β welcome to Aurora Bay, [ARZU AYTEK]! I couldnβt help but notice that you look an awful lot like [NESLIHAN ATAGUL]. You must be the [TWENTY-SEVEN] year old [HISTORY TEACHER AT AURORA BAY HIGH SCHOOL]. Word is youβre [CLEVER] but can also be a bit [RETICENT] and your favorite song is [VAMPIRE EMPIRE BY BIG THIEF]. I also heard youβll be staying in [OCEAN CREST APARTMENTS]. Iβm sure youβll love it! ( penned by rosemary )
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JUST THE FACTS
full name : arzu seher aytek. arzu, meaning wish, desire, longing ; seher, meaning dawn, early morning, or intelligence ; aytek, meaning β like the moon β. preferred name : prefers to be referred to as miss aytek, and is only truly comfortable with those closest to her using her first name. does not like nicknames. birthday : january 11th hometown : new york city, new york schooling : new york university languages spoken : english, turkish, spanish, some italian
...WHO'S ASKING ?
romantic & sexual orientation : biromantic and demisexual traits : + clever , observant , patient - arrogant , cynical , reticent zodiac : capricorn religion : atheist myers - briggs : istj moral alignment : lawful good temperament : phlegmatic
YOU HAVE EYES, DON'T YOU ?
height : 5ft6in fashion sense : dresses most commonly in business casual attire ; always feels better when she looks put together, even on the more emotionally taxing days. in the warmer months, she can be caught in one of her more-casual-than-business summer dresses, though she always manages to look like the city girl she is, even when dressed down. piercing(s) : her ears are doubled pierced; if one got the opportunity to see her stomach, they would notice the pale scars of an old bellybutton piercing from her university days. tattoo(s) : an orchid on her ribs, covering the initials of someone she knew in another life. jewelry : prefers gold, delicate jewelry, and rarely wears more than three pieces at a time. notable piece(s) : always wearing her mother's wedding ring on her right hand, and her father's wedding band on her right thumb.
WE DON'T NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS
mother : yelda aytek (nee koray) - deceased. father : eren aytek - deceased. sibling(s) : emel aytek, older sister - deceased. extended family : seher koray, maternal aunt - possible future wc, npc for now.
THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF ARZU AYTEK
tw: death, child death cw: fire, house fire.
She remembers very little from before the fire, to her greatest chagrin.Β
Sometimes, when the wind blows a certain way against the leaves, or when sheβs passing by the bakery downtown, Arzu will remember a glimpse of a memory; a bearded face beaming down at her as she stumbles along a river, strong arms held out to catch her whenever she stumbled too close, a wooden cabin barely visible nearby;Β a twinkling laugh echoing around a sunshine yellow kitchen, tiny handprints of flour decorating nearly every surface, and a woman who chases her with joy on her blurry face; or sometimes she remembers a small hand, only slightly bigger than her own, holding on to her tightly as they walk down a cobbled street, brown hair braided into a crown that for some reason, Arzu is sure matched her own hair on that day. If she strains herself enough, she can remember their eyes, brown, grey, and brown, and the comfort she had once found looking into them.
The last remaining member of a family she couldnβt remember; the only survivor of a horrible accident that she would never forget.
The move to America helped her forget the pain, for a while. Her aunt had been ill-equipped to take on a child, barely able to afford her shoebox apartment on her salary as a waitress and failing actress as it was, but she wasnβt going to let that stop her; more often than not, Arzu would watch her aunt come home from a double-shift at one job waiting tables, take a quick nap, then run off to her next job filming commercials and doing auditions. Just as her aunt Seher threw herself into her work, Arzu threw herself into her studies; determination burned through her as she observed her aunt working day and night just to ensure she could afford the two of them, and she would be damned if all that work was for nothing. They figured out how to survive in the big city, together.
