Chapter Text
Chapter 6
Broken nuts in the heart
“And I want to go back to that moment when I had you completely.”
“We don't have time, Iso. We have to take her to the hospital. She could bleed to death...”
“The damage was to an artery. They'll have to give her a blood transfusion. We need to call Adil...”
“Hang in there, Fadime, you have to survive...” Iso's voice grew weaker and weaker until it ended in an echo that gradually faded and disappeared into my thoughts.
I could feel his warm hand holding mine and some voices I barely recognized until I fell unconscious.
Five years ago.
“Remember to cover your arm when you bathe and don't get the cast wet for anything in the world. The fracture wasn't complex, but it will take about a month to heal. You must take care of yourself.”
“That's what I always tell her, but she doesn't seem to listen to me, doctor. She climbs without fear and doesn't care if she breaks her arm as long as she rescues a cat.”
“Enough, Iso.” I stopped him with some regret as I got up from the stretcher.
“You don't take it seriously. What if something worse had happened to you, what if you had fallen on the poles? You don't assess the dangers, Fadime.”
“I'm sorry, is that okay?” I said, lowering my head like a scolded child as the doctor's laughter filled the school infirmary.
“It looks like someone will finally be able to keep up with you, Fadime. It's surprising. Take good care of her, Iso. She never listened to me when she came to the infirmary with scrapes on her knees or arms. It looks like someone will finally be able to keep her in check a little.”
“Don't worry, doctor, I'll make sure she follows the instructions and doesn't do anything stupid.”
“Hey, I don't do stupid things,” I retorted, and they both looked at me incredulously, and I just sighed.
“Take care of yourself, Fadime. Come here if you feel any discomfort or anything in particular.”
“Thank you, doctor. Don't worry about me.”
“I won't worry about you anymore, Fadime. It seems that's Iso's job now.”
I smiled graciously, and we left the infirmary, leaving the doctor behind.
Iso carried our backpacks and held my free hand. He seemed so serious.
“Come on, it's over now. It was just a cast. I'm fine.”
But he didn't answer me, and we continued walking to the school exit.
Iso put our backpacks in the car and opened the door for me to get in.
“Has the mouse eaten your tongue, Fortuna?” I asked, but he didn't answer. He just put my seatbelt on and closed the door without saying anything else.
“Can you at least tell me where we're going?” But he didn't answer either and just started driving.
“Take a nap,” he whispered after 10 minutes without saying anything else.
I was a little worried. Iso was a very expressive person. He usually always communicated what he wanted to say, made jokes, and laughed all the time.
Seriousness and anger were not facets of him that I was very familiar with.
I tried to get some sleep. A song by Cem Adrian was playing on the radio, and small drops of water were falling on the windows. It was the perfect atmosphere to relax and rest, but I couldn't help watching Iso as he drove the whole way.
I would never admit it out loud, even if they pulled the words out of me with fire, but the truth, a very deep truth inside me, is that I was perhaps, probably, in love with him.
And as he drove, his beautiful, large hands on the steering wheel, I could only puff out my chest at the thought that someone as attractive as him was so interested in me.
It was strange, I never cared about my appearance, I wasn't interested in looking pretty or spending time on those things, not because I didn't want to, in fact I tried once when I was 16, going to buy makeup with Asli, but when I saw so many mothers accompanying their daughters in the process of teaching them how to do their hair or makeup or buy nice clothes, I just got horribly depressed, so I stopped trying.
I loved my brother for trying his best to do my hair for school or racking his brain to figure out how to put my clothes together so I would look good, but as a man, it was a little difficult for him, so I learned to find my style as quickly as possible. I failed a lot at first, but then I found something that made me feel comfortable and calm.
But all that fell apart when I met Ismail Fortuna.
At first, I didn't care at all. I was sure he loved me for who I was. Everything he saw in me was much more than pretty clothes or makeup, but something bothered me, something below my ribs worried me a little.
And in moments like these, when I saw him as the most attractive person on earth, I wondered about myself.
“You don't listen to me even when I suggest you sleep,” he said lightly as he parked the car after driving for 40 minutes.
I looked around and felt a little embarrassed that I hadn't realized we were going to Rize the whole way there.
“Wait, don't move,” Iso said as he got out of the car. The rain had stopped and there was only a light breeze.
I got out of the car and stretched my legs a little. Rize was the closest metropolitan city to Trabzon, characterized by being a more globalized coastal city with commercial and educational expansion. It wasn't quite Istanbul, but it was the closest thing we had in the Black Sea region.
Iso took my hand, and we started walking straight to a café near the coast called Marina.
We discovered this place once we ran away from school to go out on the town. Rize was perfect because no one from Trabzon came here. They generally detested it for being a city with Eurocentric ideas and growing on the path to globalization.
So we never ran into anyone we knew, and it was a breath of fresh air in our relationship, one that made me feel like a normal girl holding hands with a normal boy.
Not an orphaned Kocari heiress dating the son of the man who had murdered her father.
“I'll have a vanilla latte and a cold brew, please.”
“I'll bring them right away. If you need anything else, just let me know.”
“Thank you very much,” I replied to the waitress before she left.
