#kayzer

Midyat Yonca Hospital. 

Day of the accident. Later at night…

Cold. It was cold in the waiting area. So cold that she was starting to feel the chill seep into her veins, slowing down her racing heart. Her right hand absentmindedly reached for her lower belly, rubbing small circles as she watched sleep slowly take over Demir, before her. He had dropped to the floor, against the glass window separating them from Nadim’s bed in the Intensive Care Unit. Seemingly mumbling under his breath, his eyes were closed, barely paying attention to her. 

She needed to see Kaya. She needed to see him now. 

Slipping away from the ICU’s main entrance, she stepped out into the hallway just in time to watch her brother and cousins walking away from room 203. Şahin had texted her earlier, confirming he was in stable condition and had been moved to a regular room earlier that evening, but she had to make sure. She needed to feel his pulse beating along with her own.

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The numbers on the door were starting to mock her. She had been staring at the blue-coloured door for so long that the digits were starting to move and stars were dancing around in her eyes. She hadn’t been this scared when she tiptoed down the hallway, but she was now starting to reconsider her decision. 

What if he was in a worse state than she had been told?

What if Demir found out she had scurried away to Kaya’s side?

What if… what if he didn’t want to see her? 

She was about to retrace her steps back, when she felt a hand reach behind her and turn the handle, revealing the dimly-lit room.

“Go in. He’s asleep for now, but you should go in.” 

She turned to find her brother watching her with a pitiful look in his eyes, and she let a grateful smile adorn her face before she walked into the hospital room. As the door closed behind her, the violent smell of disinfectant invaded her nostrils and she stopped in her tracks as her eyes finally settled on him.

His left shoulder and abdomen were fully bandaged, while his chest was left exposed, revealing the extent of his injures. A sheet had been draped over his lower body, loose enough to show his now cast-clad left leg. The words shouted by the medics, that she had buried earlier that day, came back to her slowly. 

Severe burns on the left shoulder… Possible femur fracture…Be careful, lacerations on his face, back, chest and the majority of his right leg.

Always full of life, bearing the traces of hours spent under the Mardin sun, his body looked so broken now, paling by every step she took towards him. The constant beeping of the machines he was plugged into was the only sign that he was still alive. As she reached the bed with shaking limbs, she nearly collapsed in the chair that was left by his side, at the sight of his face half-covered by an oxygen mask, his features contorted with pain.

Interlacing her hand with his still one, she let a deep breath out as she felt his warmth flowing through her own. Rough and scarred, but tender under her touch, just like she remembered. She watched the frown in his forehead disappear, and her face flushed as she watched his body relax under her touch. 

She let a finger trace his rugged palm, and smiled as she recalled the first time she had felt it slip against hers. Once so soft, she had found comfort in feeling it melt against her throughout the years, even as time had left its unforgiving marks on him. His hardened knuckles, she had countlessly cleaned patches of blood off, as heartbreak and anger invaded his soul with the passing of his father. Her digit pursued the trail of his veins, up to his forearm, a road she knew oh so well, a path she could get lost into and always find her way back. 

Her finger hovered over the now bandaged skin, until she reached the sliver of skin that was left unscathed from the accident. Her own name, itched on the now pale skin above his heart, was staring back at her and she quickly looked away as she felt her eyes burning, threatening to well up at any moment. That’s when she noticed his silver chain, dangling down his right shoulder, resting too tightly against his neck. She frowned as she got back to her feet, his hand still in hers, wondering how the medical staff had ignored the presence of the chocking hazard. 

She tucked a finger under the chain to drag it away from under his neck and adjust it on his chest, when her knuckle connects with a metal hoop that makes her stomach drop. 

“Leave it… I put it back on.”

Her head snapped and her heart almost bursts as she finds two moss-green eyes staring back at her with intensity. His rough voice fills her with relief, but the exhaustion and strain in his tone opens up another crack in her heart. 

