I slip away from the dream.
Just as my life has always been filled with slipping away from one thing or another, my soul is covered in wounds too. Wounds I inflicted upon myself. Wounds I carved into my body until they bled, leaving marks behind. The nests of blood-filled seas I wished someone would gently blow on and soothe.
I have to make another decision.
Ever since I met Rowan, I have found myself within life. He is the one who made me step into it the moment I took my first step toward living.
But should we become real?
If we do, how much of ourselves should we leave behind for the world to find?
Or should I let this moment disappear beneath the fog of a dream?
Should I take our surrender from the hands of fate and place it into our own palms?
Choosing to surrender to each other instead of fate... could it become the most beautiful description of two lovers? Would fate laugh at being excluded from such a definition? Or would it carry its defeat with pride?
After I touch Rowan's lips and he responds to me with the same need, our arms intertwine. As if we had been torn away from each other for years and were now holding on again. Actually, "as if" is too little. In the absence of "what ifs," beyond the insufficiency of mere possibilities, we breathe inside a circle that belongs only to us.
For so long, among seven and a half billion people, perhaps we lived unaware of each other's existence, yet remained bound to life through the longing for one another.
I...
Wasn't I waiting?
For Rowan.
The truth is, I never imagined a chance like this would ever appear in my life. I do not even know whether calling this feeling a chance is the right thing to do. Were the small sparks of excitement my heart had experienced enough to define it?
Until a few weeks ago, the cells inside me wished for death. Now, beside Rowan, they are fighting for something called "life." I am not sure how much longer I can suppress my desire to be with him.
Finally, as our gazes cover one another, my lips curve upward. Rowan speaks through his eyes, through those meaningful glances that give his eyes their depth. His face is always filled with expressions I could never count. And I realize how much I enjoy trying to read those expressions one by one.
"For the first time..." he says, then falls silent. I wait for him to continue.
The fingers resting on my cheek gently caress my skin. I do not interfere with the sudden trembling of my eyelids.
"For the first time, that look isn't in your eyes."
I pull back slightly. My heart trembles with curiosity about what he is going to say.
"What look?" I cannot help but ask.
"As if smiling is forbidden for you. Sometimes you look like that after those quiet little smiles of yours. As if you've done something wrong."
With his words, Rowan explains the reason behind the speed of my feelings for him. It feels as though we met before we ever saw each other for the first time.
As if we had sat on the same bench for five minutes at a time, feeding the same flock of pigeons. Or as if, while searching for different albums in the same record store, the seller had recommended the same album to both of us, and we had found what we were searching for in something completely different.
I slip away from the dead-end yet strangely happy streets of my mind with the sound of Rowan's voice, a voice that leaves traces on my soul every time he speaks.
"Making you laugh feels like a punishment to me. But from now on, your heart will never remember that punishment again. The only thing that will ever come between us will be the freedom of a smile. You won't be able to stop yourself from laughing."
My heart twists with the value of the words spilling from his lips. In a way that feels both delicate and wonderfully ticklish...
"And every time you laugh, I will feel the wings of millions of birds beating in every single piece of my heart."
With Rowan's words, everything that has happened since I came to him passes through my mind.
Courage and the feeling of belonging.
Today, these are the most distinct emotions that have emerged from my heart and reached my soul.
Only a moment ago, while I was dreaming of kissing him, a few seconds later I found myself falling into a waterfall that made my ears ring.
I was not drowning. On the contrary, I was witnessing the life beneath the water, moment by moment. The fresh waters of that flowing waterfall gave my body the peace it needed and allowed my soul to feel simple, untouched.
While every part of me wanted to stay beside Rowan, a voice in my mind kept reminding me that I had to leave.
I did not panic. My heart did not find anything that was happening between us strange either.
If I had shared all my moments with him with someone else, I might have felt as though I were falling from a speeding roller coaster. My body, along with my soul, would have been shaken by tension.
But with Rowan, the speed of the roller coaster was slowing down. I felt as though we were becoming aware of everything around us. He examined me with the same depth that I examined him.
A part of me was afraid of the roller coaster speeding up again.
Yet with Rowan, I knew that not even speed itself could stand against us.
"You're unlike anyone else, Lena." As he said it, his fingers traced the area around my eyes.
"Now..." he said, moving his index finger around one of my eyes.
"I'm casting a spell."
My laughter fills the room, reaching even the walls. It was a loud yet gentle laugh. For a brief moment, Rowan's eyes wandering around mine caught my attention, and then the lines on his cheeks became more visible. He did not have deep dimples. When he smiled, thin, long lines appeared instead. I wanted to touch those lines and secretly wished for my lips to seal them forever.
"What kind of spell is that...?"
"A spell that will help you sleep and allow these beautiful eyes of yours to rest."
"How much longer are you going to cast this spell?"
"I can cast it forever."
"When does its effect wear off, then?"
"One day later," he says with a knowing expression.
"So..."
"We need to see each other every day."
I leave him without an answer. I simply allow the sparkle in my eyes to accompany his gaze.
