Mira's throat tightened as she turned the fragile page, her fingers trembling against the ink-blotted paper. The words looked rushed, desperate — as if the person writing them was fighting both time and their own breaking heart.
The lamplight flickered weakly, catching the edge of Ozan's handwriting — uneven, heavy, alive.
She swallowed hard.
"Why am I still reading this…" she whispered, voice trembling.
But her fingers didn't stop. They never did.
Dear Diary,
I woke up in the morning as usual. Mira had a high fever again. I called Professor Aydın, and he told me to make lemon tea and put a water bag on her head. Took me half an hour just to convince her to drink the tea. I left the soup beside her bed and rushed to class.
İskandar wasn't there either — not that I care. Like hell I give a damn about him.
Had to skip my part-time job today. Babysitting duty, apparently. Great life, right?
When I got back to the dorm, Seyran was still asleep. The soup bowl looked barely touched. I checked her temperature again — thank God, it was lower. Otherwise, we'd be in the ER right now.
I went to the kitchen, feeling like some mother hen, trying to cook something healthy for both of us. She needs strength to "fight off" the fever. That phrase always makes me laugh — like our bodies are boxing it out with sickness in some kind of ring.
As I was stirring the pot, following the recipe on my old, cracked phone, I suddenly felt arms around my waist.
I froze.
For a moment, I couldn't breathe.
I turned slightly — and there she was.
Seyran. Hair messy, cheeks flushed, smiling faintly.
"W–What the—" I stammered, nearly dropping the spoon. "For God's sake, woman! What do you want!?"
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my ears. I saw my reflection on the microwave door — red cheeks, red ears. And yet… something in my face looked different. Softer, maybe. I don't know.
I bonked her lightly on the head with my palm, trying to sound annoyed.
"Do you want to burn the kitchen down, you idiot?"
She laughed quietly, still clinging to my arm.
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry," she said.
"For what?"
"For not listening to you."
I sighed, shaking my head but unable to hide a small smile.
"I just said it to protect you. Anyway, as long as we learn from our mistakes, it's okay. But don't you ever go anywhere without telling me again, got it? It was pure luck that I was there last time. What if I'm not next time?"
Her eyes softened. "You're right. And… thank you. For forgiving me."
She stretched her hand out with a playful grin. "Truce?"
I stared at her for a second, then raised the spoon in my hand like a sword.
"Truce," I said.
She giggled and hugged me again.
God, she knows I'm not a hugger.
I turned red again, pushing her gently away. "Stop— you're impossible."
Dear Diary,
It's been a month since that day. I'm sorry, Seyran — I haven't seen you much lately. It's not about what happened. I've just been drowning in work. Two part-time jobs, tougher classes… barely any sleep.
But today, I have good news.
I got a new job. It covers my tuition and pays enough to start saving. In two years, I'll be able to buy that ugly old cabin near the lake — the one I always talked about. We can fix it up together. Like old times.
To celebrate, I bought her a bouquet — she loves flowers — and a plush teddy bear. She hates chocolate, so no luck there. I walked to her dorm, my heart racing like an idiot.
"Seyran?" I called, knocking lightly.
No answer.
The door was slightly open.
"Can I come in?"
A muffled sound from inside. "...hmph."
I stepped in, shutting the door softly behind me.
Then my knees gave way.
She was sitting on the floor, her eyes blank, her face pale — like her soul had gone somewhere far away. I dropped to my knees and crawled toward her, panic rushing through every vein in my body.
"Seyran?" My voice broke. "What happened?"
She didn't speak. Didn't even look at me. Just trembled.
I pulled her close — me, who never hugs — and for the first time, I cried.
"Tell me," I whispered. "I'll protect you. I'll fix it. Just trust me."
But she didn't answer.
So I stayed. All night. Watching her breathe, making sure she didn't fade away.
Then I saw it — through the window.
İskandar's car.
My blood went cold.
When he left his room, I followed him. Waited. Then slipped through his window.
And what I saw… I can't even write. Disgusting pictures. All over the wall.
Of her.
My Seyran.
