With Every Gaze And Touch...

The Yellow Dress (Ep. 30/31)

A/N: This is an alternative ending/beginning of episodes 30/31. My take on how this scene could have led to Serkan remembering her... Hope you like it! Tell me your thoughts and if you want a continuation. (P.d. I had actually uploaded that cover months ago but i never got to write anything there. So i guess it's time...)

We were late. I hated being late. And she also knew it. Yet she had taken her sweet time getting ready for the launch party of the new project of Art Life. When we finally arrived at the office, she looped my arm with hers. For some reason, it made me flinch; I didn't like when she touched me that way but I brushed it off like the other times. Though I had noticed that this uneasiness came way more frequently ever since I had shared that moment with Eda at the mountain resort.

Eda...

I didn't understand why the simple thought of her made something flutter in my stomach. The more I got to spend time with her, the more I wanted to know her. To know what could have attracted me to her all these months ago like the others were telling me about. She fascinated me, captivated me. But it was hard for me to accept that I could fall into her traps again like Selin had told me. Was she really that good of a manipulator, that I had changed for her?

I greeted the doorman as we entered the building hand in hand. I greeted with a nod a couple of other people before I looked up.

And there she was.

My breath got caught in my throat as I saw her. She was ethereal, stunning, beautiful... A full-fledged fairy coming down the stairs in her pale yellow dress. I watched as she froze and slowed down her pace as her eyes crossed mine. I got lost in her appearance when suddenly I winced as I felt a pang in my chest.

I put my hand above my heart where I felt the pain. It was beating fast again just like the first time I had stepped into the office after my accident, or again at the welcoming party. It felt like a hundred horses were running wild in there, making the earth rumble under their hooves and the dust whirl furiously around them. I looked around me, searching for something or someone to relieve me but I found no one. Deep down I felt that what I was looking for was elsewhere, so I did what I was feeling. I looked up again at her.

I felt my jaw drop as she was descending the stairs with her head held high, never diverting her eyes from my face. She was just so mesmerizing. The top of her hair was gathered at the back of her head while the bottom cascaded freely in loose curls above her shoulders. And her body... I gulped as I took in her curvaceous body in that bewitching strappy pale yellow short dress.

That yellow dress...

That was when the flashbacks returned, this feeling of déjà vu gripping me again. Just like all the times I saw them, I was walking into a room. I saw my hands zipping up a woman's dress, pushing her brown hair to the side, stroking her soft skin with the tip of my fingers as I put her strap back into place. Her flowery scent invaded my nostrils, shaking me. But this time, I saw her eyes staring at me in the mirror. Her beautiful chocolate brown eyes, with long eyelashes outlining their almond shape stared right back at me, just like they were doing right in the present moment.

It was her! It was Eda! She was the woman of my flashbacks. I still couldn't quite remember her face but I was sure of it! But that feeling... that rush inside my blood... my galloping heart... Everything felt familiar yet incomprehensible. Was it that what they called love? Because if it was, then it was painful, almost unbearable. That longing, that missing part I was feeling, the part that felt like only she could fill it up.

My headache came back and I rubbed my temple. Selin, at my side, asked me if I was alright. But I was not. As I was watching Eda finally get to our level and, after a last glance toward me, join her friend Deniz, more flashes came and the pieces quickly started to make sense. All the images I had had for the past two months finally clicked into place. And I realized what a fool I had been.

Pelin hanim came up to us and congratulated us on our engagement. Selin was quick to thank her while I turned toward her for the first time since we had arrived to the party. Selin. Selin who had lied to me. Selin who had isolated me, manipulated me into thinking that Eda – my Eda – was a monster, a manipulative witch, a cold-hearted revenge-seeking woman while she was nothing of the sorts.

She was my peri kızı. The word came to my mind immediately as I glanced at her from where I was standing.

Suddenly, I was disgusted. I couldn't bear the feeling of Selin's arm against mine. I couldn't bear to stand next to her. I couldn't stand to even be in the same room as her. I had never felt more anger and more disgust for anyone or anything before. Even as a cold insensitive robot like Eda had called me when we had first met, I had never felt as negative an emotion as I felt in that moment. I would make sure that she would pay for this. For all she had done to Eda and I. To my entire family actually when she had kept me away from them.

It took all of my strength not to throw her out immediately. But I needed to do it right. The only thing I couldn't stop myself from doing though was getting away from her physically. Therefore, I skillfully loosened my hold on her hand and grabbed a drink from a passing-by waiter. Pelin hanim continued her praising but I didn't answer, my attention fully belonging to Eda as I saw her still talking to Deniz.

Oh how I longed to let her know that I remembered, that I was sorry and that I would have done anything to remember earlier, to listen to her and not take hasty decisions! I chuckled thinking about it. She really had changed me, even when I didn't remember her. Serkan Bolat and hasty decisions? That would have never happened before.

I saw her frown as she saw me smile at her and for the first time, I felt grateful to Selin when she led us to the other "couple" to greet them. Standing in front of her, with less than a meter separating her from me, my heart quickened again as my nostrils caught her intoxicating scent. The same scent from my memories. And with that scent I finally saw her face in them.