Alekos
I stayed the night at the villa.
Not because I needed sleep—God knew I wouldn't find it—but because I needed something else. A place where the weight didn't feel so suffocating. A roof that remembered who I was before all of this.
I sat in the kitchen long after midnight, nursing a cup of tea I didn't really want. My mother sat across from me, her robe pulled tight, her hair tied back in a loose bun. She looked tired. But she didn't ask to go to bed. She waited.
I kept stirring my tea, though it had nothing left to dissolve.
"I don't know what to do," I finally said.
Nilay didn't respond right away. She simply tilted her head, like she knew the words were still coming.
"I'm scared," I admitted. "I feel like… like I don't know what I am to her anymore. I said yes to help her. To be a friend. But now—" I hesitated. "Now I'm not just helping her. I want her. I love her."
Her eyes softened.
"And not just platonically," I added, a little too quickly. "Not anymore. And I feel—God—I feel guilty. Like I'm taking advantage of her pain, or the situation."
She nodded slowly. "So. You love her."
"Yes."
"And you want her."
"...Yes," I muttered, cheeks already burning.
Nilay smiled—too knowingly. Like she'd been waiting for this moment for years.
"You're not surprised," I said, narrowing my eyes.
She laughed. Actually laughed.
"Oh, Alexi mou," she said, shaking her head. "I've seen the way you look at her since you were nineteen. You think I didn't notice all the little moments?"
I blinked. "What moments?"
She started ticking them off with her fingers. "When she got her first fever during exams, and you didn't sleep for two days. When she fell asleep on the couch and you covered her with your favorite hoodie. When you got angry at that boy Milo just for looking at her sideways."
"That's not—"
"—And when she called me 'Mamá' in her sleep and you smiled like it was your wedding day."
I opened my mouth. Then I closed it immediately .
"You two were always something," she said softly. "You just hadn't caught up to it yet."
I sank into the chair, completely disarmed.
"And yes," she added with a wicked glint in her eye. "I know you lust after her."
My head shot up. "What?!"
She sipped her tea with a completely straight face.
"I'm your mother. I see everything. The blushes. The stares. The fact you stopped bringing your guitar out around other girls the moment she said she liked your voice."
"Oh my—eww, Mamá!" I groaned, burying my face in my hands.
She laughed, totally unbothered. "Like father, like son."
"Seriously?!" I shouted, practically falling off my chair. "That's disgusting! Don't drag Dad into this!"
"Altan was worse," she said smugly. "He once wrote me a poem that ended in the word 'panties.'"
"EWWWW! MAMÁ!" I covered my ears. "I'm leaving!"
She cackled.
I smiled.
Because I realized something:
I wasn't wrong to love her.
I wasn't alone.
And maybe—just maybe—Selin had seen it all along too.
let the quiet settle for a while. The laughter had faded, but it left something softer behind—something warmer than sleep.
Then my mother cleared her throat.
"Maybe Selin should come here," she said softly. "Or maybe… maybe I should go to her."
I furrowed my brow. "What do you mean?"
"I mean it, Alekos. I can stay at your place for a while. Help her. Be there. Whatever she needs." She paused, then added gently, "Whatever you need."
I was still confused. "She doesn't want pity, Mamá."
"I'm not offering pity," she said, her voice sharper now. "I'm offering what she lost."
I looked at her, and she looked right back—into me.
"Selin lost her mother during the most important years of her life. No girl should have to face womanhood, heartbreak, marriage, sickness—this—without a mother's presence. No matter how strong she is. And she is strong—but even strong women need someone to hold them."
I didn't answer. Because I knew she was right.
"She needs the kind of love that braids your hair," Nilay continued. "The kind that scolds you when you skip meals. That makes you tea not because you ask for it, but because they know you need it."
Her voice grew softer.
"She needs someone who sits beside her when the pain comes. Who holds her hand and says, 'I'm here, baby,' without needing to fix a single thing."