We were silent for a moment, watching the tide, and I couldn't help but feel anxious about his silence.
“Now you're going to talk to me, Fotunatuck,” I blurted out, unable to wait any longer.
He shook his head without saying a word, and I just gave him a angry look.
“I know you're mad at me for my slip on the tree,” I said with some regret, looking for his hands, “but nothing happened, Iso. Besides, since we came all the way from Trabzon to here, shouldn't we enjoy it?”
He looked at me, sighing heavily as he let go of my hands and put them on his head.
“You're impossible,” he said, and a victorious smile spread across my face. “I can never get mad at you. It's like you always win against me.”
“Get used to it. It'll be very difficult if you go against the grain,” I said with a laugh, and he shook his head, taking my hand.
“Seriously, Fadime, you have to be more careful. You think that because you didn't choose to be a police officer, you're giving up all the adrenaline and can act however you want, but you have to think about your brother, you have to think about me.”
My smile faded and I swallowed hard. He was right. I loved the adrenaline in my life. I loved feeling strong and useful, as if nothing could crush me, and I had thought that by giving up what I wanted to do, I was already taking good care of myself.
“You're right, I didn't take that into account... I didn't think about you guys,” I said, a little embarrassed, and he looked at me fondly, kissing my hand. "I'll be more careful from now on, I promise.
"I'll crack your head with nuts if you scare me like that again."
“You can crack all the nuts you want if I break my promise.”
We both laughed without letting go of each other's hands and started chatting over coffee.
Present:
“Fortunately, no vital organs were damaged. She was lucky that the stab wound was on the left side of her abdomen; a little closer and it would have hit her spleen.”
“The damage to the artery also caused problems with blood loss, but fortunately Fadime has the same blood type as Adil, so I was able to donate some of mine immediately.” I could hear Eleni's soft, sweet voice in the distance, as if in a dream.
“You did the right thing, doctor. Without your pre-hospital care, he wouldn't have made it. Now we just have to wait for him to wake up, but everything points to a good prognosis. You should get some rest; you haven't left her side since last night.”
“We'll take that into account, doctor. Thank you very much for your help.”
“Don't mention it, Eleni Miryano. Colleagues should support each other. If you'll excuse me, I must leave now.”
“Go ahead, doctor. We're indebted to you.” Iso's familiar voice made my heart race, and I couldn't help it. Thousands of questions popped into my head. Where was he? What had happened?
“Don't mention it, Ismail Fortuna. Your brother Oruc always brought us patients who were very well cared for.”
“That's right, but I would appreciate it if you didn't say anything to him for the moment.”
“Don't worry, my duty is only to the patients. Don't worry and get some rest if possible.”
A silence filled the room after the sound of the door opening.
“You should go rest, Eleni. You haven't stopped for a second.”
“I can't go back to Trabzon without Fadime I told Adil a silly lie that we were going on a sleepover with Fadime and her friends far from the city. He didn't quite believe me, but he seemed convinced for the moment.”
“Even so, you can sleep in the truck. You could get sick.”
“I'm the doctor here, Iso. Don't worry. I think I heard there's a residents' room at the hospital. I'll ask if I can take a nap, and then we'll switch off. You haven't slept at all in the last 24 hours either,” Eleni said in a commanding tone. I wanted to wake up and talk to them, but my eyelids felt so heavy.
“You're right, I'll take your advice, doctor.”
“She probably feels safer by your side,” Eleni said, and a brief silence followed.
“I didn't think she would tell you about our past,” Iso said in a lower voice. Even though I couldn't see him, I could imagine him lowering his head in embarrassment.
“I don't think she's told anyone else but me, but even so, I don't know how past this is if both of you are here”
Iso didn't respond, and I heard the sound of another door closing.
I felt my pulse quicken and my breathing increase. It was as if I could feel his closeness even without seeing him.
I never needed my sight to know he was near me, nor my touch to feel him.
No sound came from his mouth, and I began to think I was imagining it, until I felt his fingers lightly brush my hand, as soft as a gentle breeze.
“Why do I always have to lose you just when you come to me?” His question made my chest tighten. “Why do you have to hurt me in one way or another, Fadime Kocari?” He whispered, now holding my hand completely.
“Why, after all these years, do you continue to break my heart?” His words were like a punch in the stomach, and I felt my eyes slowly welling up with tears.
Iso said nothing for a while, and a melancholic, nostalgic silence enveloped the room. I swallowed hard.
After a moment, I felt her hair touch my arm; she had probably leaned over next to me.
So, with all my courage and hoping he was asleep, I opened my eyes slowly, trying not to be blinded by the light in the room.
As soon as I could see again, I looked around. I was in a hospital room with white walls and blue curtains. I was wearing a gown and had an IV in my arm with different fluids that I couldn't recognize.
But then all that seemed to fade away when my eyes immediately met the deepest blue I had ever seen.
Iso was watching me like a cat trying to figure people out with just his eyes. He looked tired, his dark circles were prominent, and his lips looked dry.
And before he could speak or even utter a word, I blurted out something that burned my throat.
"Looks like I broke my promise. Are you going to crack nuts on my head?