Defne & Ömer: What if we had met at an airport instead?

Chapter 6: Of forgiveness and resolutions

Hi all you lovely people! I'm finally back! I really am truly sorry for not having updated this story earlier. I'm grateful to all those who've read the previous chapters, who have commented and who have voted on this story in spite of my long absence. Unfortunately, real life was very messed up with health scares, professional and personal issues which I simply could not get out of. I do promise that I will finish this story and try to do justice to it as well. I'm going to try to implement a timeline for myself to update chapters - every third monday is what I'm thinking. So you also know when to expect an update.

While I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, I've decided not to keep you waiting any longer. I do hope you like it though. Please do leave comments to let me know if you did!

Omer:

(Three years earlier)

When Omer had, while walking arm in arm with Defne down the aisle, learnt that she had been paid to have him fall in love with her, he had felt everything around him crumbling - his heart, his dreams and what he had believed to be his reality. Although the months which had followed had been filled with a pain he had never known before, he had picked himself up and had seen through the haze, clutching at the only consolation he had which was the belief that Defne had truly loved him.

Them meeting had been a matter of luck and their love, a matter of fate. Everything else had just been noise.

As the fog had lifted and he began to comprehend the sort of pressures that she must have been under in order to find ways to be with him, he had realized that no matter what, she was still the only person he wanted in his life. In the end the truth that he had kept trying to brush aside was that no matter their past, if given a chance to be together without anyone else's interference, they could and would be happy forever.

However, that was when the phone call had happened. The phone call which within minutes managed to flip his entire world over, once again.

She was married. She was married. She was married.

She was married to someone else and he was alone. He had left her and she had moved on. He had lost out on the best thing that had ever happened to him and she had left him behind.

She was married.

At first, he'd been angry with her - how had she moved on from a love like theirs? Why hadn't she come after him? Why hadn't she tried to explain? Had it been this easy for her to leave him behind?

Soon his anger towards her subsided and turned inwards instead.

He had been the one who had left her with no way of contacting him. He had been the one to leave her without a chance to explain. He had been the one who had left her behind, leaving her alone waiting for him in their honeymoon suite, alone to deal with the fallout of their wedding with her family, his family and their friends. He had been the one who hadn't even told her he was leaving. He had just left ending their relationship and their marriage without a word.

After all that, was she to wait for him forever?

A selfish part of him whispered 'yes' while the rational part knew that his leaving was bound to have been the end for her. She could not have expected him to return, the humiliation he was bound to have felt would never have allowed him to return. She who knew him better than anyone else would have believed that.

When he had first left Istanbul, he had been filled with rage and hurt but he'd still believed that he would survive.

Now however, on learning of her wedding, it was as if the last shreds of his will to live had finally snapped. He had lost everything tying himself to life and earth and he no longer wished to live another day. Spending time alone in his apartment, he replayed all the times he had been with Defne - the time he had found her planting flowers in his garden looking so much like one herself, the time she had moved into his house, the time she had gotten drunk and spoken about how much she loved him, the time she had come to him on his mother's death anniversary, the time she had yelled at him thinking he was Iso, the time she had slapped him, and the many memories which he knew would never ever leave him.