I can't make you love me

They stood together on the dock. Sanem made her decision and turned to Can, grasping his hands. "You lived – I realize now that that is my blessing." She shook her head sadly. "To expect anything more would be greedy."

He looked stricken. "What are you saying?"

She looked into his eyes, and lifted a hand to stroke his beard. Slowly, lovingly. Her own eyes filled with tears as she spoke. "I am saying that I have realized that I cannot make you love me. Love is not something to be forced," she moved her hand to his lips, silencing him when he attempted to interrupt her. "Nor is love something that someone can be asked to feel out of obligation, or out of nostalgia for what once was." Can's eyes glistened as he looked down at her, his hands rising to grasp her shoulders, his thumbs unconsciously caressing the skin he found there. Sanem continued. "You are my heart. That has not changed and that will not change, as long as I draw breath. I know I was your heart, before. But but you deserve the space and time to discover your own heart again. I accept that now, just as I accept that I cannot influence what your heart will decide."

"So you're giving up?!" Can asked incredulously.

"NO! I will never, can never, give up on my heart. The day I do that is the day I die. What I am giving up on is pressuring you, trying to make you remember... make you feel things that you may no longer truly feel. You need the time and space to realize what you want, who you want, without the influence of my needs or the guilt they make you feel." She moved her hands to his, attempting to lift them from her shoulders as tears streamed down her face. He would not release her.

"What if you are what I want?! Doesn't that matter?"

"Can, can you honestly tell me that you know that you love me as I love you? That you will happily spend your life with me, wherever it takes us, with no doubts? That who you are now feels and wants the same things that you did before that accident?" She looked deeply into his eyes. As she expected, and dreaded, there was love there, but it was shadowed by confusion and uncertainty. She sighed. Her course was set.

"I would rather be alone in the sunlight of my memories, than here in the shadows." A tear fell from Can's eye as she spoke. "What will you do?" he asked gruffly.

"I will go away to write. I will not break like before, when you left." Although she had closed her eyes briefly, she still sensed his flinch at her reminder of his previous actions – actions he still could not recall. "For this is my choice, and I know that it is the best one. I also will not hide; I will tell my family, and CeyCey and Mihriban, where I am. I will stay in contact with them."

"And me?" Can asked.

"You can find me through them and know that I am well through them, just as I can know that you are well. But I beg you, do not contact me until you have found your heart and are certain what, and who, you want." She regarded him steadily. Eventually he closed his eyes and nodded jerkily.

Sanem leaned forward and kissed him. Briefly, softly, longingly. "Be well my love." Then she turned and walked back to her house, her steps slow, but determined. She did not look back at Can, at her heart, standing on the dock.