Early Bird (Erkenci Kus)(Part 3)

62. A deal with the devil

By the time morning rolls around, Can is still in the same spot. Only now he was facing the other wall and he's pushed the two benches together. They'd brought him food, but he wasn't hungry, so it was just sitting there. It had been a long night. One he didn't want to relive anytime soon. Every memory made him miss Sanem and his need to get out of the cell stronger to get back to her.

*

"Can," Sanem mumbles and sits up fast in her bed. She looks around her sleepily, still clutching her necklace. She must have been dreaming about him because her cheeks were wet. She had a headache from all the crying but she pushed it aside to look at the necklace.

She'd made her decision last night. She couldn't do nothing. She was responsible and she was going to fix this.

She leans forward to her desk and gets her phone. She hesitates for a moment, looking at the necklace again. Please forgive me Can.

She gets up and gets dressed, making sure no one else was awake before she leaves the house thirty minutes later, not even really bothering with too much makeup.

Walking down the street, she has to talk herself into what she was going to do once again. She was afraid but she had to have Can back. She couldn't handle the uncertainty. She takes a deep breath after this thought, and then dials.

"Good morning Miss Sanem."

"I need to see you, are you available?"

"Of course. I was waiting for your call, I didn't expect it so soon though."

"I'm not in the mood for chitchat, Mr Fabbri. Just tell me where I can meet you."

"Well, I'll be at the office all day, you're welcome to come there."

"No, not at your office. Choose somewhere else."

Fabbri is silent for a beat before he speaks. "Very well, there's a restaurant near the Needle called 'Gourmette'. Do you know it?"

"Yes I do." It was where they had dinner the other night with McKinnon and Ceyda. "I'll be there in thirty minutes."

**

"There he goes."

"Look at him, poor man."

Nihat slows down on his from the store. He needed to take a shower and put on clean clothes. He hoped Mevkhibe was at the hall.

He has now passed three different groups of huddled women whispering and pointing at him then looking away. He clenches his jaw. That's it! "It's like you never fight with your husbands," he tells them. "You all have perfect marriages." He shakes his head, hearing Hulya whisper that she knew they had a fight.

He ignores them and unlocks the front door, peeking inside. He listens for any movement and then enters, shutting the door.

Going up the stairs, he peeks around the corner and then goes to the bedroom, straight to the closet for a duffel bag. He was going to pack as much clothes as he could. He was committed to standing his ground now.

"No, no, he's still at the station."

Nihat pauses and jumps back to hide behind the closet door. He peeks round as Mevkhibe walks past with a bucket and a mop.

"He's waiting for news from his lawyer."

Who's at what station? Nihat stuffs more things into the duffel bag and then goes back downstairs, peeking into the kitchen.

"Oh he's still at the store, he refuses to come home. And you know what, I won't let him in even if he does come home."

Nihat glares at Mevkhibe's back. "Oh is that so?" he whispers. "What little hope there was for reconcilliation is now zero, Mevkhibe." He goes out the front door with his bag, glaring at the kitchen again. "You don't know what you've done." As he shuts the door behind him, he is still mumbling all the way back to the store. "This is how you want it, Mevkhibe? This is how it will be..."