Three weeks have passed since Ibrahim's release from prison. Nothing between us changed. He was still their father, I couldn't deny him that. I couldn't deny them. 

"Careful, careful, careful," I repeated over and over to Lila.

"I am careful," Lila insisted as she climbed into the newest swinging contraption that Ibrahim had been installed in the back yard of the mansion. Where Lila and Layan saw a brand new toy, I saw a swinging death trap.

"OOOh," Lila called as she almost slipped off the tyre-shaped disk.

"Ibrahim," I yelled unconsciously as I closed my eyes when I felt Lila about to fall down. I felt as though my heart had stopped for a moment.

Even though Lila didn't fall down and Ibrahim wasn't near me to hear it. Something registered in my mind that told me to call him. What was that?

 I didn't like it, but at the same time, it gave me warmness.

For the last several weeks, We had started off as just friends, and most of the activities we did together involved Layan and Lila in some way. Whether we were taking Layan and Lila to the movies, the hospital, shopping mall or just hanging out at Yilmaz's Mansion, it was strictly platonic between us.

"Can you push me, Mama?" Lila asked me after she'd been seated in the deepest part of the swing.

Even though I hated it, I obliged and began to push Lila gently on the swing.

"Higher!" Lila said. "Why won't you push me higher?"

"Because I don't really want grey hairs, and I really don't need you falling off."

Lila just laughed in response. "You're funny."

As usual, Lila and I hanged out in the backyard while Layan went off to wherever her father was. He bought her a new expensive camera after he noticed how passionate she was and all she was doing was taking photos of him. His ego was over the roof as if he need it and I couldn't stop laughing at the posses Layan made her father do.

"Wahaj?" a voice called from behind me.

The look in his eyes needed no words, After giving me a moment to stop Lila from swinging, Ibrahim instructed Lila and Layan to play inside the house. While he wanted to talk.

You still love him. That's why you're giving him another chance.

My aunt voice lingered in my mind when I saw his face in front of mine. I didn't know what love was but him. He was a past memory that I wished had a happy ending. 

"Wahaj do you want a divorce ?" The sadness in his voice manifested as asked straight away as a frown I couldn't control appeared on my face.

"Yes," I responded as my pride didn't let me say anything else, but he did, "Do you really? Can't you give me another chance." 

His ego grounded as he seemed to choose me instead of it, or that is how I sow love. At that moment, I couldn't nod, I couldn't say yes, so I told him what was on my mind. 

"Ibrahim...what if...what if you didn't fall in love with me?"

He narrows his eyes, confused.

"What if you fell in love with an idea, a concept? The notion that you wanted that helpless girl you left years ago. Perhaps you tried to redeem yourself, and you took me as a way out. Maybe you want a competitor, someone to defeat. Possibly this was your chance to repay me and get me to fall again for what I did to you in that bathroom, and I'm sorry." I choke over the last few words as I give in and cradle his face in my hands, hold him in a way I've only dreamed of owning him all these years.

He pulls me in closer, chest to chest; his arms circle my waist while his heart beats erratically against mine.

"No, Wahaj," he insists. "My mind can play the games all it wants but my heart can't. Listen. I fell in love with you," he stresses. I drop my head so he won't see the defeat I can no longer hold back, but he picks my chin up with his thumb and forefinger and forces me to hold his gaze. "It terrifies you to hear it, but it's the truth. I fell in love with the way you made me feel, with the way you gave yourself to me so completely, so honestly. No one had ever, has ever, been that open with me. Yes, you were different, but you weren't a game; you were everything I'd never experienced in my life: true beauty and trust and innocence and openness, you either give your all or you don't at all."

"Ibrahim, when I stabbed you," my voice trembles at the memory, "and he told me to-"

He covers my mouth gently with his fingers. "Shh, you don't have to repeat it," he whispers. "You were angry and I would too; you took my kidney for our daughter, I forgave you along time ago"

I never knew how strong he was until now. He forgave me and accepted an apology he didn't receive before today. Was that love to forgive even if they bled you to death. 

I defended, "It's not an excuse for what I did. I should have told you. I should have... I shouldn't have taken such a drastic measure. I wanted to tear you just like you tore me. I wanted you to be angry from the first meeting we had to show me your true colours so you won't lie but no matter what I did," I say bitterly despite my efforts, "You were there to take my hands,"

"Because I know I hurt you. I know I took advantage of your trust and innocence and made you think you could never trust again. But that girl is still in there." He lays a hand over my heart once more. "It's still you, and I'll do whatever's necessary to help you trust me again, to make that girl feel safe once more. Wahaj..."

He swallows thickly and inches his face closer still while a furious heartbeat thrums between us and I no longer know whether it's his or mine or both of ours.

"Don't cry, Wahaj," he whispers once more. He wipes a rogue tear away gently with his thumb, stroking my cheek. "Don't cry. Be that strong woman I know and I will be there beside you supporting you." 

Was that love, I wondered as I looked into his eyes when he told me those words. When his mouth finally finds mine, I snake my arms around his neck, and just as I feared, I'm lost... lost and home all at once.

