❝ ŞEYDA AKMAN —

there are claw marks beneath my flesh from where i tried to rip this skin from its bones. the scars on my palms are the only things piecing me together. my heart is a minefield and my body is the detonation. ❞ 29. downtown. figure skating coach.

[scydakman]

—  THE BASICS.

full name: şeyda akman

preferred name / nicknames: shay

age: 29

birthday: august 11th, 1992

zodiac: leo

gender and pronouns: cis woman ; she/her

sexuality: bisexual

hometown: chicago, illinois (birth to age 4) ⇾ heartsdale, georgia

current residence: downtown

length of time in town: although she grew up here and has come home often for visits, shay’s only just moved back in the last few months

occupation: figure skating coach

— TLDR:

shay grew up in the sugar hill lake area and 99.99% of her entire life revolved around her skating career. girl was going places… or so everyone thought. one day, mid program at what might’ve qualified her for the olympics, shay just up and walked off the ice. she moved away during the fallout of that choice and hasn’t lived in heartsdale since, but she recently came back to take up a position as a figure skating coach at the local ice rink. @nisayar‘s cousin. was the marissa cooper to @augustortiz‘s ryan atwood once upon a time, but make it secret.

—  THE BACKGROUND

her mother immigrated to the states from turkey. her father grew up in heartsdale. they met and were married in chicago, but when it came time for fahir to step into a bigger role within the family company he and her mother, cemre, relocated here. shay really doesn’t remember much of chicago tbh and considers herself a heartsdale native through and through.

as the second child she wasn’t necessarily expected to step up and take a place in the family business, but that didn’t mean she was without pressure to succeed and excel in just about anything and everything she did.

case in point? shay began figure skating at a young age and, when it became obvious she had a natural talent for the sport, her mother latch on like a dog with a bone. every morning shay was woken up at 4 to make it to the rink by 5 so that she could fit in ice time before school, and then she was right back out there once classes were finished. 

basically, she ate, slept, and breathed skating 24/7, 365.

shay loved it, so for the most part she didn’t mind, but over time that constant demand to do better, be the best, etc. began to suck the soul right out of her. her dreams of one day making it to the olympics were looking less and less appealing by the day. she was tired, she was sore, and she wasn’t even certain it was her dream anymore so much as it was her mother’s.

it all came to a head when, in the middle of her short program at what could’ve qualified her for the olympic team, shay suddenly stopped dead on the ice. she walked off not two seconds later and never went back. not to the career she loved, nor to the home she grew up in.

it’s been years since the day she turned her back on it all in a mixture of exhaustion and indifference. she’s only just returned to heartsdale permanently a few months ago after having been convinced to take up a job as a skating coach at the same local rink she all but lived at growing up.

—  NOTABLE CONNECTIONS.

nisa sayar: nisa is her first cousin on her mother’s side and basically her best friend. she tells her EVERYTHING. well… almost.

august ortiz: shay and august began dating in secret the summer before freshman year of high school and continued their little hidden romance every summer after until the one before senior year. he was done being kept separate from the rest of her life, and shay wasn’t ready to go public. despite the break up, though, she’s never quite gotten over him or let august go. over the years they’ve frequently fallen back together whenever she’s come home on visits.

—  WANTED CONNECTIONS.

best friend, childhood friends, neighbors downtown, clients (most likely someone with a kid), a on/off hs relationship, casual flings from any trips home, etc.

[aimeegbbs]

#mood

[scydakman]

❝ WEDNESDAY, NOVEMEBER 17TH, 2021 — at her new apartment downtown with @gabbysantos.

“— listen.” Shay flopped onto the living room floor beside Gabby, effectively (and intentionally) putting her in line with a bowl of triple chocolate fudge bigger than her head. They’d already painted their nails, put on sheet masks, and devoured a pizza in five minutes flat. Now, to the good stuff.