I burned inside. I tore every photo off the wall, smashed his camera, every phone, every hard drive. I took it all — then walked to the ocean and threw everything into the waves.
When I came back, she was still there. Still shaking.
I kissed her forehead and whispered,
"It's over. I fixed it. You're safe now."
Then I led her to the tree near my cabin — the one I've been saving for us. I didn't tell her yet that I bought it. I wanted it to be a birthday surprise.
I handed her the envelope filled with the photos and a lighter.
"Your choice," I told her softly. "Burn it or bury it. Either way, no one will ever see this again. I swear."
She cried for a long time — until her voice was gone. Then she chose to bury them.
We added some happy memories to the box, too. Old drawings. A photo from Professor Aydın's class.
And then she spoke.
She said she didn't remember the whole month. Only bits — waking up, going to class, and then… nothing. She remembered returning home every evening at exactly eight. But I found out she never went to her job. Not once.
İskandar must have done something. Used something to play with her mind.
He always wanted a guinea pig.
Dear Seyran,
I've found myself caring about you more than I should. More than I planned. I'll protect you. I'll give you the home you always wanted.
I know it's stupid — I'm still paying off the debt for this ring — but I'll confess everything on your birthday.
When you came to me for shelter that night, I realised I didn't just want to protect you. I wanted to be your home.
Will you be with me?
The engine's rumble was the first thing she heard — a low, familiar growl that rolled through the small garden and up the driveway like a tide. Mira's chest tightened. For a second, the room narrowed to the lamp, the open diary, the small gold ring gleaming like a dropped secret between the pages.
She moved with the urgency of someone running on a thin thread. Fingers numb, she slid the ring gently back into its place, closed the leather cover as if sealing a wound, set the diary exactly where it had been, tucked the tape and the strip of mirror with Alden's print into the drawer, and with one hand that trembled so little she nearly fooled herself, pressed the safe's code. The mechanism sighed; the door closed with a final, obedient click.
For a breath — two — she simply stood over the desk, forehead almost resting against cool wood, listening to her own blood. The house felt like a lung inhaling; the walls seemed to hold their breath along with her.
Alden's car clicked off. The sound of his steps across the path — the small, boyish rhythm he had when he wanted to look casual — made something inside her twist. She slid the key into the lock and turned it, smoothing the front of her shirt as if she were simply returning from the grocer, as if the diary hadn't just spilled a life she didn't know existed.
She met him at the threshold.
He filled the doorway like he always did — tall, familiar, the collar of his coat damp from the drizzle, hair tousled just so. For a second, his face was soft with the exhaustion of a long day, and she almost believed she could fold herself back into that softness. Almost.
"Hey." His voice was the easy, practised warmth that had folded into her days for months. He set his bag down and shrugged off his coat, the motion casual, habitual. "You look like you've been crying. Everything okay?"
Mira forced a smile that didn't reach her eyes. It was the same small smile she used when someone asked a question she didn't want to answer. "All good. Just tired," she lied. Her throat felt lined with glass.
He stopped in the kitchen, glancing at the kettle. "Tea?" he offered, the old rituals stepping in like footmen. "I told you I'd be late, but I finished earlier."
She watched him as he moved — the tilt of his head, the way he rubbed at his jaw when he concentrated, the tiny smudge of something dark on his cuff that somehow hadn't been there this morning. Small things slipped through her focus and registered like needles.
"Yeah," she said, voice steadier than she felt. "Tea would be nice."
He caught her hand as she reached for a mug — a light squeeze, half-affection, half-question. His palm was warm. Up close, his expression folded into something so ordinary it hurt: an easy smile, the soft crease at the corner of his mouth when he was about to say something funny. But his eyes — they flicked to the study door, and the look he gave it settled like a shadow between them.
"You didn't go out, did you?" he asked, attempting nonchalance. The question was casual but edged with the slight constriction of suspicion that came when routines were broken.
Mira's fingers tightened around the mug. For a moment, she imagined the diary's pages in the vault of the safe — Ozan's voice whispering across time, Seyran's small, frightened face beneath the streetlights. She wanted to answer honestly, to tell him that she had trespassed into the things he shielded, that she had found a name that wasn't his. But the words stuck in her throat.
