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But...they were for short-term use—to visit and then leave. Not a forever home with sunlight, a permanent letter box, and whales as your next-door neighbours.
Regardless that I needed this to happen quickly. Regardless that I clung to the one-day hope of vanishing into a different world, the process couldn’t be rushed.
As more failures happened and more frustration set in, we constantly pushed each other to come up with better ideas. Working took over my life, giving me somewhere to hide from my grief.
If I wasn’t caring for Ayla, I was caring for Lunamare, and on the nights I couldn’t sleep, and the yearly storms rolled in thanks to a vicious rainy season, I sat watching every underwater movie I could.
The Abyss and my childhood love of Ocean Girl were among my favourites. I’d scribble notes in the dark—nonsense notes, hopeful notes—and suggested we were going about this all wrong.
We were trying to build a house.
A house with foundations and front doors.
A house that would work on land but not in the water.
We were wasting our time because what we should be building was something the ocean would create itself. A bubble perhaps. A blob or piece of froth, something that could flow in the current rather than fight it.
Despite my obsession with work, I could never shed my endless guilt or dreadful helplessness.
I’d searched for him.
I’d hunted and scrutinised, not willing to take Cem’s word that Aslan was dead.
What sort of wife would I be if I accepted one man’s assurance that my soulmate was gone? Especially when my heart said otherwise.
But I could only make so many phone calls. Only utter so many threats for the truth before I was labelled crazy and grief-stricken.
No one took me seriously.
No newspapers mentioned Aslan’s name.
No local blogs or radio stations discussed Cem or his son.
I tracked every article that mentioned Kara...and nothing.
To the world, Aslan was dead.
But to me?
He was very much alive.
Within me.
Haunting me, hurting me.
It was a daily battle to stay in Australia and not run back to Turkey. Not to tear that country apart; to look under every rock and peer into every shadow.
What if he was out there?
What if he was waiting for me to find him, and instead, I was here?
Snuggled into his daughter, using her soft, comforting shape as my safety net so I didn’t break apart and dissolve in a river of despair?
Shaking myself back to the present, I glowered at the ocean.
I’d wanted to keep working today. I had a podcast interview with a local university to build awareness of our company, but Teddy and Eddie had dragged me from the house for this.
This nightmare.
We’d met my parents at the dock and before I knew it, Ayla was sitting on my father’s knee as he skippered us out to sea and my mother hovered close by as I clung to the railing, letting the breeze blow my mind free from thoughts of Aslan hurting Ethan on this boat. Aslan making love to me on this boat. Aslan making me laugh and cry and beg and live on this boat.
My lips tingled from the memory of his CPR. My cheeks pinked at the blowjob I’d given him below. My core clenched at the way he’d come inside me with our eyes locked and bodies still, sending us straight into the most spiritual connection of my life.
So many moments, so many secrets.
Today, I’d been forced to participate in this awful, terrible excursion, but tonight...when everyone else was asleep and two a.m. rolled around, I would sneak down to the beach and make my yearly phone call.
I’d indulge in my sickening addiction.
Speaking to Aslan’s father wasn’t healthy.
I knew that.
But...I couldn’t help myself.
I couldn’t stop myself from hoping that if I called Cem often enough, reminding him of the night he’d stolen my soulmate, that he’d one day confess his sins and admit Aslan had been alive this entire time.
He’ll give him back to me.
I could prove to everyone that I’d been right to never give up hope. To never stop fighting, believing, knowing that Aslan was alive.
I wasn’t going crazy.
I was sensing things even science told me I shouldn’t feel.
“Ready, little fish?” Dad asked gently, pulling me from my thoughts and dropping me back into the sea where The Fluke rode gentle swells. We’d been anchored here for half an hour. Low Isles gleamed in the distance with its lighthouse, sand, and palm trees.
I took Aslan’s virginity on that beach.
We’d gotten married in the shallows.
The sky had rained with colours, giving us the best wedding gift.
My heart spasmed.
Tears stung.
Now, tourist boats dotted around the reef, children ran riot on the beach, and my mother opened the packages she’d mysteriously stowed, laying gorgeous flower wreaths on the table where Aslan had worked with his laptop, helping my parents make sense of their data.