"The next time my parents say they want me to show up for a low key dinner, I need you to remind me that’s never the case. In fact—” the ice cream laden spoon in her hand stabbed in Gabby’s direction— “I need you to hit me over the head, shove me into a suitcase, then toss me to the bottom of the Mississippi before you ever actually let me show up again.”

Her surprise welcome home dinner - the one with just her, her parents, and fifty of their closest ‘friends’ - had gone down about as well as a lead balloon. Shay’s fault, really, for expecting anything else. In Cemre Akman’s words, probably, ‘if nobody was around to talk about it later, did it even happen?’

“I don’t know how you get through those things with a convincing smile on your face,” Shay grumbled around the melted puddle of chocolate on her tongue. “I probably spent half the night looking like I’d just swallowed glass.” 

Then again, that might’ve had more to do with August. 

Being in the same room as him after two years, in the same room and unable to go to him or touch him or talk freely— if that wasn’t torture, Shay didn’t know what was. Not that she could share as much with Gabby, of course. Their little star-crossed love affair was still kept absolutely secret. But she almost told her, once. Almost. 

“It was nice for your whole family to come, though.” Dangerous waters, yet she tread deeper, anyway. “Especially August.” Play it cool. “What’s he been up to these days?”

[scydakman]

❝ REMY POWELL —

AT THEIR APARTMENT DOWNTOWN, NOVEMBER 15TH , EARLY MORNING-ISH.

          It’s moving day. Which means, Remy kicks her way through piles of junk on the hardwood floor, balancing a box of clothes in her hands while the door slams shut behind her. The vibrations are enough to dislodge nearly two years’ worth of dust from the picture rails in the empty hallway, the fine particles bursting into dim light before finding their way up her nose. A sneeze rattles off… once, twice — three times — just before the box drops to her feet and she lifts a hand to rub away the tickle.          “Damn it,” she sniffs, kicking the box off to the side before heading down the hall in search of some tissue. Entering the lounge, she weaves through more haphazard boxes in hunt of the one labeled BATHROOM in bold sharpie. She doesn’t feel confident in her chances. Cardboard piled five feet high surrounds her, all waiting to be unpacked and put in their rightful places. She has no clue where to start. It’s overwhelming.          Circling slowly, she takes in their new place on a silent exhale — a third floor apartment in an old Georgian building on a tree lined street. The window in the lounge is huge, the ceilings  high, the floors all completely vintage. When she wanders into the kitchen, a grimace launches at the stale smell and layers of grime leeching to every surface. The good news? It’s nothing a day with a pair of rubber gloves and a bottle of detergent can’t fix.          Suddenly excited, envisioning how everything will sparkle and shine when they’re done, Remy clenches her fists at her chest and let’s out the loudest shriek imaginable. “Finally!” Her own apartment. What could be better? The answer is – Shay. Right on cue, the small brunette clocks her new roommate coming in  @scydakman​​ — a friend from New York — and then lunges for the bottle of Prosecco her mom sent over as a ‘welcome home’ gift. “First we toast, then we unpack. Yeah?”

—

Half a block, three flights of stairs, and a narrow squeeze through the outer hall later, Shay lumbered through their new front door - huffing, puffing, and sporting a wider grin than she had in the last few years combined. Two months. She’d been back home two months, most of which spent back in her old childhood bedroom, and finally she had keys to her own space. Not even the grimy tracks her wheeled suitcases cut across the floor could detract from how fucking good it felt to say that.

“I can’t remember,” she began to tease, though, when her eyes landed on Remy, apparently the first to arrive. “Did we pay extra for the privilege of inch deep dust, or did it knock first months rent to half price?” Neither, but apparently their new landlord thought it added character because it remained untouched from the first time they’d toured the apartment weeks prior. 

Shay scanned the towers of boxes across the living room, searching for one labeled ‘utility closet’, then promptly abandoned her ill-fated task. “I can’t even be bothered to find a broom right now.” And the fact that she could do that? That she could chose to lose it or leave it? Yeah— her smile grew by ten. 

