Leo urgently needed to come out of the bathroom. I couldn't bear this urge. Luckily, I had some with me, in my necklace.
—Leo. I need to go to the toilet.
—I'll leave.
He closed the door behind me. I took the photo out of my necklace and took the drug I placed underneath aside. Then I looked at myself and my baby in the mirror. Nothing would happen to it, right? It gotten through this once. It could get through this again. I couldn't bear this urge.
A baby wouldn't die that easily… My only concern was that Leo really wanted this baby. Ever since I've known him, he'd talked about wanting a baby. I'd hesitated. I didn't want to kill his desire and hopes.
At that moment, Leo suddenly entered the bathroom,
—I believed you. I believed you when you promised. I believed you wouldn't use it even if I noticed there was something like that under the necklace. I shouldn't have believed you.
He said.
He took my necklace, and I suddenly grabbed him by the arms. I don't remember ever holding anything so tightly in my life.
—You can't…Are you just going to watch me suffer here?! I can't live without it! Seriously! Don't you see how I am?! Stop acting so stupid and give it back to me!
—Did you think you could convince me by talking like that?!
—But…You know…You know what withdrawal is like!
—No. I haven't used any substances for a while, Melisa. I quit. I went back to work, I even quit smoking. I've been trying to get better since I found out I'm going to be a father!
—I will get better…I promise! I just can't right now! I feel terrible! Give it back!
—No. I'll throw it away…
—No! Don't! Leo…I'll do whatever you want in exchange for you giving it back! Please, just give it back!
—I won't let you get to that point again, even if you want to! Do you understand?! I grabbed one of the guns from the bathroom just for show. I held it to myself.
—Come on! It can't be more valuable than me! It's so tiny! Almost ineffective! Think of it like a tiny cigarette? To relieve my stress…
Leo was holding my necklace tightly. When he saw me like this, he loosened his grip. Then he tightened it again.
—You're sick, Melisa!
He opened the door and threw my necklace away. Then he locked the door. No matter how hard I tried to run towards my necklace, it was useless. I couldn't catch it. He took the gun from my hand and threw it aside. I yelled at him,
—Why?! You can't do this to me!
He didn't answer.
—How dare you do this! Open the door! Open it!
I said.
I kept forcing him.
My whole body was trembling. I was panicking. At that moment, he hugged me. Even though I yelled at him, he chose to hug me. This panic attack I was experiencing didn't go away with his hug. However, it didn't get worse either. It remained stable. He made me sit on the bed. I sensed he was upset. He didn't speak. He just hugged me tightly and stayed silent. I started hitting him. I started throwing things.
—How could you do this to me!? You bastard! Idiot!
—Melisa…How did you end up like this?
—You son of a b*tch! What did you do! I hate you!
—…
(11 years ago. From Leo's perspective.)
Melisa and I were high school sweethearts. I fell in love the moment I first saw her. She fell in love with me too.
I lived my youth a little differently and with difficulty. I didn't have many people in my life. I had found Melisa in this short world.
When I was 14, I went to a high school outside the city. As soon as I won a scholarship, I made preparations to leave home and immediately moved away. I wanted to study far from my family.
I grew up without much of my family by my side; I was practically an orphan. My parents chose not to be there for me as I grew up. I had parents, but they never really "acted like" they were there. Even at 16, I hadn't heard from either of them for about 7 years. My mother and father married and divorced at a young age. My mother moved to another city and remarried. My father did the same. In the end, I was alone.
Social media was just emerging when I was young. I started using it thanks to Melisa. My mother and father also had social media accounts. Perhaps because I was still naive, I wanted to add them as friends back then. Why did I do that?
It was foolish. I cried for days after seeing my mother smiling with another baby in her arms and a 4-5 year old child beside her. Then I continued browsing her page. Celebrations for their new children's birthdays, family photos…
Neither of my parents had chosen me. I had to live with this truth.
I did have an aunt, though. We were never close, and I moved away from her at a young age. I moved away from my small village and started school in the center of a big city.
Melisa and I were in the same class. She was my first friend from this city. She always helped me. When I was alone, unhappy, and in every situation like that, she helped me. She stayed by my side. It didn't take long for us to start a relationship.
Melisa was one of the kindest people I've ever met. She could understand all my troubles and problems just by looking into my eyes and would solve them immediately. She held my hand tightly. She had short, jet-black hair with bangs back then. She was so sweet and beautiful… Her warm smile was like my sunshine. One day, she promised never to let go of my hand. We were in a crowded place, and I was afraid I'd get lost because I didn't know the city. But she said she would never let go of my hand. Maybe it wasn't a very important sentence for her. But at that time, it was one of the words I needed most.
No one had ever been there for me before. No one had ever held my hand and hugged me tightly. No one had ever chosen me in this world. No one had ever been by my side and supported me as much as she did. She always watched my successes from the front row. She applauded so loudly that I didn't hear those who didn't.
Unlike most malicious people in the world, you could see the pure and fragile personality in her eyes. She was a very emotional person. She also had wounds from her past. I didn't know it then, but I learned that she was as lonely as I was. She hid her depression from me for a long time. I found her doctor's report right after we got married. She never explained it to me. And I never asked.
We were 14 when we first met. We were 25 when we got married. For 11 years, she hid her illness from me. Depression is truly a difficult illness to understand. I never saw any symptoms until we actually got married. She always smiled at me. She was a funny person, very funny, unlike her illness.
One day, she seemed to mention her illness. "A little bit of pessimism," she said. She said her symptoms lessened when she was with me.
That's probably why she studied psychology at university. Melisa sought a cure for herself. She wanted to get better, but she couldn't.
We didn't drift apart at university. We studied different subjects, but we were at the same university, and our faculties were close. We started living together when we were 22. We got engaged shortly after. We promised to get married when we finished school and started our careers. Everyone already knew we would get married someday; we were so in love.
Everything was going perfectly, it felt like a dream. Seeing the woman I loved at my door every day when I came home was like a dream. The dream I'd longed for for years had come true. I had a family. I wasn't alone at home anymore.
This peace continued for about two years, but one day when I got home, I couldn't find Melisa. I searched everywhere. I went to every place she might have gone. I couldn't reach her on her phone. She had gone out to dinner with her family without telling me.
When I turned on the television, I saw a disaster. About 50 people had lost their lives. At a time of heavy traffic, a truck had lost control and crashed into the drivers. A fire broke out at the scene, and everyone except two people there lost their lives. One of those two people was my wife. She survived. However, they couldn't save her family.
…