Selin
The morning after the chapel felt... different.
Still. Too still.
There was no breeze today, no birdsong, no familiar creak of the hallway outside my hospital room. Just the buzz of machines and the subtle ache pulsing behind my eyes.
Something in the air had shifted. I could feel it before I even opened my eyes.
Alekos was already up. Sitting in the chair again, staring at the phone in his lap like it was some kind of landmine. He hadn't spoken since we came back from church. Not really. Just quiet gestures—offering water, adjusting my blanket, staying close.
And I hadn't pressed him. I didn't want to disturb the fragile peace between us.
Until it rang.
Once. Twice. A sharp vibration on plastic.
The sound felt louder than it should've. Louder than my heartbeat.
Louder than my hope.
Alekos picked it up, and everything in the room changed.
He didn't say much—just a low "yes," followed by silence.
And when he hung up, he didn't look at me.
He didn't have to.
The words weren't needed. They dissolved before they even reached the air.
No embryo.
No second chance.
No miracle.
I stared at him, but I couldn't see him anymore. Just a shape. A blur. A man holding something inside himself so tightly it looked like it might shatter him from the inside out.
I turned my face to the window and let the quiet crush me.
My womb was empty.
But it wasn't just my body that failed me.
It was a dream. The one we barely dared to hold onto.
The one where I got to be a mother.
Where I saw my child run through the kitchen barefoot, laugh with my father's grin, sing lullabies in broken Turkish.
Gone.
I didn't cry.
I just stopped moving.
The grief wasn't loud. It was bone-deep and suffocating. The kind of sadness that didn't need to scream, because it already knew it had won.
Alekos didn't speak. He just stood across the room, helpless, still holding the phone like maybe if he stared at it long enough, the answer would change.
"Selin…" he said.
My name. Just that.
But not even my name could reach me now.
We were still in the same room.
But something had broken—and I didn't know if it could be put back together.
I had nothing left to say.
Because when you lose something you never truly had, the only thing that remains…
Is silence.
I don't know how long I sat there.
Minutes. Hours. Years.
Time had no shape. Only weight.
Alekos didn't move. Neither did I.
The silence was so loud it felt like it was pressing down on my chest, like if I breathed too hard, the grief would explode out of me.
And then it did.
I didn't mean to cry.
It started small. A hitch in my throat. A blink that burned. A single tear that rolled down without permission.
And then everything collapsed.
My hand flew to my mouth as the sob ripped through me like lightning. My body doubled over as if the pain wasn't emotional but physical—like someone had reached inside and torn something out.
I couldn't stop.
I couldn't breathe.
"I tried," I choked out, gasping between sobs. "I did everything right. I—I didn't even let myself hope too much because I was afraid, and I still…"
My voice broke. "I still lost it."
Alekos was kneeling in front of me before I even realized he'd moved. His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me into him like he could physically hold me together.
"Selin—"
He didn't finish. He couldn't.
I buried my face in his shoulder, and I screamed. Not loudly. Not for the world. Just for me. Just for him. Just for what we lost without ever getting to hold.
And he held me.
Tightly. Like letting go would undo us both.
We stayed like that, on the hospital room floor, clinging to each other in the ruins.
"I'm sorry," I whispered into his chest. "I'm sorry I failed."
He pulled back, just enough to look at me.
"No," he said, voice rough. "Don't you dare say that."
His hands framed my face. His thumb brushed the tears on my cheek like they were holy. "You didn't fail. Your body didn't fail. You fought. Every single day. You gave everything. And you're still here. That's not failure, Selin—that's survival."
My lips trembled. "But it still hurts."
He nodded. "I know." His voice cracked. "God, I know."
And then—he broke.
His forehead dropped to mine, and I felt it. The quiet shudder in his chest. The way his breathing hitched. The sharp exhale that came out too fast.
He cried.
Alekos Csapel, the one who never flinched, who carried all the silence I couldn't bear—he cried. For me. For what we lost. For what we never had a chance to love.
He didn't say he was fine.
He didn't pretend to be strong.
He just held me.
And we wept.
Together.
In the softest kind of ruin.
In the kind of closeness that only grief can make sacred.
No vows. No prayers.
Just pain, and presence, and the ache of being human.
Alekos
We went back home.
Selin was trembling when I finally pulled her into bed.
Her eyes were red, lashes wet, lips parted like she was still trying to breathe through the storm she'd just unleashed. I wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and sat on the edge of the mattress, brushing a few strands of damp hair from her forehead.
She didn't speak. Neither did I.
Instead, I picked up the old guitar from the corner of the room. The one my mother gave me when I was sixteen. The one Selin used to beg me to play back in university, lying on the floor of my apartment, kicking her legs in the air and pretending she hated the sound.
She never did.
I strummed softly. A song my mother used to hum when I had trouble sleeping. A lullaby that didn't need words to do its job.
Selin's breathing began to slow. Her body relaxed. Her eyes fluttered shut.
She fell asleep before the final note.
I stayed for a moment, watching her chest rise and fall, the echo of grief still faint in the lines of her face. Then I kissed her temple, whispered something I couldn't say aloud in the light of day, and stood.
I needed air.
No—I needed something more than that.
I needed home.
I didn't call before going. I didn't have to.
The old villa stood just as I remembered it. A little crooked in the wind, stubborn and full of warmth.
My mother opened the door like she'd been expecting me.
"Alekos mou," she said softly, pulling me into her arms without asking a single question.
The moment I felt her hands on my back, I was five years old again. Scared. Lost. Desperate for someone to make the world make sense again.
She held me tighter when I didn't speak.
My father stood a few steps behind her in the hall, arms crossed, the lines on his face deeper than I remembered. There was always tension between us—between my choices and his expectations—but even he looked worried tonight.
I couldn't look at him.
Not yet.
"I need to tell you something," I murmured.
They led me inside. The living room smelled like sage and lemon, and my throat tightened.
I told them everything.
From the first injection to the hospital visits. The bruises. The prayers. The night of the zipper. The guilt. The love I didn't expect to feel. The emptiness of this afternoon.
When I finished, there was silence.
And then Nilay—my mother—broke it with a sound that shattered me more than anything else.
She cried.
Her hands trembled as she pressed them to her mouth. "Oh, my baby," she whispered. But she wasn't talking about me.
She was talking about Selin.
"She's ours, Alekos," she said firmly, through tears. "She has been since she was nine and walked through that door with a scraped knee and called me 'mama' by accident. We saw her grow up. She was never just your friend."
Altan, my father, nodded slowly. He still hadn't spoken, but there was pain in his eyes too. That rare kind of sadness I'd only seen when we lost my grandmother. He placed a hand on my shoulder—heavy, but steady.
I blinked fast, jaw tight.
"I don't know what to do," I admitted. "I feel like a child. I'm supposed to be her husband. I'm supposed to be the strong one. But I—" My voice cracked. "I don't know how to carry this anymore."
"You're not meant to carry it alone," my mother whispered.
She reached for my hands and squeezed them between hers, firm and sure.
"She needs you. And you need us. That's what family is, Alexi. You come home when it hurts."
"You don't carry someone through grief," my father said. His voice was quiet, but sure. "You carry it with them."
And that's when I broke again.
Not the way I had beside Selin. This wasn't the quiet weeping of a man trying to stay strong. This was the ache of a boy finally letting himself be held.
Because for once, I didn't need to be the strong one.
I just needed to be their son.