Cemre Akman would hate this place. She wouldn’t dare step a designer-clad foot over the threshold. Her certainty of that fact made Shay love it even more.

Suitcases left to fend for themselves, not to mention all the boxes still bulging out of her trunk, she honed in on the Prosecco and arched a brow. “Who sent that?” Except it didn’t really matter. “Because whoever it was I could almost be tempted to kiss them on the mouth.” Keyword: almost. At the moment, Remy was the only object of Shay’s affection. Barely able to contain herself a moment longer, she swept her into a hug of mammoth proportions, then smacked that kiss right onto her cheek. “If the only box we unpack today is the one with the glasses, I won’t complain.”

Letting go to do just that, Shay resurfaced a minute later with a clear flute dangling in each hand. “The only thing missing is our body weight in Thai food and an apartment wide lack of pants.” Now, her mouth canted for a smirk. “Knowing you, and I do, one will come sooner than the other.”

[scydakman]

❝ MACY HAWKINS —

open starter. @heartsdalestarters

a random park.

When Macy first got into photography, she found comfort in her place behind the camera. Looking through a lens at the world, putting focus on something else other than herself, it was… liberating in the strangest of ways. Not to mention, she simply loved it. Capturing a memory, a moment, a view not easily attainable, and making it into art… that was priceless. 

In the midst of working in the industry though, she realized that doing what you love as your profession could take it’s toll too. That’s why on Saturdays she headed to the park- in whatever country or state that she was in- with her camera bag, a blanket and a stack of business cards, and took pictures for free. Anyone who wanted one. It usually led to meeting someone new and learning their stories, or simply making a kid smile with their parents. At the end of the day, she be reminded how much she loved what she did.

“Hey, want a picture?” She said, raising up her camera in a gesture. “It’s free. And I’ll even email them to you so you can print them out or whatever you want to do with them. What do you say?”

—

When Shay left her apartment that morning she dressed for a run, not a photo op, but— “Actually, I might take you up on that.” Hands shoved into the pockets of her jacket, she completed the few shorts steps between the jogging path and where Macy sat in the grass. “Assuming you don’t mind if I use whatever you send over professionally?” 

The local rink drew in its own crowd of eager participants, but she’d been toying with the idea of branching out. Of making her own website, should she find someone with the requisite know-how, to attract new clients. You’d think her name alone would be enough of an enticement, but... it’d been too long since she’d (literally) walked off the ice. 

The only way to be remembered was to do something memorable and, for the last several years, all she’d done was hide.

So what if these pictures wouldn’t be meticulously styled and staged? Maybe that was a good thing. Besides, she trusted in Macy’s talent wholeheartedly. Not a chance in hell she’d make her look bad. “I’ll give you credit, of course.” Few as they might’ve been, Shay was always there to support her friends. 

“And then when you’re done, you can pack it up and come grab lunch with me.” Honestly, her heart hadn’t been in the mood for a run, anyway. “Deal?”

[scydakman]

❝ ELLIE ASHWORTH —

It had been a calm night on the L&D floor, and - thankfully - Ellie’s last night on call for a while. Calm being a relative term anyway. There were no car babies this time. She had a few things to do downtown that had to get done before she could go home, though, which meant she needed to stop by Legal Grounds for coffee if she wanted to survive. She had been waiting a while, even though it was only 8AM, doom scrolling through social media when she finally heard her name called to pick up her coffee from the counter. Head in the clouds, she barely even noticed that she bumped into someone as she tried to hurry to the counter. “I am so sorry, excuse me… Night shift, you know?”

—

“Please. Don’t even worry about.” She’d been at it again; internally spiraling and second guessing every decision she’d ever made - all courtesy of a few pointed remarks from her mother over breakfast that morning. Why she continued to show up for them each week was still the world’s greatest mystery.