“Kaya… you’re… you’re okay”, her breath catches in her throat. 

She frantically looked around her, trying to locate the water pitcher, the call bell, anything that might soothe him, when she felt his right hand engulf hers and rest it on top of his chest. Zerrin’s eyes grow wide as she realizes she’d been holding onto a metal band this entire time. A ring. His wedding ring. She turned her hand in his and stared at the golden band as the faint light reflected her engraved name back to her and she felt her eyes fill with tears she’d been containing for hours. Weeks even. 

“Don’t cry…Zerrin, please don’t cry”, he whispers through his oxygen mask. 

Her soft honey eyes rose to meet his own and she let her tears fall as his right hand softly came up to hold her cheek. She let herself melt under his caress, his thumb gently swiping away in a comforting rhythm, as she watched memories of spring escapades through blooming wheat fields come to life in his glistening green eyes. Not a worry in the world, they used to be so young, they used to be so in love… Taken aback by the intensity of her emotions, she squeezed her eyelids shut before she finally says, “why are you wearing this around your neck Kaya?”.

His thumb came to a still stop on her cheek before dropping down to her lower lip and resting there. Her heart nearly stops at his touch but Zerrin finds herself unable to move, spellbound by the fervor of his clouded gaze on her. 

“Why, Kaya?”, she repeats. 

He barely moves as he whispers “you know why…”. 

“Do I, really… do I?” She releases herself from his hold and takes a few steps back, keeping a safe distance between them, as she reassesses the man laying in front of her. What was even she doing, standing in his room in the middle of the night.. 

“A few hours ago you were telling me you were moving on with someone else, hell, you’ve even went bride shopping at my university…”, she scoffs. “And now you’re doing this? Why are you doing this to me Kaya? Why are you so intent on hurting me?”

Kaya shakes his head in frustration and takes the mask off of his face, tearing it away from both of them. “Do you think I want to hurt you Zerrin? Do you think this was any easy on me?” He starts heaving in between every few words, agitated, and Zerrin runs to hold him still, slipping her hand back into his. 

“Kaya, please…”, she tries to stop him.

“I almost died today Zerrin, and all I could think of when it was happening was that you probably hate me now. That I won’t be able to see your eyes ever again.” The accelerating beeping of the heart monitor was starting to alarm her, the color rising on his cheeks a sign that his lungs were starting to give out from the exertion. 

“Kaya, your mask, you won’t be able to breathe…”, she pleads at him.

He coughs a few times before he turns sullen. “Does it matter? I can’t breathe anyway.. Not today, not ever. Not with the thought of you stuck under that monster’s roof. Not with the thought of you carrying his child.”

The last sentence makes Zerrin rear back away from him, walking to the far end of the room by the window as she takes several breaths to calm herself down. 

“Zerrin… Zerrin, look at me. Did he.. did he hurt you”, he finally lets out in a broken voice. 

She muffles a sob and crosses her arms around her waist. Had he hurt her… yes, but not any way Kaya was thinking. Demir had hurt her, but her soul ached even more at the thought of Kaya’s biting last words. At the thought of him giving up on her, even for just a moment.

She swallows back her tears, and turns to him, the smile on her face not reaching her eyes. “I’m really happy Kaya… you’re alive, you’re still here. I was so scared, so so scared but you’re okay.” She walks to him, readjusting the oxygen mask over his face, trying to keep her composure of fear of breaking down again. 

“I never want anything bad to happen to you, you know that don’t you…”

“Zerrin…”

7 years ago… on a spring afternoon.

Kaya was sure his legs were going to explode with how fast he was running down the street to Zerrin’s. His breath, sharp and frantic, was accentuated by the “you’re so dead” warnings his mind was sending him with every step he took towards to her house.

Zerrin was going to kill him. She was going to end his life.

