Turbulence

Chapter 1

Eda lay on the bed in her new room, looking at the ceiling with her eyes wide open very early in the morning. Her awaken state didn't have much to do with jetlag. It wasn't unusual for her, as during her twenty-six-year-long life she developed the habit of waking up at dawn as it was the only little time she used to have just for herself, without hearing constant excuses, complaints, and fights. And later, when she moved out and started to live on her own during her university times, this habit just stayed with her, no matter if she liked it or not.

Eda sighed and extended her arms over her head, stretching, and with a determined move, she pulled the duvet of her legs and jumped out of the bed. She glanced at her phone to check what time it was and pulled her lips in a thin line after noticing that it was only five in the morning, and she already had three missing calls.

Eda deleted the notifications from her screen, left her phone on mute, and tossed it to the bed. She walked to the window to open the blinds and saw that her room had a balcony with a nice view of the sea and a part of the airport. 

She smiled, looking at the beach, contemplating an early walk, but changed her mind when she spotted two silhouettes next to the row of F-16s. The odd tingling feeling in her stomach told her that the man who just climbed on the wing of one of the aircrafts and started to clean the windows was no one else than Lieutenant Bolat. She didn't even have to see his face to recognize his strong silhouette and confident moves.

Eda snorted under her breath, moving away from the windows. So, at least he didn't squirrel out of this, she thought, going to her open suitcase and taking a random book out of it. She lay on the bed and immersed herself in reading, trying to silence the intrusive thoughts about going to the beach to look at Serkan from up close. She didn't need any new fights so early in the morning.

Her successful attempt to shoot down any stupid ideas in her head was interrupted over an hour later by the loud bang of a door closing across her room. Eda jumped, startled by this unexpected sound. She looked at the time, it was six-thirty, and she still had a lot of time to grab breakfast before meeting with Admiral Ozan.

Eda rolled off the bed and reached to the drawer of the nightstand, where the night before, she put her notebook. She took it out and opened it, going through the pages until a picture fell to her lap. 

She picked it up and smiled faintly, looking at the old photography taken of her, her father, Admiral Ozan, and his son. She was just four years old and, as a blissfully unaware child, had no idea what havoc would have soon wrek on her serene family life. There, she still had no idea that just a couple of weeks after that picture was taken, she would be ripped out of everything she knew and thrown into many new, unknown places, that never felt like home. 

She looked at her father's smiling face as he stood next to his best friend, keeping his hand on Eda's shoulder. Both men were looking at the camera, so none of them noticed that the slightly older than Eda boy with red locks wrapped his arm around her neck and was choking her, while she was crying.

Eda chuckled, imagining how the rest of that scene had to play out just after the picture was taken. She had faint memories of her early childhood, but she didn't remember this one and didn't recognize the garden in the picture. It was probably Admiral's house as she heard it was a place of many social gatherings. 

It wasn't the best picture of her and her father, but it was the only one from her childhood she managed to save and kept it with her wherever she went, never leaving it behind if fear she would lose it. It was too precious to her.

Eda was again broken out of her thoughts by the sounds coming from the room across her, this time loud rock music. She snorted, angrily looking at the door with a disapproving shake of her head, put the picture back into the notebook, and tossed it into the drawer, slamming it shut.