Chapter Nineteen:- The First Cracks
640 Words
The change didn’t arrive like a storm.
It arrived like dust slowly, invisibly, settling where comfort used to be.
At first, Aylin told herself she was imagining it.
Emre answered calls later than usual.
Sometimes not at all.
When he did call, his voice sounded distracted, like he was always standing in another room.
“I’m sorry, I was in a meeting,” he said one evening.
“At ten?” Aylin asked gently.
He paused. “It went long.”
She didn’t question it. She never did.
but in reality he was having another one to talk with, Zeynab
Zeynab wasn’t new.
She was familiar. Comfortable. Already forgiven by time.
They had met in university before ambition, before pressure, before Aylin.
She texted him first one day,
Long time. Coffee? For old times?
Emre hesitated.
Then replied.
Sure. Why not.
They met in a quiet café one of those places where memories sit comfortably between tables.
“You look tired,” Zeynab said.
“I am,” Emre replied honestly.
She smiled softly. “You always were when you tried too hard.”
He laughed. “And you always knew that.”
The conversation flowed easily.
No explanations.
No effort.
No responsibility.
Just familiarity.
“This feels easy,” he said without thinking.
Zeynab tilted her head. “Is your life not easy anymore?”
He didn’t answer, but as days went on he found himself answer the question in action.
He didn’t plan betrayal.
He drifted into it the way people drift into warm water without noticing the depth.
---
One night, Aylin waited.
The house was quiet. Her parents had gone to bed. Even the city felt slower, wrapped in soft midnight silence.
She called him.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
No answer.
She didn’t panic. She simply stared at the screen longer than necessary.
Thirty minutes later, her phone lit up.
“Hey,” Emre said casually. “Sorry, I missed it.”
“Were you asleep?” she asked.
“No, just… stepped out.”
“Where?”
“Outside. Fresh air.” He laughed lightly. “You’re interrogating me now?”
Aylin smiled. “I just missed you.”
There was a small pause.
“I’m here now,” he said.
But something in his tone felt… borrowed.
---
Aylin felt it before she knew it.
Not jealousy.
Something colder.
Like walking into a room that used to be warm and realizing the heater had been turned off hours ago.
“You’re far,” she said one night during a call.
Emre smiled through the screen. “You’re imagining things.”
She searched his face. “You don’t look at me the same.”
He laughed lightly. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“Am I?”
“Yes,” he said quickly. “I’m just stressed, preparing for tomorrow meeting, That’s all.”
She nodded, "all the best".
She always did.
But after the call ended, Aylin sat alone in the dark, phone still in her hand.
And for the first time in years, a question formed quietly inside her:
What if love doesn’t disappear loudly… but leaves silently?
The next morning Aylin reach at Emre's office early before the meeting to help what lacks,
She hears Emre’s voice before she sees him.
He was laughing.
Not the soft laugh he uses with her but the ambitious, sharp one he uses in business settings.
“Of course I’m serious. The Demirsoy name opens doors. I just needed proximity. You think I would have reached this level alone?”
Silence.
Then:
“Love? Please. It’s strategy.”
Aylin freezes outside the door.
The world doesn’t shatter loudly.
It cracks quietly.
Her hand tightens over her stomach instinctively, protectively,
For the first time, she wondered if she had been loved at all.
- Writer