"No," she said. "Just... couldn't sleep." She kept her eyes on the steam rising from the kettle so he wouldn't see the quick, guilty dart when his gaze returned to the study.
Alden stepped closer, the scent of him — leather, rain, something faintly floral — wrapped around her. He peered at her, searching, as if deciding how far to push. "You look pale. Sit. I'll make you something stronger than tea."
She obeyed because it was easier to follow the script. He padded into the living room, and she heard the familiar clink of his keys, the soft rumble of him moving to the cabinet. For a heartbeat, she watched his back and felt an old, hollow tug at the place where trust had once lived.
He returned with two mugs. He sat across from her, the table between them a small, civilised trench. He studied her like a man observing a painting — careful not to touch, yet trying to read the brushstrokes.
"You've been distant lately," he said, not unkind, the phrase halfway to an accusation. "Is something at work?"
She wanted to tell him that she'd read names and seen photographs and hidden rings. She wanted to ask him why Ozan Aydın's handwriting had curled across the page like a confession. She wanted to demand the truth with a fury so loud it would shatter the cheap glassware. But when she opened her mouth, it came out quieter, cautious.
"Just… work stress," she lied. "You said you'd be late. Everything okay with you?" She guarded her questions in the soft cloth of small talk, watching for any crack.
Alden's eyes flicked to the study again, then back. For a fraction of a second, his face hardened — not angry, exactly, but calculating. Then he smiled, practised, the warmth returning like sun after a storm. "Yeah. Big meeting. Nothing you'd be interested in. Go sit down. You look like you need to rest."
She let him guide her to the couch. As she settled into the cushions, Alden leaned forward and tucked a blanket across her knees like a small, domestic benediction. He reached out and smoothed a stray hair from her temple. The touch was intimate and possessive, both a reminder of the life that was hers to lose.
"Promise me something," he said quietly, voice low enough that it belonged to them alone. "If anything ever worries you, come to me before you go playing detective."
Mira's heart hammered so loud she could hear it in her ears, a drumbeat to keep time with the lie. The diary was a sunken ship behind her; she felt its pull. She could tell him the truth. She could confess the theft of his privacy and risk throwing their small, fragile world into pieces. Or she could close the book and pretend she'd never read a single line.
Her hand found his — a gesture meant to reassure, to soothe. "I promise," she said, and the word tasted like iron.
He nodded, satisfied, and kissed the top of her head — a soft, habitual motion that both calmed and cautioned. He stayed for a while, talking about small, meaningless things: a joke from the office, a colleague's wedding plans, nothing that touched the seam of what she'd learned. She listened. She laughed at the places she could. She kept the diary's weight tucked under her ribs like a secret fossil.
When he finally rose to hang his coat, his eyes paused once more on the study. This time his gaze lingered longer, a question tucked behind it that he didn't voice. A warning, perhaps — or just the instinct of a man who kept some doors bolted.
As the front door clicked shut behind him and the night swallowed the sound, Mira exhaled a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. She watched the place where his silhouette had been until the streetlight outside blinked and the house slipped back into its usual shadows.
Alone again, the couch felt both refuge and prison. She looked at her hands — steady now, but hollowed out at the edges. The safe hummed in the back of her mind like a second heart. The ring gleamed in her memory. Ozan's script, Seyran's confession, the buried photographs — they all lay hidden behind metal and code.
Mira pressed her fingers to her lips, tasting the metallic aftertaste of fear and resolve. The diary had given her a map — and with it, a choice.
She would keep the promise for now. But the pages were not done with her, and neither was the truth.
Outside, the rain had softened to a whisper. Inside, the house breathed. Mira rose slowly, walked to the window, and watched the dark row of the street where Alden's tail lights had gone, a thin red line swallowed by the night.
She whispered to the empty room, half prayer, half threat, "I will find out." Then she turned and went to make sure the safe's lock was as it had been — one more time, a small ritual of certainty — before she allowed herself to set the diary back on the shelf of her mind and pretend, for the sake of the life that still existed there, that she believed his half-truths.