Page 101 of Mystic's Sunrise

I thought I could be his.

I thought he could be mine.

But I was wrong.

Again.

And not for the first time.

The hurt didn’t explode in me like it used to, not like when Drago raised his voice or when silence in a locked room became a threat. No, this heartbreak had arrived differently. Quiet. Precise. Like winter seeping through cracked tiles.

It reminded me of Istanbul.

I was seven when I dropped my grandmother’s teacup. It had been the last one left of a set, painted in soft blues and lined ingold, something she rarely let anyone use. But that day she made tea just for me. I held it too tightly, nervous and proud. And then I slipped. The porcelain shattered against the floor, the pieces skittering across the worn tile like broken promises.

She didn’t yell. Didn’t even speak. Just turned away slowly, gathered a broom, and swept it up.

That silence haunted me for days.

This one felt the same.

A knock at the door pulled me out of the memory, loud and unexpected. My body tensed instinctively, shoulders drawing in, breath caught halfway. I didn’t move. Didn’t speak.

Then came his voice, rough, unraveling, full of a kind of ache that hit me like a bruise.

“Zeynep. It’s me.”

Of course it was.

Even now, even with everything cracked and bleeding between us, my heart stuttered like it still believed in him. Like it hadn’t learned its lesson. Like it didn’t remember what betrayal tasted like.

“Please,” he said, quieter now. “Just… open the door.”

I stood slowly, feet silent against the floor, and crossed the room with that same mix of hesitation and longing I hated myself for still feeling.

I pressed my hand flat to the wood. I didn’t open it. I couldn’t. Because if I opened it, if I saw his face, if I let myself fall into that voice and those eyes again… I didn’t know if I’d survive it.

I wanted to scream. To ask him why he didn’t tell me. Why he let me be the fool again. Why he stood in front of me, kissed me like I mattered, while hiding someone else's name under his breath.

But I didn’t scream.

I didn’t say anything.

Because I’d learned a long time ago that silence was safer than any answer a man could give.

Silence couldn’t be twisted.

Couldn’t be turned into guilt or weaponized into regret.

Silence belonged to me.

His voice came again—softer now, broken around the edges. “I know I fucked up. I should’ve told you. Should’ve handled it before it ever got this far. I didn’t. That’s on me.”

My fingers curled against the doorframe. I pictured him on the other side, maybe leaning forward the same way I was, his hand against the wood, his head bowed. So close we could feel the same surface.

So far we could’ve been worlds apart.

He said she was gone. That he ended it.