Hadn’t she heard enough, had enough after twenty-nine years of ceaseless nitpicking? Apparently not. She still arrived at the house in a pretty dress with a pretty smile, and she still left regretting every tense second spent across that ridiculously set, unnecessarily formal table.

So that’s why, when the light jostle of shoulder against shoulder effectively pulled her from her thoughts, Shay welcomed the interruption. More than Ellie likely realized. Sometimes a girl needed saving when she could’ve save herself. 

A smile sprung to her lips as she eased to the side so Ellie could grab her coffee, then Shay set about retrieving her own. “I’m actually glad you ran into me.” Having only been back a handful of months, and fending off her parents almost every minute of them, she hadn’t caught up with anyone nearly as much as she should’ve. “Were you planning to sit down, or are you on the go today?”

[scydakman]

❝ OLLIE BLAIR —

Ollie noticed the hesitance in shay’s response, she hoped her question didn’t come across as prying, but she still smiles at her response nonetheless. “That’s good! Its better to have one thing in your life coming together than nothing , right?” she’s more than happy to hear that her friend is starting to settle into her new job, in her experience that was always the hardest part.

When the question was returned to her ollie honestly had the same sort of response, “my week’s been pretty long too, i’m still going through the process if getting my thesis topic cleared with the university but everything’s been going smoothly, it’s just a lot of hoops to jump through for that final green light y’know?” she nodded, taking a sip of her drink before continuing. “The studio’s been fantastic though, I can’t believe I thought I was gonna get all my painting done in my apartment—it’s just nice having a separate space for where I sleep and where I paint, otherwise my place would be a completely mess and milo would have eaten through half of my artwork by now” she said with a laugh. “You should come visit when you’re not busy training the future Tessa virtue’s of the world—we could have some wine and do shitty paintings…c’mon, it’d be a nice break from everything”

—

The more Shay thought about it, the more she had to admit she couldn’t remember the last time her life felt even remotely ‘on the right track’ - no matter how much it looked that way from the outside. She’d grown up with the money, the status, the impressive house and the designer clothes, but... those things were all for show. Props to keep a certain façade in place, even though in the inside she’d spent half her life screaming and rattling the bars of her gilded cage. 

So, that in mind— yeah. Ollie was right.  “One thing is definitely better than nothing,” she eventually surmised. Even those years in New York she hadn’t truly lived for herself, but this new job? It was something she wanted. Something that reignited the fire in her veins. The fact that her parents didn’t approve of what they saw as a ‘lowly’ position was almost a boon, rather than a burden. “Years ago if you asked whether I saw myself as a coach versus the one on the ice I would’ve said no, but— I can’t remember when I last felt this excited about something.”

At least, something that actually felt within her grasp.

Because when Ollie got to talking about her art, her studio, a possible in-home paint and sip party for two? Her thoughts could only veer in one direction: August. Never had she wanted something so much as she wanted him. Never had someone, or something, sparked so much passion in Shay with little more than a smile. He wasn’t hers, though. Not really. He never had been, and, for that, she only had herself to blame.

Hazy images flittered through her head of a night spent drinking right out of the bottle and splashing more paint on themselves than any canvas. Her only ‘creativity’ came hand in hand with her athleticism, but my god— she’d had more fun in those few hours than she had at every pretentious party she’d ever attended, combined. “I’m always in awe of people like you.” People like Ollie, people like him. The ones who could take a brush and a dip of color to create something out of absolutely nothing. “As soon as you have a few finished pieces, I demand to see them.” 

And in the meantime— “I’d love to come over and give it a go, myself, though. I think a break is exactly what I need.”