He had promised to take her to the Mardin library to finish her final school project of the semester, insisted she’d wait for his basketball practice to end so she wouldn’t have to walk those empty streets unaccompanied and he’d just… fell asleep. Depleted from the miles the coach had made them run under the afternoon burning sun, the quick water break he took under a hidden tree had turned into a 3-hour nap he was never going to recover from. His 24 phone calls had been left unanswered and his 56 texts mocked him with consecutive Read notifications. He had no choice but to kneel and beg. 

The few pebbles he had thrown at her room’s window ricocheted back onto his head, and Kaya knew he was done for. Sighing heavily, he hid his backpack behind his cousin’s car parked outside and climbed his usual way up the wall of his uncle’s house.

“You know the front door is right there, don’t you?”, a voice came out from above and Kaya nearly fell back down from surprise. 

Şahin, his older cousin, was leaning against the lower wall that opened up to the mansion’s main balcony, watching him with a smirk while he was struggling to stabilize his left leg in a wall dent. He grabbed both of Kaya’s arms and pulled him up to the main court, dusting the stone dust off of his basketball uniform. 

“You’re late, dude.”

Leaning over to catch his breath, his hands holding onto his sides in an attempt to subside the stitch that was stabbing at his abdomen, he wheezed, “How mad is she?”

“She’s not home, she’s out painting, down by the river.”

“So really mad, then…”

“Yep. Go in and drink some water first. And take a shower, you smell.”

Şahin patted his shoulder and lowered his voice as he said “Mom and Dad drove out to Mardin for a wedding celebration, they won’t be back until late at night. You got the evening..”. Kaya watched his cousin walk away, not without a subtle wink, before dropping his gaze to his watch and cursing under his breath. He was so late. 

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Zerrin felt him, before even hearing the familial rhythm of his steps quietly approaching her. The smell of roasted pistachios reached her and she decided in that moment that she wasn’t mad at Kaya. How could she ever be…

“You’re late.”

Kaya stopped in his tracks, his arms heavy with food containers he had begged Ümmü to sacrifice for the evening. 

“How on earth did you know I was here?” 

Zerrin shrugged, her back still facing him. “People can smell the baklava you’re hiding from miles away. Nuts or pistachio?”

Kaya grinned. “Both!”

He ran towards the lonely wide oak tree, where Zerrin had already laid down a blanket and set her art supplies aside, and placed his culinary offerings and backpack under the lowest hanging branch. A few feet away from the edge of the river, the glorious tree had been their refuge for most of their childhood and teenage life. Several wooden branches split in all directions, weighed by the memories of wild climbing children and afternoon naps under the Mesopotamian sun, the green foliage offering protection from the harsh and arid climate of the region, but also the intrusion of their family elders. 

He sat down and observed the trunk against which he’d spent most of his summer nights. He smiled at the little curve that sat between the engraved K and Z, right in the middle of the tree. He had stolen Cihan’s pocket knife a few years back, and had decided to carve out his and his best friend’s initials, commemorating their Albora hangout. Excited at the prospect of marking their territory, Şahin had joined in in engraving his own initial before a shriek from a 10-year old Zerrin had stopped him in his tracks, lecturing him on the harm he was inflicting on the poor tree. He was secretly convinced she had intervened because she wanted to keep the tree for themselves. It was always Zerrin and Kaya. Only Kaya and Zerrin, since the two of them had learned how to walk, and she hated the idea of her brother coming between them.

He ran his hand on the chiseled letters, lingering on the familiar Z -his good luck charm, with shaking fingers before closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. Why was he so nervous today?  

Walking back to the edge of the beach, where she had set up her easel and tiny wooden stool, he stopped a few meters away, finally allowing himself to look at her. Standing in front of her canvas, she was a perfect tableau standing before him, a multitude of colors invading his mind as the sun, lowering in the horizon, was lighting sparks across her beautiful dark brown hair. She was fire, against the lively river simmering behind her in greens and blues, her locks dancing in the fresh spring breeze like a spell luring him toward his demise. 