I looked down at my hands. My throat was tight.
"She needs a mother," she said firmly. "And you know it. Just like you came back here tonight, heart in pieces, needing me—so does she."
A breath left me. Shaky. Shattered.
"She might not call me her mother," Nilay added, "but I braided her hair when she was thirteen. I helped her get ready for her first dance competition. I was in the front row for every school play, every presentation. I was at her graduation, Alekos. I was the one crying in the crowd when she got her diploma."
I looked up. Her eyes were glassy now, but fierce.
"I am her mother," she said. "And I am not going to sit here and watch her suffer alone."
I swallowed the lump in my throat and whispered, "Then come with me."
Nilay nodded slowly. "I already packed my bag."
Nilay
I rose from the kitchen table quietly, leaving Alekos with the ghost of his thoughts and the last of his cold tea.
He had agreed. Just like I knew he would.
Because love—real love—always makes room.
I went upstairs to our bedroom. The light was dim, and Altan was still asleep, his breath slow, his chest rising and falling in steady rhythm. I crossed the room and pulled the old leather duffel from under the bed. Began folding sweaters. A shawl. A photo of the boys, years ago, crumpled in the drawer but still precious.
Then I walked to his side of the bed and touched his shoulder gently.
"Altan?" I whispered.
He stirred, groggy. "Nilay?"
"I'm going to stay with Alekos and Selin. For a little while."
He blinked, sitting up slowly. But he didn't ask why. He didn't have to.
"She needs a mother," I said. "And our boy… he needs peace."
He nodded once. A shadow crossed his face. A quiet kind of pain he didn't speak of, but I knew was there. Always.
I sat beside him on the edge of the bed.
"You understand," I said.
He looked down at his hands. "I do."
Because Altan had never wanted to be a father.
Not after what his own father did to him. Not after his mother was taken from him and he wasn't allowed to say goodbye—not even to bury her. The cancer took her slowly, and his father took his grief even faster. Turned it into violence. Into bitterness. Into shame.
Alekos was ten when it began.
Altan didn't raise his voice. He raised his hand. And I hated him for it. Not forever, but enough to nearly leave him. Because Alekos wasn't the reason for the pain. He was the result of it. And Altan couldn't bear being reminded that love had consequences he wasn't ready for.
He never wanted to be like his father. But the moment his mother died, something inside him broke—and for years, he took it out on the one person who least deserved it.
Our son.
"I see him now," Altan said, his voice hoarse, "and I can't believe he forgave me."
"He didn't," I replied softly. "Not really. But he healed anyway."
There was a long silence.
"And Selin?" he asked.
I smiled, a little tearfully. "She's the one who helped him stand up to you."
He looked at me sharply, surprised. But I knew he remembered.
Junior year. The screaming in the hallway. The look in Alekos's eyes when he didn't back down. The moment he said, "You don't get to hit me anymore."
I had tried to stop him. I had begged him to wait. To breathe.
But Selin —she stood at the edge of the driveway that night, arms folded, quiet and unblinking. She didn't interfere. She just watched. Like she knew he needed to do it.
And when it was over, when Alekos stormed out of the house and didn't return until sunrise, it was her who called me at midnight to say he was safe. Her, who made him promise he wouldn't hit back. Her, who sat with him on a park bench all night, letting him cry and rage and shatter and rebuild.
That was the night I began to love her even more like my own.
"She didn't flinch when I raised my voice," Altan said after a long silence. "Not even once."
"She saw the boy behind the man," I whispered. "And she stayed."
I stood up, bag slung over my shoulder. "I'll be back when they're okay."
He didn't stop me.
He didn't ask me to stay.
He just nodded and reached out—grabbing my hand gently, like he used to when we were young and still learning, each other.
"Tell her," he said. "Tell her I'm sorry. For everything."
"I think she already knows," I replied. "But I will."
And then I left the room, one mother walking toward another woman's daughter—because the truth was, somewhere along the way...
She'd become mine too.