Istanbul scenes

Surprise

It should be easy. It had always been. When everything started to feel stagnant, the easiest thing for Can was to book a flight and leave. Anywhere. He didn't need many things, just his camera, and the stones, the things he always carried with him. Anything else was dispensable and he could get it anywhere.

And yet, today, parked at the airport entrance as he stared at the piece of paper that once more would bring him far away, he didn't feel that familiar flicker of excitement before a new adventure. Instead, a dull pressure in the middle of his chest constricted his ribcage, turning every breath into a struggle, and his heart was beating hard enough to jump out of his chest.

He should be boarding that plane. Cambodia had felt like a good idea yesterday, far enough from everything. Today it was too far away from her, though. Images of Sanem asking him if he truly had to leave haunted him since he had driven her home from the abandoned warehouse. Gosh, had it been  only two hours since he had told her goodbye for the last time? It felt like an eternity since a teary-eyed Sanem had waved him goodbye from her door. Those tears she tried to hide were driving him crazy. Why was she crying? Did she want him to stay? What for? So he could see her happy with her fiancé while he goes crazy with the need to touch her whenever she's around? That'd be too hard a punishment for loving her. He wasn't sure he could endure such torture, but he can't seem to be able to be physically apart from her without pain either. It was driving him crazy.

He needed her scent like air, and her touch… Nobody's touch had ever make him feel like Sanem did. He will never forget that day at the camp, when, blindfolded, she tried to recognize him with just her hands. The delicate caress of her fingertips over his face was both the best and the worst kind of torture he'd ever endured, and he was still paying for the effort that took him to control himself. Having a hard-on in front of her fiancé and half of his employees was not a good idea, after all. But to this day, he could not erase it from hits mind. Whenever he closed his eyes he could feel again the warmth of her hands over his skin, the overwhelming need to lean into her touch, wrap her into his arms and kiss her until she forgot everything but his name. But he couldn't do that, could he? Because she wasn't his. She was someone else's love, someone else's happiness, someone else's life. And as much as it hurt, he had to respect that.

With a frustrated groan, he tried to get rid of the anguish repeatedly hitting the steering wheel, but the only thing he got from it was a stinging pain in his already injured hand. Great. As if he wasn't hurting enough. With a resigned sigh, he took a look at the car clock and grabbed the boarding pass. Cambodia. Sanem. Freedom. Unrequited love. Solitude. Sanem. Sanem. Sanem. And at that moment, he knew what he had to do. Tearing the paper into pieces, he started the car and drove home. Even if it caused him physical pain to be near her, he could never leave Istanbul while Sanem was there. Besides, she said she would leave her job, didn't she? He would drown his feelings into his work and that'd keep his thoughts away from her. Or so he hoped.

Having made a decision, he drove home in a state of calm he hadn't felt for weeks. He could do this. He was Can Divit, and this unrequited love was not going to defeat him. Sanem had his heart in her hands, but he could only hope she would not crush it.

As soon as he parked his car, he took the pieces of the boarding pass and threw them into the trash bin. He opened the door, craving for a drink and froze, wondering if the scene displayed in front of him was a bad joke or a nightmare. Maybe both. He blinked once, twice, thrice, but nothing changed. There was Polen, shaking hands with Sanem.

Polen.

And Sanem.

Sanem.

She should have been home, where he had left her a couple of hours ago. But she was here, in front of him again, asking him if he hadn't left. He was so stunned that for a moment, he had forgotten he had been about to board a plane to Cambodia to run away from her. What a ludicrous idea it seemed now that she was here again.