BAY YANLIŞ

Episode 10 - The power of love...

It may be argued that those who claim that love holds no power never felt it in their life. Because love does hold power. The power to forgive. The power to heal. The power to mend what appeared to have been broken.

Özgür stood in the doorway of "La Gabbia" and felt something he never felt before. He felt like his heart had been ripped out of his chest, as if it meant nothing to the person whom he opened it to. The pain felt unbearable. It felt so foreign to him that he honestly did not know what to do. He only knew one thing... somehow it appeared Ezgi felt just as much pain as he did. It baffled him as to why?

Özgür watched Ezgi until she walked away from the restaurant and down to the street. She stood there with her back turned towards him but he could tell she was crying. He saw her wipe the tears away. He heard her sighs and heard her cry. He heard the echoing footsteps her shoes left on the pavement. It made him feel like she walked all over his heart.

Ezgi walked the streets of Istanbul toward the spot where she let go of her fears and revealed her feelings to Özgür. As for Özgür, he sat at the bar in the restaurant. He did not want to talk. He did not want to think. He did not want to spend a second of his time on unnecessary and undesired small talk with the guests at the restaurant. Instead, he chose to sit alone and away from the lights and the music that meant so much to him not long ago. Because Ezgi meant more. And now, she was gone.

When Ozan saw his best friend sitting at the bar, he approached Özgür and asked him why he sat there, alone. Didn't he have a surprise planned for Ezgi? Özgür sighed, with his eyes too heavy to look up at Ozan. He looked forward, without any direction that would force him to concentrate on any particular detail. He sighed again and replied to Ozan that there was no surprise. There was nothing. Everything was over.

Ozan grew worried. He had never seen Özgür so resigned and so silent. He asked him what happened, but the only reply he received was for him not to ask any more questions. As Özgür walked away, Ozan was left wondering. What happened between his best friend and Ezgi? Why did it hurt Özgür so much that he did not want to talk about it?

On the other side of heartache, Ezgi stood alone and heartbroken in the spot where she let her heart lead the way and where she kissed Özgür. She looked at the view of the Bosphorus and its bridges. How beautifully their lights lit up the night sky but how lonely they looked. She sighed and allowed her tears to finally dry up. She was spent and tired from all of the crying and the burden of heaviness she felt. She realized she was dumped, again, but this time was different. It was different because what she thought was shared with Özgür was different.

For the first time in her life, she felt something for a man she did not pursue in the beginning. He was not her type. He was not someone she found herself drawn to. Heavens knew she found him annoying, stubborn, and a total brute of a man. He was the epitome of a man she did NOT want to even look at. But then he showed her who he was... on the inside. He let her in with such intensity and honesty that she grabbed what he offered her and let go... of her fear. Not even Özgür understood how much it took for her to reveal her feelings to him. How much it took for her to lean in for the kiss. It may not have been the first kiss in her life or even her first kiss with him, but somehow it sure felt like it. Why? Because she did so with an open heart. A heart that he had now crushed into pieces.

She thought of the kiss. Not only how it felt, but what it meant to her. She recalled the first kiss they shared. Although she did not fully comprehend how she could have kissed Özgür on the first day they met, she sure remembered that she kissed him. Whatever she did afterwards was still a little blurry to her. Özgür really was the only man she ever initiated a kiss with. The kiss. She had had relationships before but she always waited for the man to be the first to do everything. The man was always the first to ask her for her phone number, the first to ask her out on a date, the first to hold her hand, and the first to kiss her. She was always the one to wait for all those things, always one step behind. But with Özgür? She met Özgür eye to eye, and head to head. She wasn't afraid to do so for the first time in her life. Now what lay broken at her feet was her courage, her happiness, and her shattered heart. The kiss that broke through her insecurities was now a distant memory.