She was wearing his favorite sundress of hers while the sage green apron he had gotten for her birthday hung around her neck, loosened up at the back as always. He walked over to her, carefully pulling out dessert out of a tiny carton. 

“Open, it’s still warm.”

Zerrin turned to face him, her breath getting caught in her throat as he put a small bite of baklava between her lips. She felt her cheeks burn as he swiped his thumb over her lower lip, setting off the pastry crumbs, his eyes focused on her plump mouth before lowering his hand quickly to his side. Way too quickly…

Chewing carefully, she watched his eyes trace her face and hair as she says “Did you think you could come here and bribe me with food, and I would just forget everything?”

“You got paint all over yourself again. What is the point of that apron?”

She rolls her eyes and turns to her painting while mumbling, “You’re not going to distract me, Kaya…”

Soon enough, she felt his hands come behind her at her waist, pulling the ties in a tight knot, tugging her against his hard chest in the process. Her heart nearly stopped as his fingers slid against her skin, pulling her wild hair aside to sit neatly against her right shoulder.

“It’s almost sunset, you’re gonna lose out on the light…”, his deep tone against her ear sent a shiver down her spine. His voice had turned into a gruff in the past year, and she had spent hours making fun of the fascinating change, but the bass rumbling in her chest every time he spoke, still holding a softness at the edge whenever he addressed her in particular, was starting to make her feel…different.

Taking a deep breath, she cleared her throat before responding.

“Don’t worry about it. I know those colors by heart.”

She did in fact know those colors by heart. 

A painting etched onto her brain. A family gathering at dusk to celebrate a fruitful harvest. Her cousins and brother chasing off a stubborn colony of bats. A stray nocturnal flyer roaming around her head as the brightest September full moon finally settled down the valley in an unnerving show of light. Right there where she stood, seven years ago, he had held her hand and settled his palm on her wet cheek, “Don’t be scared. It won’t touch you. I’ll never let anything happen to you.” The words had echoed in her mind as the moonlight softened in his eyes, taking the color of woods at twilight. A shade unique to her favorite person, to her favorite river.

She turned to meet his eyes and smiled as she watched the familiar hues she’d been gazing at for hours scatter around in his iris. She raised her flat brush to his face and swiped a thin line across his cheek, right below his left eye. The moss-green acrylic stroke glistened as the setting sun lit a fire in identically-colored eyes. Perfect match.

Standing still, watching her eyes dance in excitement before him, Kaya grumbled “Can’t you at least add a second darker line, so it looks like I have war paint on?”. Zerrin grinned and shook her head, as she dipped her brush back in her palette and resumed her gentle strokes on her nearly finished canvas. 

“Go eat, I know you’re hungry. I’ll be over in a second.”

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Kaya was used to spending hours watching Zerrin paint. As an energetic wild child who was ravaged by boredom most of the time, he’d quickly found out that observing her sketch and color was the most calming activity he could partake in. But not today… Kaya could barely focus on her with the weight of the little metal hoop buried in his pocket, burning a hole into his skin. 

He had decided he was going to ask her to marry him one day on his 15th birthday, and the ring he had gotten at a vintage jewelry shop in Midyat had not separated him ever since. But how could he entertain the idea when he could not even keep his most simple promises to her. Hell, did she even know how much she meant to him… Would she even feel the same…His finger drew circles around the shape on his thigh, as he recalled her smiles adorning her face whenever she would walk down the school’s hallway. She was always so friendly towards everyone she’d met… but she never looked at anyone the way she’d look at him. That’s what he had believed until that moment anyway. This wasn’t the first time Kaya had let her down, what if he had just ruined his chances forever… Doubt crawled into his veins, while his heart ached at the knowledge that he could never feel whole unless she became his. 

Sensing her moving in his direction, he shook his pants in an attempt to make the ring shape disappear and settled back against the tree trunk, his jacket folded into a make-shape pillow behind his head.

