TWO BIRDS OF A FEATHER

The bitter taste of regret...

Fear has a powerful way of shutting down dreams and wishes. But there is something much more powerful than fear. And that is regret. Why? Because the feeling of fear passes as time goes by. But regret does not...

Sitting by the shore of the Bosphorus, Sanem felt alone. So alone, and so lonely. The only person she cared for and loved in her life left her behind. He left her behind as if she meant nothing. Left her behind as if their love was nothing more than a momentary whim of a heart's fancy. Left her behind with her heart split in two. Can Divit would be nothing more to her than a memory of the past. The only trouble was, she knew that she would never be strong enough to let go of their love.

Strange as it was, she felt nothing but the numbing pain inside. The sun shining up above left no bearing in the skin of her cheeks. The brisk morning breeze blowing gently left no trace of it in her hair. The sounds of the Bosphorus surrendering its gentle waves to the riverbank left no footprint in her soul. Because all of it still felt Can. He was everywhere for her. And he was everything to her.

She cried. She wept. She sighed. She had no place to turn and nowhere to go. She was as lost in her love for Can as she had never been in her life. She found so much strength in his love. But the price she was paying for it now was so much more than she could handle. She gave up her scent for him. She gave it up so that she could save him. The fact of the matter was that HE meant so much more to he than that scent. HE was everything to her. What other woman could sit still and do nothing while her beloved suffered? Could there be a woman that would have done nothing? What was love if not the strength to fight for what was right and strength to value beloved's life above all else? She tried her best to fight for him. But he misunderstood her good intentions. He chose to leave rather than stay and fight for what they shared. He chose to leave rather than forgive her because he did not believe in the strength of his love. She knew it. She understood it. And she realized that Can did not, because of his own fears.

She was right. Because she got to know him better than anyone else. Because he let her see who he was as a man. Because she was not afraid to love him the way he was. But she did not realize that although Can Divit was a strong, stoic, and temperamental man to say the least, he carried much more fear in his heart than he revealed even to her. And it was not just a fear of her hurting him again. It was a fear of how much she actually loved him.

As he sat alone, in the dimmed light that barely lit the gym, Can felt Sanem. She was everywhere. She was there with him. Whether he opened his eyes or kept them closed. Whether he was in a room full of people or all by himself. Whether he was surrounded by a deafening noise or a deafening silence. Sanem was there. And so were the words she told him with full sincerity and honesty. She loved him. That was as clear as day to him. She also told him that by always running away from problems that arose in his life he was just like Hüma. JUST like her.

She told him something else. She told him that since he made his choice she would make hers too. She would no longer pursue him. Whatever happened next, she would no longer seek his closeness, his love, or his care. And that made him more uncomfortable than he was willing to admit. Sanem was different from all other women he had relationships in his life. All of them. Not only because it was hard for him to convince her to admit that she had feelings for him, but now because she wanted to cut all ties with him. In the past, his former partners always wanted to remain friends with him, they wanted to stay close to him. But, again, not Sanem. Not this time around. That put even more fear into his aching heart. And no amount or level of pain or strain after his exercise routine offered any consolation...

It seemed to Sanem that she had spent hours sitting on the lonesome bench by the Bosphorus. But that neither helped her nor made her stronger. So, she got up, and waived at a Taxi. It was time for her to go home and tell her parents that her days at Fikri Harika had come to an end. She saw the Taxi slow down. But preoccupied by her thoughts and blinded by the clouds over her grieving heart, she did not look both ways before she stepped onto the street. What happened next affected not only that moment, but the rest of her life. She got hit by a car. By accident. By Yigit. By a man utterly scared and sincerely sorry about what happened. By a man who had not meant to cause her harm. By a man whose heart stopped when he looked into her eyes...