When sheβd graduated from high school at the top of her class, if had been her aunt who cheered the loudest, making up for the three other voices that shouldβve been cheering along with her. When her aunt landed the lead in an off-Broadway production, Arzu had been sitting in the front row, mouthing along each line with perfect precision after spending every afternoon for months sitting backstage at rehearsals doing her homework. They were a team, one that had perfected their synchronicity so that every move seemed like a dance, one that did not need any other players.
University changed the sense of normalcy Arzu had deluded herself into feeling; the chaos of self-sufficiency and the mandatory socialization with her roommates sent her for a loop, and rather than break out of her cocoon to become the social butterfly she felt she could be, she locked herself away in her dorm, and focused on what was familiar. No matter how enticing the invitation, she always declined, stating there was some test she needed to study for, or an essay that needed editing.
Perhaps she grew tired of the unending cycle of studying, sleeping, and repeating; possibly her roommate that year had been particularly convincing ( those pre-law types always are). Both were possibilities, but the truth was rather simple: Arzu had become lonely. Her greatest mistake and heartbreak had resulted from the most straightforward yet strongest emotion sheβd felt. Loneliness meant she said yes when she was invited to a Halloween party in her third year; loneliness meant she said yes when Brant Howard asked her to dance that night. And loneliness meant she said yes when he asked her on a date later that evening, after giving her the sweetest kiss sheβd ever had.
She knew she was being foolish from the start; she didnβt have time for romance, didnβt have time to be swept off her feet. She had goals, and a timeline to finish them, and she would absolutely not, under no circumstances, allow anyone to impede on those goals, no matter how handsome or charming one might be. But perhaps she hadnβt accounted for just how handsome or charming Brant could be.
Every time she attempted to end the relationship, he did something to change her mind; when sheβd insisted she needed to take more time to visit her aunt, and that a relationship impeded on her time with her only living relative, heβd offered to come along with her for those visits. To her secret joy, the two got along exceptionally well, and Brant became her date to any shows her aunt booked, always bringing along a bouquet bigger than the last. After a year, sheβd attempted to end things for a short while whilst she prepared for finals, insisting she simply didnβt have the time to go one dates or accompany him to his family events; heβd taken it in stride, and though they were technically broken up, heβd drop off takeout for her on the nights she forgot to cook, somehow always knowing when that was, sent her an email saying good luck on the morning of each of her big exams, and had stood outside the hall waiting for her with orchids, her favourite flower, after she presented her final thesis. It was tough not to fall entirely in love with the man.
So, despite her best attempts, and stubborn thoughts that insisted she did not deserve anything good she did not work for, she allowed herself to fall. And as such is the truth with every fall from such a height, the end that was always to come, came, and the damage was catastrophic.
After three years, it was only natural to wonder, to begin having expectations. Though sheβd never spent hours picturing her dream wedding or the groom that might be waiting at the end of the aisle, sheβd daydreamed more than once about having something more with Brant. She let herself hope, and dared to ask if there might be something akin to wedding bells in their future one day. She hadnβt expected him to laugh, hadnβt expected the genuine surprise on his face when she didnβt join in his laughter. Hadnβt expected him to say that certain things were expected of him, that he couldnβt marry someone like her.
And suddenly, she remembered the family sheβd never been allowed to meet, and the pained expression on his face whenever she brought it up; she remembered the long phone calls he took in his office, and that he constantly needed to take a walk after βto clear his headβ. The puzzle she had been too blind to piece together became all too obvious.
Suddenly, she was alone in the world once more; she would not become a nuisance to her aunt, never again, and so it was her own shoebox apartment that she moved into, with only the company of nearly-forgotten ghosts to keep her company.
The teaching job had popped up shortly after she received the wedding invitation in the mail. She had barely opened the envelope, only enough to see the groomβs name before she felt too sick to continue reading. So when she came across the offer to move across the country for a job that paid too little but offered the chance to restart, she was almost too quick to accept.
This time, she insisted, she would not stray from the plan. She would put all of her passion into teaching, into finding a home, and she would guard her heart with all the ferocity she could muster, determined that loneliness was a small price to pay to keep all her pain at bay.