“Are you finished?”, he asked while watching her throw her shoes away and drop down on the blanket next to him. He pushed his jacket towards her and they laid side by side, watching the sky above them take on a multitude of colors as the sun stepped further away in the horizon.

“Not yet”, she says in a sigh. “I have yet to paint the moon. I’ve missed it for a couple of weeks, and I need to witness it in its full glory to get it perfectly!”. She raised her arms to the sky, animated by the thought of the majestic celestial object, forming a croissant before their eyes. Kaya chuckled, “I thought you knew those colors by heart.”

Zerrin elbowed Kaya playfully in the ribs, and rested her head on his shoulder, letting the breeze sway wisps of hair on her face, engulfing her with his warm pine and blond woods scent. Kaya’s scent.

“I’m really sorry about today…”, he whispers. 

“It’s okay. I know you didn’t mean to… I managed to submit my project anyway. You can always come with me to the observatory if you wanna make it up to me. I can’t carry all my supplies up that hill.”

“Whatever you need, let’s go now!”

She chuckled at his enthusiasm and hummed, “No, not today… I have to wait a few days for the moon to be full and low in the horizon. That’s when the whole valley lights up, even at dusk.” Sighing heavily, Zerrin added, “I wish I could just pick it out from the sky, so I can watch it whenever I want, hang it on my ceiling every night. Don’t you?”

“No”, he laughed.

“What? But why? Look at it. It’s wonderful.”

Kaya turned to her and smiled, before saying “I am looking at it. It is wonderful. I wouldn’t dare come near it though…” 

Zerrin’s eyes went wide and she turned her lips down, whispering in a dramatic tone “But… but she’s so beautiful.”

He snorts and swipes a finger down her nose bridge affectionately. “Get those puppy eyes away from me!” Turning to watch the clouds veer into darker reds and blues, he continued.

“You’re right, she is so beautiful… so beautiful it’s almost haunting. I look at her everyday. She always shines, night and day. You know… I tell all my secrets to the moon, she keeps them tucked in her shadows, and I know they’ll always be safe with her. I will always be safe with her. She’s so special that I’m worried if I just pick her out of the sky, she will fade away in my hands… If… if she becomes mine, my darkness will swallow her up and the world will lose its light and blur away. But…” His voice drifts off, and Kaya closes his eyes, longing tugging at his heartstrings as he finally voices his soul’s deepest wish.

“But I really want her to be mine…”

His voice broke on that last word but he couldn’t get himself to open his eyes again, for fear of seeing confusion in her eyes, disappointment, or worse… rejection. The deafening racing beat of his heart in his ears filled the silence around him. There was no turning back from now on. 

Kaya wasn’t sure what had happened next, but the loss of warmth on his left side and the rustling around him crowded him with unease. His insistence on keeping his eyes squeezed, in an unusual bout of insecurity, kept him unaware of Zerrin’s move to grab her chisel from her supply case to carve out the tree trunk standing tall behind them. A curve that laid unfinished for years, a heart she was waiting to complete on the day he would finally be ready.

With a smile on her face, she finally pulled her tool down and sat back to watch him. She had never seen him so nervous, so doubtful, a frown pinching his forehead in the most heart-wrenching way. It tore her apart that he had been so oblivious to the fact that she had loved him just as much, perhaps a little more, perhaps even longer. But all she wanted in that moment was to get lost in his green eyes until death did them apart. 

“Kaya?”

He slowly opened his eyes and turned to find glistening honey eyes watching him intently. His hand swiftly came up to catch a falling tear from her eye, when her right hand slipping in his brought him to a stop. 

“She’s always been yours”, she finally whispered.

His eyes blurred in an ocean of tears he didn’t know he was holding, and as she raised her other hand to wipe a few drops away, mirroring him, he finally noticed the engraving behind her.

K ♡ Z