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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.