I feel like I could never get tired of looking at him. "Feel like" is an understatement. It feels like he will never leave me. That feeling belongs exactly where it is.
The possibility that one day he might leave me turns into a speck of dust and slips out of the window. I erase that possibility completely within the depth of his smiles.
I breathe in the scent filling the room. Another scent slowly joins Rowan's familiar one. A delicious scent.
The fish Rowan had placed in the oven.
"It already smells delicious."
He takes a few steps away from me and looks toward the oven.
"It still needs some time."
He walks to one corner of the huge room and reaches the music player. Piano notes begin to collide with the walls. Rowan approaches me wearing the adorable kitchen apron he still has not taken off.
The meaning of the notes unfolds in my mind.
"Frédéric Chopin," I whisper.
Rowan looks at me in surprise, as if wondering how I know.
A whisper echoes in my mind.
From you.
Ever since the sound of Rowan's piano reached my soul, my interest in listening to classical music, especially piano pieces, had grown stronger. I do not feel the need to tell him that now.
As Rowan recovers from his surprise and reaches his hand toward me, he adds a piece of information.
"Performed by Nikolai Lugansky."
He raises one hand while placing the other around my waist. I place one hand on his shoulder and join the other with his hand held in the air.
We begin to dance.
The sound lingering behind our ears reminds me that it is the beginning of the magic between our souls.
While believing in the miracle that this enchanting music had saved my life was already difficult enough, now I was in the arms of a heart that made me feel like the most precious person in the world.
Although I do not want to take my eyes away from his, I rest my head against his chest so I can breathe in more of his scent.
Instead of enjoying the calm and peaceful moment between us, countless questions begin to gather in my mind.
How many days have you known him?
How well do you know him?
Can you trust him?
But I know that all these questions occupying my mind are insignificant.
When I look at Rowan, the happiness and excitement arriving with the slight ache in my heart, the peace my soul feels the moment I touch his lips, answer each question one by one.
Even though they are invisible answers, my mind knows they exist and accepts them.
I have nothing to lose.
I have so much to gain.
The man whose arms surround me.
The seconds in which we exist together through the melodies reaching our ears, witnessing each other's existence.
I have already won.
***
A few minutes later, Rowan asks me to come sit at the table. Only then do I realize that he had already prepared everything before I arrived.
Sometimes, when I am beside him, I find myself realizing that parts of my perception shut down. I should open my ears fully to the world, observe my surroundings more often, and love more things, actually.
The fish on the table, the streetlight filtering through the window, the birds flying restlessly as the sky begins to darken...
Everything with Rowan.
Ever since my first connection with Rowan was formed, my senses have actually become clearer. Yet sometimes, losing myself in him is something I cannot prevent.
I cannot.
Even without Rowan, I call out to myself by saying everything. Because while I think I become a little more mature with each passing day, I am also trying to place the understanding that my life depends on me into my subconscious.
I am aware that my subconscious can attack me at any moment, both because of what I experienced before and because of the psychotherapy I received in the past.
Before I heard Rowan's music, the pressures inside my soul had been increased by others, and I had lost the breath of my own voice one piece at a time.
Every conversation, every thought pierced into my soul. My mind had forced me toward the sharpest edge of life, and somehow, at that very point, Rowan was there.
This mixture of emotions I feel... if it is not love, then one thing is clear within the walls of my heart surrounded by logic: no man in my entire life has ever made me feel this safe.
Even if it is not now, I am certain that one day I will fall in love with Rowan and completely lose myself in him.
For a moment, I cannot help but wonder...
What if I am not simply lost in him right now?
I inhale the scent of the delicious fish with its wonderful sauce that Rowan places before me, smiling.
"Thank you for making this."
Instead of answering, Rowan leaves me in the care of a smile that washes away the dampness of my soul.
Then, as he pours rakı into my glass, I feel myself tense, yet I do not hesitate to voice what is on my mind.
"I don't drink alcohol."
For a brief moment, his eyes shine with surprise, but he does not let anything reflect on his smile.
"Really?"
As he sits across from me, I wait for him to fill his own glass, but he only takes a sip of his water.
"Are you that surprised?"
"No. Actually, I just realized what a huge gamble I took when I asked you for a drink."
The gamble he took with me.
The gambles he would take with me.
As I let my smile transform into a curious one, he continues explaining what he is thinking.
"If someone I had just met offered me alcohol and asked me to bring it that same evening... forget finding it ridiculous, I probably wouldn't even bother moving a muscle."
He says it.
"What if that person had been me? What if I had brought that bottle, and you were someone who hated drinking?"
His eyes begin to show signs of understanding under the effect of my words, while my smile grows wider.
His lips release the words without hesitation.
"I would have brought it. No matter what."
No matter what.
But...
Would he have come?
Really?
I do not need to answer that question for him.
His eyes tell me that he could do far more than simply come.
As I feel that he has done far more than just wait for me to arrive, another realization strikes my mind.
In that moment, I discover that I believe his eyes more than his words.