[scydakman]

❝ OLLIE BLAIR —

ollie let out a massive sigh of relief when she finally recognized seyda’s face. “Maybe I’ll hang this one up at my next gallery viewing” she joked, mimicking her friend’s motions as she wiped the liquid off of her own top. “I’m happy I ran into you though, I wanted to see if you were free to get lunch some time thing week but I realized Nisa never gave me your number” she huffed, her head shaking at how the thought slipped her mind. Ollie simply nodded at her friend’s suggestions, letting her lead the way towards the coffee counter and flashing that same radiant smile at the barista as she handed her the replacement tea.

“They definitely watched all of that go down y’know, I bet they already had the replacement drinks ready from the second I had crashed into you” she chuckled, surveying the area of the cafe before finding the perfect place for them to sit in a little booth next to the window. “What’s your week been like? I mean besides the obvious tea disaster has it been decent? You know, with everything and the rink n’ stuff” she asked, sitting down in the seat across from the other and crossing her legs as she sat her bag back down.

—

“In that case, I guess it’s a lucky accident I ended up on the wrong end of that tea,” Shay mused, another chuckle quick to pass from her lips. “Now we can just cut out the middle man, cut out the wait, and cash in on some time today.” But as they collected new drinks at the counter, she made a mental note to share her number directly before they parted ways again. It’d eliminate any more unfortunate run-ins in the future.

“Uhm. My week’s been—” complicated, but in ways she couldn’t quite explain. Shay fussed with adding sugar and cream to her coffee if only to buy more time to gather her thoughts. Work, family drama, August... “It’s been long, to be honest. So far everything’s going great at work, I finally feel like I’ve really settled into this new coaching position, but that’s about the only thing falling into place right now.” 

She was still avoiding her parents whenever possible ( she truly did not have the patience to suffer another lecture right now ), still struggling to find an apartment of her own. Added to the fact that she’d seen August again for the first time in two years, and that she couldn’t even talk about it with anyone because nobody knew of their tangled history— Shay puffed a breath that ruffled her hair. “What about you? How’s school and things at the new studio?”

[scydakman]

❝ CHRIS OLYMPIOS —

     If he had the choice, he would be back in the city and earning pittance for the manual labor he so adored. His job gave him a purpose, but here he was stuck in a painful limbo; they had found the car on fire, teenagers scarpering as the cops and fire department showed up to put it out, but nobody had come forward. They concluded that they were just kids, bored and idle when they tried to light the thing on fire. If it wasn’t for them, the cops would have never found it. Chris wanted to thank them.

Looking up to the woman, he licked his lower lip and breathed out slowly, “Good to know a couple of people still remember…” He nodded and kicked the dirt beneath his feet, “Yeah.” Glancing back at the flowers he had laid, Chris’ eyes moved back to hers. “She was twenty. We would have celebrated her twenty-first in September, her name was Amber.” And she was the purest person he had ever been blessed to know.

—

Teeth found their way to the corner of Shay’s lip. She wouldn’t tell him that by now she had no doubt the news was long forgotten by her parents. If it wasn’t about them, or the family name, they rarely focused on something for too long. They’d probably only told her to hear the sound of their own voices in the first place. 

She remembered, though. It’d stuck with her, this hit and run. Not so much the details, but the impression it’d left. The thoughts it’d triggered in her head. If she ever met the same fate, would people remember her? Or would they remember the façade she always portrayed? Did anybody actually know who she was beneath the puppeteering of her parents?

Likely not. Most days, Shay wasn’t even sure she knew herself.

This wasn’t about her own internal identity crisis, though. She nodded, because what else could she do, and let her gaze slip back for the ground. “You must really miss her.” It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. Nobody looked that morose, or hung around a year old crime scene, if they weren’t personally connected. And if he was still hanging around, questioning random runners— “They never caught who did it, did they?”

