THE STORMS WITHIN

The best bet...

What is life if not a game of chess? Deciding which choice to make, whether by hopeful heart or by sturdy head? What if life's choice relies on one bet, one chance, one draw of a hand? Most of life can be described in exactly this way. But, what if that choice gets blurred by love, the yearning for it, as well as the fear of it..

Sitting by the pier on Mihriban's land on a late summery Friday night, looking at the night sky and the moon's cool reflection in the Bosphorus, Bulut Divit thought of Deren. Deciding what to think of her was a challenge for him. The moment he found her stuck ankle deep on the muddy road, she took his breath away. His mind was clouded with thoughts of restless emptiness that day. He'd had many days such as those in the months since he left his former life behind. When he left his family home, his heart felt scorned. His soul felt void of the one thing that he yearned for the most. A sense of belonging. Finding Sanem, Deniz, and Mihriban was like finding a lifeline. But still, there was something missing. He knew it, he felt it, though he did not understand exactly what it was that he was missing...

He recalled making his way up to Mihriban's land that fateful day when Deren stood before him for the very first time. It had rained the night before. The morning air was still filled with the sizzling electricity present from the nightly summer storm. The effervescent aroma of earth, forest, and raindrops, all mixed together and made the air vibrant. It filled his lungs. It filled his mind. And it filled his thoughts with plans on how to best arrange his time so that the wet plants would dry in time to load them onto the truck for Ceycey to go off to the market.

When he turned the corner of the road, he did not expect to see anyone there. Least of all a woman clearly not dressed for the rural backroads. She raised his curiosity, but definitely not his interest. She resembled everything that turned him off in a woman. She was too cool to consider him to be anything other than a village worker. Too elegant to make him believe that she cared for anything other than herself. And too full of herself to see that he would have wanted to help her.

So, he passed her. She got herself into the muddy mess, she'd have to find her own way out of it. He had more important things to focus on. But, then, he heard her call out to him. She needed help. She needed his help. So, he made his way back to her, and picked her up from the mud. It was innocent. It was sincere. It was just a gesture of good upbringing and lending a helping hand to a stranger. But, ohh, he made a mistake. An error in judgement he was sure to regret. She was as light as a feather, no match for his strong and skilled arms. And she fit. Ohh, did she fit in his arms. Perfectly. And the fact that his own gut turned the moment he looked into her eyes surprised him. It irritated him. No way, and not her, he thought.

Her stubbornness and ice cold voice took him aback, but it also shook him back to reality. She demanded that he put her back down. Fine. He sighed a breath of relief. Better she shot him down now than for him to wonder later. She did not want his help? Even better. He plopped her back into the mud and walked away. City empress, he thought. Only, she called out to him again. Something in her voice got to him. Was it the sense of urgency? Or was it a hint of helplessness? He could not decide, but something moved within him when he heard her voice. He retraced his steps back to her, and picked her back up again. She stiffened, as if she were frightened. But why? Of him? City empress, he thought again. A thought ran through his mind that she probably thought his clothes posed a threat to her perfectly picked designer clothes. But no, she told him that if it did not resemble an embrace or a hug, then she would permit him to hold her. And that shocked him. She couldn't have known what her helpless and hopeless eyes did to him. Even he had a hard time admitting to himself that she got to him. Because she did. And she did so in a way he never suspected. Because he found a perfect balance of strength and fragility in her...