A LEAP OF THE EARLY BIRD

The one with darkness in his heart...

There are not many things worse to a kind and sincere heart than realizing it trusted the bad person. A kind heart believes that everyone is good and pure, that everyone deserves a chance, and a second chance, and a third. But if a bad person repeatedly chooses the dark side, that sort of pain weakens the good one's judgement of themselves. Worst of all, there is nothing that compares to the sorrow and pain a good person feels when they realize that by trusting the bad person they ended up hurting the one closest to their heart...

Sanem never expected to fall in love with Can. Even in her heart of a dreamer, she never imagined that falling for Can would be so quick. Yes, he was handsome, yes, he was an accomplished photographer. But she fell in love with the man he allowed her to see. The sincere, righteous, honest, and reserved man that he was. Where others saw him as stoic, she saw him was guarded. Where others saw him as famous, she saw him as a man who worked with sweat on his forehead to make sure that the images he created were the best he could possibly have done. And where others saw him as a son of the owner of Fikri Harika who took advantage of his father's wealth, she saw a son who put his own career on hold just to make sure the agency would continue working during his father's absence...

Sanem also did not expect for Can to fall for her. But he did. What was even more unbelieveable, he not only fell for her, he fell in love with her. To hear him say that he fell in love with her filled her heart and soul with even more love for him. She did not just hear him say it, she felt it. But that also filled her with sorrow. The sorrow of regret for what she had done, and the mistake she made by trusting Emre. She trusted Emre, and in the process of unforeseen circumstances, she ended up making one mistake after another, and all of them came back to haunt her.

She met with Ayhan and Osman. They were the only ones who knew the whole story, the only ones she could confide in. She cried, she poured out her guilt, and admitted that she was unable to neither see the future without Can not was she able to go on not telling him about what she had done. She was hurting. From the deepest parts of her heart to the surface of her skin. It was impossible for her to describe how bad and sorry she felt. She got herself in this mess, and did not know how to deal with it. She was stuck in the worst possible place her heart could have imagined. She was in love with Can more than she could describe. But she lied to him. She could not be with him, but she could not live without him. She could see that both Ayhan and Osman understood how she felt. Ayhan cried with her. Sanem's situation truly was a difficult one. So Ayhan suggested they would go back to the old plan. Keep Can at a distance, and after a while Sanem would move on. But Sanem refused. She knew that would not work. Not when she fell in love with Can. Not when she felt that love for him in every cell in her body.

She searched for the right words to describe how she felt. She could not find any. She recalled feeling hopeless and crushed when she thought Can chose Polen the day of her birthday party. Her world fell apart. She wanted to reach out to him, to let him know how much she cared. But she was scared. So she sent him a simple message. "Keşke"... She sent it with hope that she mattered at all to him, and that was all. But he listened, he heard her, and he understood. And as it turned out, he was the first one to admit that he loved her. And now she yearned for that "Keşke" to become reality. She yearned for it to come true. She searched everywhere and any way for it. She searched with love in her heart and hope on her soul. And she realized that the first step in all of what she would have to do would be to speak with Emre. She needed to make him see, make him understand that they had to come clean, had to admit their mistakes to Can.

She met with Emre that evening. She was holding on to the last shread of hope. If Emre would agree to go speak with Can, maybe there would be hope for them in the end. Oh, how wrong she was in her assumption that Emre was a man of honor. How wrong she was to think that he would be a man enough to take responsibility for his actions. For his own mistakes. But he not only refused to speak speak with Can, not only did he belittle her feelings, he also laughed off her hopes of any kind of future with Can. After all, Emre was his brother, so even if Can were ever to find out about what they had done, he would forgive him. But her? She spoke of love, but what did she know of it? The moment she would reveal what they did to Can he would leave her, and he would leave Istanbul behind without a moment of thought.

Emre told her he was sorry. Why couldn't she see how sorry he was to put her through all that had passed? Because she could not. Because she looked into his eyes and did not see even the slightest shaddow of remorse, not an ounce of regret. She also realized how desperate Emre's words sounded. Perhaps because he was aware of Can's feelings for her, but she did not know that. She finally understood how wrong she was to ever put trust in Emre Bey. She only hurt herself and Can in the process. She hurt their future. Because Emre turned out to be the real Kötü Kral. He was the one with darkness in his heart...