[scydakman]

❝ ELIZABETH MEEKS —

When Hope came home with a jacket that clearly wasn’t hers, she had questioned the girl who said that she must have grabbed it by mistake; to her own defense, she had a jacket fairly similar to the one that Shay had so she didn’t fault the girl. Liz kept the jacket with her in case she happened to stumble upon the other woman whilst in town. “She did. You both have practically the same one and I haven’t seen you since but thankfully you’ve got it back,” she said, a smile tugging at the ends of her lips. “She is out of town for the week. Her best friend invited her to go to some cabin in the woods and well, why not?” She missed Hope when she wasn’t near her but she knew that she needed to get out and explore so she let her. “How have you been? I fee like it’s been a hot minute since we’ve talked.”

—

“Two people at the rink with all black warm up jackets? Unheard of.” Shay’s lips pressed tight, fending off a smile. You only had to walk through the doors to realize it was an unofficial uniform of sorts among the skaters. Honestly, she was surprised mix-ups didn’t happen more often. Then again, she usually kept her things tucked away in her bag, or one of the lockers. It was her own fault for casting it aside near the girls’ belongings at camp that day. “You’re a saint for keeping this long. I have plenty, but this one’s my favorite.” She’d had it for years; it’d seen Shay through plenty of spills and triumphs out on the ice. 

Carefully, she draped the jacket over the back of her stool - no need to lose the damn thing twice - and then joined Liz at the bar. “I’ve been okay. Still haven’t found an apartment I like yet, but Nisa doesn’t seem to mind me crashing at hers.” Her cousin always came through when she needed it most. “What about you? How are you and Hope settling in?”

[scydakman]

Have you ever been in love?

"....................” // ft. @augustortiz

HONESTY HOUR.

[scydakman]

Do you ever miss skating professionally?

"Yes... and no. I miss what made me fall in love with skating. And you know— the adrenaline rush before getting out on the ice, how untouchable and free I always felt there, the high of placing well. But I don’t miss the pressure. I don’t miss the disappointment in my parents eyes or the days of silence when I failed. I don’t miss pushing and pushing and pushing myself past breaking just to try and make them proud. There are a hundred reasons why I loved skating, or why I wish I still did, but there are just as many reasons why I left. I wasn’t— I wasn’t skating for me, anymore. I was skating for everyone else.”

HONESTY HOUR.

[scydakman]

what do you believe happens to us when we die?

"I could go on and on about things like Barzakh and Yawm al-din, but those are more or less concepts I was raised to believe in. Personally? I... don’t know. I try not to think about what comes after this mess. Hopefully it’s peaceful, though.”

HONESTY HOUR.

[scydakman]

did you always want to be a figure skater?

"Yes. I mean, when I was about three I wanted to be a slice of pizza, but I hardly think that counts. The moment I put on my first pair of skates, though... it’s all I ever did, all I ever thought about. There was never anything else for me.”

HONESTY HOUR.

[scydakman]

[hazyaffection]

this story ends in page one

[scydakman]

❝ SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 6TH, 2021 — at the akman family estate with @augustortiz​.

Emerald silk shimmied over spandex leggings that were cast off and abandoned in the driver's seat of a car. Heels were hopped and hobbled into on an ascent up the stairs. Shay was running late - as usual - but she’d be damned if she waltzed into the dining room looking any less than the level of perfection her mother would expect. 

 No - demand. 

Deft fingers coaxed a pair of diamond teardrops through her ears and she paused in the powder room off the grand foyer just long enough for a swipe of color across her lips. MAC’s ‘Please Me’ pink - an apt choice for what surely lay ahead. Not for the first time, and undoubtedly not the last, Shay stared at her reflection, wondering why even the simplest family dinner had to be such a show. 

As if their family’s finest china cared whether she picked at the food upon it wearing something from Saks or a pair of ratty sweats? Would the marble floors weep if they were kissed by the scuff of old Chucks instead of the Aquazzura’s pinching her feet? 

For one bold, reckless moment Shay wanted to find out. 

