Pretending

1.

They do that a lot. And they're good at it. Damned good at it.

Pretending.

Like how they pretended to not care about each other in their very beginning?

Like that one time he went in search of peace and quiet and ended up spending the evening with her and her family, singing the night away?

-No, that's not what happened. I went there because it would have been weird if I didn't show up. We had a fake marriage to uphold, after all.

Or that one time when she didn't get hurt knowing he was with some girl too when Samet and Volkan went missing.

-No, that's different. If someone found out about this, all our efforts would have been for nothing. We had a fake marriage to uphold after all.

Yeah, they were extremely good at pretending.

And they only got better with time.

Like now, for example.

He's great at pretending he's okay with whatever is happening, is even happier. And if his smile just doesn't quite reach his eyes anymore, if he's working insane long hours in the office to avoid dealing with some people, and if everything around him just feels less somehow, well then that's just how it has always been.

(Was it though?)

He pretends he doesn't hear it.

Miles away from him, there she was, equally if not better at pretending how moving to a different country altogether when she hadn't even been outside of Istanbul has nothing, not even the tiniest bit to do with a certain someone.

And when she's walking around outside, taking in the freshness of this new place, watching the closely cuddled lovers enjoying the warmth on a surprisingly sunny day, she pretends she doesn't feel cold because of the absence of a certain someone beside her. Instead, she pulls her coat tighter, walks faster, shivering a bit. She pretends it's cold outside.

She'll admit she misses the familiarity of her actual home. Her neighbourhood, her family, her friends, hell even Volkan. He was one of her closest friends now. Besides Gonca of course. She misses them. She misses her best frie-

*Skip*

She misses Muhsin baba.

(aren't you forgetting someone?)

Who?

She pretends she forgot.

But it's tiring.
The constant pretense.
The constant missing.
The glaring reminders of the absence.
The gaping Ayşe and Kerem shaped holes in their lives that nothing else can fill.

It was tiring to constantly be okay while simultaneously breaking apart.

So, if one of the nights Kerem finds himself breaking the unspoken rule as his thumb hovers over her contact, he pretends it's the almost finished bottle dictating his actions.

Besides, shouldn't he have deleted her number by now?

He hears the call connecting.

One ring.
Two rings.
Three rings.

He's starting to think it's a bad idea.

Four rings.

He should cut the call.

Four point five -

She picks up.

When she sees his name flashing on her phone, her default response is a big smile that starts framing her face. She stomps it down immediately.