's eyes displayed a kaleidoscope of emotions. Pain scorched her heart as she longed to soothe his pain but she couldn't. Though the atmosphere thrummed with a palpable tension, Sanem refused to be distracted and ploughed on.

"I saw how you instantly cut Metin off. My goodness, someone you've known for almost 20 years! You shut him out of your life without a backward glance when you found out he'd been hiding his dealings with your mother from you. And that was something over which he had no choice. He was just doing his job."

"I knew then that there was no way you would forgive me if I admitted everything." She smiled sadly, shaking her head, tugging at the weeds which poked out from the cracks in the rocks.

"When you told me you'd fallen in love with me, I couldn't believe it. How could this handsome, worldly man, who could have any woman he wanted, love little me?" Memories of them standing on the grounds of his childhood home as he asked her to close her eyes and tell him what she could hear played out in her mind like a movie in HD technicolour. She'd heard the seagulls squawking overhead, children's laughter floating up from below, the low entrancing timbre of his voice. Lost in the sounds of Istanbul, her eyes popped open at his whispered declaration: "Sanem, I've fallen in love with you." She remembered the sense of awe that had descended on her then.

"I spent so long feeling unworthy of you. Even my own mother told me you couldn't possibly have feelings for me as we are from two different worlds. People in your world don't fall in love with people in mine." She chuckled mirthlessly. Wiping away an errant tear before it could make its way down her face, she steeled herself. There would be time for crying. This wasn't it though.

She drew in a ragged breath before continuing. "But soon, I started to let myself believe you. I let myself believe that our status didn't matter, that we could overcome any and everything. I thought that with time, I would bare all to you and we could somehow get past it. What an idiot I was!

I believed you but the moment I needed you to believe me, you shut me out in the blink of an eye."

Can fidgeted. Sanem knew he could never bear to see her cry. She thought back to all the times she'd cried in his presence. The time when, crushed by Deren's dismissal of her effort to create a hangout space for the team in a bid to meet the requirements of and win a contract for the agency, she had cried as she cleared out the room. He'd barged in, begging her to stop crying. Holding her face between his hands, he'd gently thumbed her tears away, and told her the place was perfect, just like her.

Another time, she'd tripped over, dropped and broken his prized camera that was to be used for a photoshoot. All the staff, headed by Deren, had loomed over her bemoaning how angry Can would be when he found out. Despair had dogged her as she'd tried to explain what had happened, expecting him to erupt into an apopletic fit. Instead, he'd collected the broken parts of the camera, and asked her to meet him in his office. To her surprise, brushing away her explanation and apology, he'd smiled at her tenderly, asked her to stop crying and told her the camera wasn't worth her tears. Hours later, he would go on to tell her that he'd fallen in love with her.

Now, her foolish heart wished they could re-enact those scenes, but her savvy mind knew it wasn't going to happen. Not now. Not ever again.

"Can bey, there are no words to let you know how sorry I am for all I did. But one thing you must never doubt is my feelings for you. Those were...are real."

With a final surge of courage, she reached out, holding his face in both her hands, revelling in the calmness she felt at the soft scraping of his beard on her palms. Gazing into his eyes, she let all the love she felt for the beautiful man flood into her watery eyes.

"I loved you. I love you. I always will. But I cannot work with you anymore. I will not return to the agency. Hoşçakal." Her voice cracked on the last few words.

Leaping to her feet, she ran as though the hounds of hell were behind her. The gates of the dam of tears she'd been holding finally burst open and she didn't know if she would ever be able to shut them again.