She stood there, sucked into that yawning wasteland of indifference within her meticulously made up eyes, and wanted to ruin something. One of the priceless ginger jars her mother had scattered about - not because she liked them, but because it’s how all the other ‘mistresses of the lake’ were decorating these days. Their five course meal fit for an army instead of a party of three. The fortune of soulless art on the walls. Herself. 

An familiar, incendiary urge toward destruction swept through Shay’s veins like a brush fire, and yet... steady hands smoothed a wayward curl into submission. Skimmed over her hips, her thighs, and adjusted the fall of her dress. 

Almost thirty, and she was still her mother’s little marionette. 

She pilfered a glass of Macallan from her father’s study on her way to the dining room and approached the imposing double doors, twenty minutes late. By the time she tossed it back, chucked the crystal snifter in one of her mother’s many potted plants ( hah! ), and ventured inside she wished she would’ve made it two. Or five. 

It wasn’t the exquisitely dressed table - complete with far too many settings - that stole the breath from her lungs, or the flinty glare in Cemre Akman’s eyes above a deceptively saccharine smile. It was who stood beside her, dapper in his three piece suit yet looking every bit as desperate to be anywhere else as she was.

August.

It’d been two years since Shay was last home. Two years since she’d last seen him. She never called to say she’d returned this time around, though it struck her now that perhaps she should’ve. Perhaps if they’d talked once in these two months she would’ve realized tonight was about more than just dinner with her parents. It was a spectacle of an entirely different beast.

Cemre slinked forward on stick thin heels - the epitome of poise, grace, and silent but deadly condemnation. Twenty minutes late, scotch on her breath, and not a drop of polish on her unadorned fingers. She’d be hearing about this later. At present, her mother just pressed forth to kiss each cheek, not so subtly shoving between Shay’s shoulder blades to force her front and center for their company. “Şeyda, you remember Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop. Their son, August, their daughter—”

Shay tuned her out. Shay tuned everything out but the achingly familiar landscape of his face.

It might’ve been two years, but she remembered their last moments together as if it were only yesterday. How her fingertips penned invisible promises and apologies alike over the canvas of his back. The way weak rays of morning light rimmed the curtains drawn over her hotel windows, edging the thick drapery in luminous gold. It’d spilled across his still form. Across that back, tattooed and lightly marred by the crimson streaked evidence of her love. She remembered how badly she wanted to dip in and taste the ink and sunshine off his skin. How she pressed a kiss to his passion-swept hair and left him sleep, instead.

Whenever he’d woken up, be it five minutes or five hours later, she’d already been gone. Shay texted him to say she’d made it back to New York okay later that evening, or perhaps it was the next week. She never told him how hard she’d cried during take off, though. How close she’d been to coming back.

Now - roughly seven hundred and thirty days later - she never would.

The whip-snap of her mother’s voice pulled her out of the reverie, reminding Shay that manners demanded an actual response. Her throat stubbornly resisted her attempt to swallow before she managed to sink into a pretty, heart-wrenchingly impersonal smile. “Of course I remember, anne. They’ve only lived next door most of my life.” 

Ignoring brittle tightening of Cemre’s mouth in response to that sprinkling of sass, she greeted his mother and step father first. It was a coward’s move - one that only granted the tiniest reprieve and chance at finding composure before she had to face him, too. 

“August.” Her gaze tried to flee for the floor of its own volition, but she forced herself to look up again. Shay’s eyes honed in on him through the thick, onyx fringe of her lashes and it took every ounce of self restraint not to lean in too close. Not to ping into his arms like some long lost magnet finding home and reclaim what’d always been hers. He wasn’t. He wasn’t hers, or her home. Not in the ways he always should’ve been - the ways he deserved.

“It’s lovely to see you again.” So unremarkably neutral, so polite. She could’ve been greeting the mailman or the grocery clerk, not the only man to ever seen her naked soul. It made Shay sick, this false pretense of loose acquaintance. The way they came and went in each others lives with a self-imposed lack of permeance. Her fault, not his. 

“How’ve you— how’ve you been?”