Can Yaman International Presents: Part 2: Erkenci Kus, The Continuing Story

Chapter 5: The Ties That Bind

At the end of Chapter 4:  Bulut was back. He realized that running away from his past was not going to accomplish anything. It was not going to bring him the answers he was searching for. More importantly, Bulut realized that for him, a man who had never found any place to call his own, he had finally found what he had been searching for. His new path brought him back to Istanbul. Back to the city of dreams. Back to the circle of friends he vowed to stay close with and protect. And hopefully... back to the hearts of his family, if he was lucky enough.

(Author's Note:  Please read to the end of this chapter and let us know what you think. And don't forget to vote. Thank you!)

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What can be said about family? Is family simply a bloodline linking one person to another? Is it something much deeper than that? Or is it both? What if it could be both? What if the one reason that held a heart back could become the single deciding factor in the future that waited someone on their path? 

Aziz lay awake in his hospital bed. Although he was conscious, he was not yet fully awake. Aware of where he was, he was not quite sure how he got there. Never fond of hospital rooms, he did not like being in one now. He looked over and saw that the bed next to him was empty. He had been told Mihriban was admitted along with him and put into the same room he was in. But the bed next to him was empty because she had been released. They had both collapsed and been rushed to the hospital. He was told that it was Bulut who had called for an ambulance for them. Bulut... their son. His son... his and Mihriban's son. Aziz did not know if this was true or not and thought it should be verified. But maybe not. Something told him to trust his gut because there was one thing for certain... no two things. Mihriban was just as distraught to learn that Bulut was their son. More importantly, she did not deny the fact that it was possible.

Being alone with his thoughts was nothing new to Aziz. He had spent most of his life alone. Actually lonely, to be more precise. His heart had only ever opened up to one woman. One angel of a woman with a heart of gold and the soul of a gypsy. She was like no other to him. She was pure, innocent, and unchanged by the world they were forced to grow up in. She did not have a wicked or ambitious bone in her body. She was as kind as the kindest of nature's creatures but as mysterious as the darkest of nights with very few stars. She was Mihriban, his beloved.

The day they met, his world had stood still. She had mistaken him for a thief of one of her most loved books and verbally laid into him. Using words and hand gestures, she had made Aziz understand that a man should have more decency than to steal a book. Books were not meant to be stolen but cherished. She shone with an indescribable fierceness that came out of her. She yelled at him but all Aziz heard was the melody of her of her voice, the sweetness of music in her words. All he felt was Mihriban taking a sudden hold of his heart, and he knew in that moment that she would hold it forever.

Seeing that her words either froze or baffled Aziz, she grabbed the book from his hand. But one glance at the inside of the book made Mihriban realize that she had just taken her anger out on Aziz by mistake. He was not the thief she had mistaken him for. She apologized to him from the bottom of her heart, saying he was the wrong man and held out her hand to return the book. Instead of accepting it, Aziz took hold of her hand with the book still in it. Drawing her closer to him, he held her hand with the book in it against his chest. He told her that it turned out he was exactly the right man she was looking for.

The sincerity in his voice, the calm and poetic tone of it, and the fact that he did not seem to be bothered at who saw them moved Mihriban's heart. She was a girl from the lower class but eager to learn. She worked two jobs so she could afford to go to school because she wanted to make something of herself. Aziz was a man from an established family, a respected family. A family who, as they say, "slept on money". Somehow Mihriban saw past the entitled life she knew Aziz had come from and Aziz saw past the life she came from. They saw each other through the prism of their hearts, both pure and yearning for someone to call their own. Aziz's favorite cousin Remide had also taken an immediate liking to Mihriban, and vice versa. This only added to Aziz knowing how right he was to fall in love with her.