The Love I Leave Behind

Dear Aydan Hanim

Dear Adyan hanim, 

When we first met you hated me, calling me Sevda, or flower girl. Always saying that I wasn't good enough for you son, but then something changed. We became closer and  bonded and that grew into a friendship that we both needed in a sense. Getting closer with you never had anything to do with Serkan, it was purely about enjoying your company and conversation, no matter how crazy they could be. With you in sense I got a mother, of course I had Afyer Hala and I will always love and appreciate her, but you slowly became another mother figure in my life with every step we took with each other. 

I want you to know that the you and Serkan will always hold a special place in my heart. I will always love Serkan and I don't think that could ever change. But that's okay because it is a part of living, finding love and losing love. I understand why you kept him a secret and I hold no ill will towards you. So I am not angry with you, just hurt. It seems that's what the Bolat family does best, hurting and cutting me deep enough to the point where I bleed, so I will ask for one last thing from you because you owe me that much. 

When Serkan starts to remember or gets is memory back, tell him to let me go. Tell him that I love him and that I forgive him, but I need time and that I deserve time too. I have leaned to much on him and this new life that we made with each other that I forgot about myself. I gave up on my dreams too many times for your family. Tell him that this time the wounds were to deep for him to heal, and that I need to heal by myself.  

I hope one day I will walk into a London Cafe and see you stilling there enjoying an espresso like that day on the deck, and I will be able to sit next to you and talk about our lives. But for that day to come I need time to achieve my dreams a live a life worth living. I hope that one day will come and everything will be past us. I hope you stay by his side this time, support him and stop him from becoming the robot that he once was. I am sorry  this had to end this way, but you chose this path the moment you chose Selin so this is how it must be. This will be the first and last time I will say this. Good-bye Adyan anne.

Flower Girl, 

Eda

I wipe the tears that fall down my face, and I turn to my mother and see that she is no better than me.

"She called you anne?" She nods her head at me while wiping her tears.

"When we went to the bathhouse the day before the wedding, I told her if she wanted she could call me that. She said she needed time and then...well you know." She says in thick voice due the tears. "But do you see now why I am telling you to give her time to heal? She asked me for this Serkan. After all the pain that this family has done to her she deserves it."

"Yes your right, but anne-" 

"No Serkan, she came to us a strong, happy and light girl. We broke her Serkan, we did this to her. I will not do it again, I will keep this promise to her if it's the last thing I do." She stands and walks over to the fireplace. 

I get up to stand next to her and pull her into a hug. After a moment I pull back and look into her eyes. "I need to find-" She pulls back from me.

"No, Serkan. I broke every other promise to her. I will not break this one, and I won't allow us to hurt her again." She has her back turned to me and is facing the glass wall and looking into out into the garden that she and Eda had spent so much time in. 

"She gave us everything we had ever lost back. She made you smile, she brought my son back to me, and because of that I had gained a daughter." She turns to face me again with a watery smile. "Twenty years in therapy with who knows how many doctors, and Eda is the one who let me escape from this prison." 

"Anne I would hardly call this a priso-"

"A beautiful prison is still a prison Serkan. In any case, you read the letter she wants time. She wants to fulfill her dreams." She grasps my hands and looks me in the eyes. "Let her be free my boy. Let her experience the world and come back on her own, because if you don't then you will lose her forever." I step away from her and look away. With my back facing her I say. 

"Anne I think I already lost her forever." I say in a quiet voice. Anne comes up behind me and turns me around to look at her. She grabs my face and looks me in the eye. 

"Serkan I have seen with my own eyes how great your love is for each other, she will come back one day. Be in a month or six or a year, but she will come back. We just have to give her time to heal and let her do all the things she wants." She says while rubbing her thumbs up and down face like she did when I was a child. I grab her hands and pull them away from my face.

"What if she doesn't come back? What if she never comes back anne? What am I going to do-"

"Serkan this is no longer just about you. This is about what is good for Eda and my son I am sorry to say this but that is not you right now." 

"So what are you saying, just wait here for her? Do nothing? No I can't do that, I won't do that." I say with my hands on my hips.

"Yes you will, just like Eda waited those two months for you. You will wait for her." 

"Anne I didn't have a choice, if I had remembered Eda I would have came back right away." 

"Yes but she didn't know that. But she still kept going on, because she knew that's what you would have wanted. Now it's time for you too think about what she wants." She walks away from me and goes toward the garden where I see Seyfi setting up coffee for us. When she gets to the door she turns and looks at me. 

"Serkan there is a saying. If you love someone let them go, for if they return they were always yours. If-"

"If they don't, they never were." I finish. I put my head down in sadness, I take a deep breathe in and turn to face my mom. "Okay I will wait." 

"Thank you my boy, just you wait she will come back." With that she walks out the door and goes to Sefyi. 

"She has too." I say looking up at the sky hoping to see the yildiz that left me.