It's not the first kiss we've shared, but it's so different from what we shared that it might as well be the first. A few years ago, his mouth consumed me with a desperation I'd assumed arose from pure lust and desire. Now, though I can taste desperation on his lips, on his breath, it's tinged with regret and hope and anxiety and restraint and...and something else.

He fills me with soft, tender feeling. As if he knows that though my body may want more as soon as I feel his mouth on mine, as if it was my instincts, as it always did at his touch even if some I still didn't remember, my heart can't take it right now, not yet. 

For now, this is right. This is enough.

Why was I fighting this?

"Wahaj..." he groans quietly against my mouth, savouring.

"Ibrahim..."

Slowly, he pulls back, and when he does, I can see the disappointment in his eyes, etched in his expression, but he nods.

"I need time, Ibrahim..."

"I need to make sure...I've spent over five years convincing myself to hate you. I can't," – I exhale slowly – "I can't let go of that."

"I understand, Wahaj." He sighs. "Believe me; I understand better than you might think."

More than a few days later, I was studying for my finals, my second-year finals. I was sitting on one of the couches in the rented apartment. It was the same apartment my father rented. Ibrahim was in the bedroom with Layn and Lila. Every weekend when he takes them away, Layan and Lila refused to sleep afterwards and start crying. They wanted him to be with them even though both of them slept on the ride home, I had to call him every night for them.

The phone didn't even have a second to ring when he answered, "Salam, I-ibrahim." I spoke.

The cries of the girls behind me seemed to worry him, "Is everything okay?" 

"Yes, Yes," I replied to his worried tone. 

"Could you come over, Layan and Lila refuse to sleep, and I need to study." 

He nodded, "Just give me twenty mintues," 

It was odd. Less than a year ago, I thought my girls would never accept him. I didn't think he would accept them, not after everything. and yet somehow they formed a bond stronger than I could understand. At this moment, they weren't mine alone but they were his girls. 

"How are you doing?" he asked. His voice was cautious. I didn't respond to him.

I was still struggling with my distractions that the finals weren't even on my mind. I couldn't even think about them.

"Is there anything you want help with?" He seemed determined to hear me talk. Again, I remained silent.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. That got my attention.

"What are you sorry about?"

"I will tell the girls, I won't be able to put them to bed anymore. I understand you want your time to think." 

If he was hoping I would not hold him accountable, he was wrong. I said nothing about his apology. I knew my daughters all to well, if they had something in their minds, they would make it happen. It was their idea of making us stay together and he wasn't helping. With his gorgeous face. 

"I'm going to be better at this," he promised as he was about to leave.

I turned my head, "Wait!"

"Can you help me study this?" I asked, not because I didn't understand it but because I wanted to feel like I felt years ago, when he spent all night trying to make me memorize stuff and also because his girls were peeking from the other room as giggles were heard from were I sat when I asked. 

His girls were happy and that is all I cared to do. 

I watch him.

Not because I am forced to. Not because I want to. It's neither of those really. I just can't help myself sometimes.

I sit there in my chair, a large book propped up against my lap, my eyes just above the pages that usually draw me in deep. This time they couldn't. I see his face as he slept in front of me. My finals were a week shy and since he wasn't working and didn't have his license, he offered to help. I took it. Not his help, but his existence near me.

Five weeks, I have spent five weeks with him doing my final research paper as we search for every information in every book. His eyes were on the books, on the information gathered while mine was on him. 

My fingertips play with the old parchment, flicking the pages to each other. The noise quiet my thoughts for the moment, but I doubts that they'll end.

I know that because I can't stop thinking about him.

Him. Ibrahim. Professor. Yilmaz. He's the man that is sitting across from me, silent and breathing softly. He doesn't know things, such as how I regularly am thinking about him- and how I figure that he will never get the chance to know. I believe that he doesn't need to see this part of me, and I am happier knowing that he'll live his life without the information.

He merely believes that I despise him. Knowing that will keep him away from breaking my heart. I am happier thinking that he doesn't know. And I am happier with him living my lies.

Often, I look at him without knowing of it, much like I am doing now, although I keep pretending that I don't. It feels better for me to hide behind things I know to do, and I never wants anyone else to see me watching him.

I close the book softly, careful not to wake him up.I gaze at him with soft yet knowledgeable eyes. The memories begin to flood again, coursing through my mind much like blood does through my veins and magic through my fingertips.

In that moment, I came closer to his frame. I stroke the few hairs that came in a short distance of his face. He breathe heavily and I back away. 

He is sleeping in the couch unknown to him that he slept as I sow the hour hitting two in the morning. He dozed of into a nap. Even though he promised not to. Because to me, his mere existence next to me drive me to thinking about him... No, studying him.

But seeing him eats through me, and it runs endlessly through my mind as I try my hardest to push him away, knowing that it isn't what I want. And, in the end, I find that my studies of what love was and why does my heart only feels this way beside him are incomplete, unknown to me in the slightest degree- something.

Until I can trust him, I content to learn. To study him.

Him. The object of my studies. The only man that I will ever love.

This is not the end, but we're so very close to it.

Hope you enjoy... 

Tomorrrow last chapters will be added!!

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