Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
“They were willing to give me a home but only because we were partners. Partners with a dream, a destiny. The impossible hope of creating a world where disease, plagues, and natural disasters couldn’t find us.
“I don’t need to tell you how appealing that became after losing Aslan. I wanted to run and hide. I wanted to vanish beneath the waves and disappear into the salt. The impossible task of making Lunamare a reality consumed me, and I was grateful that we spent nightfall sketching our spheres, drawing meadows of seaweed to act as the waste purifier, and arguing over how best to recycle air.
“As I moved closer to my delivery date and my stomach ballooned, they happily, generously turned their third and final bedroom into a nursery. They didn’t let me refuse. They nodded along as I blabbered that this was only temporary. That one day, I would be back on my feet. I would remember how to live. I would figure out a way to survive without Aslan.
“But when I stepped into that room for the first time, I’d dropped to my knees, hugged my bulging stomach, and sobbed. My pregnancy was a blur of tears and sorrow but kneeling in that nursery, I felt I could reach out and touch Aslan.
“They’d taken a photo of my tattoo, blown it up, and used the design to paint a fine line mural on the wall by the wooden crib. The lion watched over my baby while the curtains glittered with stars, the ceiling was painted with the waxing and waning phases of the moon, and the floor held rugs of blue layered over one another in different shades, mimicking waves upon the shore.”
“It sounds as if they should’ve gone into interior design instead of architecture,” Dylan said softly.
I nodded, remembering how that room sticky-taped my bleeding heart just enough that when I went into labour and was rushed to the hospital at four in the afternoon with two married men and my very anxious parents, I managed to feel something other than despair.
The pain had been astronomical.
I’d been in labour for thirty-three hours.
But when Ayla Avci came into the world, I’d smiled.
I’d smiled and wept and fallen madly in love with the daughter Aslan had given me.
And that night, when everyone had left the hospital and my daughter was sleeping in a bassinet beside me, I’d clutched Aslan’s shell and whispered into its peach and cream spikes. “You have a daughter, kocam (my husband). A daughter with dark hair like you, dark eyes like you, and the same serious little mouth.”
Tears had poured.
Grief had snapped.
Anguish pushed me deep.
And an awful little whisper appeared, hissing in my ear, revealing I was free now.
I was no longer carrying life.
That life was born.
That life was perfect.
Which meant I was free to do whatever I wanted with mine.
Those whispers never left me alone.
For four months, I did my best to ignore them.
I learned how to nurse, bathe, burp, and feed my newborn.
Ayla was passed from one embrace to another, chortling at her two uncles, blowing bubbles at her grandfather, and trying to smile at her grandmother.
Everyone was besotted with her.
So they didn’t notice me.
Didn’t notice me fading, faking, failing.
They didn’t notice until I was on a plane, and it was too late.
Chapter Thirty-Four
*
Nerida
AGE: 21 YRS OLD
*
(Love in Lithuanian: Meilė)
MY BREASTS THROBBED AS MY BODY SLOWLY stopped producing milk. Forty-eight hours since I’d seen my baby or nursed her. And it hurt. Emotionally, spiritually, physically.
I didn’t know how I’d left her.
I didn’t fully remember making the decision.
It was as if a higher power had corrupted my mind, invaded my choices, and when I’d woken up, I was in Turkey.
I winced as a sharp pain lanced through my left breast.
The bruising had started in the sky, and it was all I could do to ignore the instinctual urge to turn around and run back home to my child.
I needed her.
I probably needed her more than she needed me.
Regardless that I’d run away, I didn’t fear for her well-being.
I knew Teddy and Eddie would take great care of her. Better care than even I was capable. She would want for nothing.
My phone rang for the millionth time since I’d stepped off the plane and turned it back on. A thousand missed calls from my parents. Hundreds from Teddy and Honey.
If only ghosts could call from the other-side. I’d happily answer if Aslan’s name popped up on my screen. If some angelic number appeared and let me talk to him in the underworld.
Sighing heavily, I rubbed at the grit in my eyes from long distance travel and pressed accept. Raising the phone to my ear, I braced myself for the barrage of anger, questions, and blame.
I didn’t speak.
I just waited.
Silence echoed down the line before the quietest question. “You’re in Turkey...aren’t you?”