Chapter 114 A Dance To Remember

• God. That nickname I hadn’t heard in so long it had become almost mythical to me, something I whispered to myself in the dark just to remember it was ever real. For one suspended instant, the ballroom around us disappeared again, swallowed by the rush in my ears and the roaring ache of hope. Was this… Was this a sign? Did this mean he was happy to see me, even after everything? My pulse thundered so loudly I was sure everyone in the hall must have heard it, beating out a frantic confession in my ribcage.
• I swallowed hard, trying to steady myself as a thousand wild, dangerous thoughts jostled for space in my mind. He’d called me im sireli. He’d said it in the most affectionate way I had ever heard from his lips. I forced myself, god, it took every shred of courage I possessed to lift my gaze and meet his eyes. And the moment I did, my breath caught. They weren’t ice cold anymore. They weren’t distant or shuttered or blank. They were warm in that way I had grown so used to before I lost it, the way that once made me believe there was nowhere safer in the world than here, with him. I felt tears gather at the edges of my vision, blurring the sharp planes of his face.
• His eyes… They gave me hope. Hope that maybe, somehow, it wasn’t too late. That there was still a chance to make things right, to give him all the truths I’d been too afraid to speak before. A chance to belong here again, not as some wayward stranger, but as the woman who had once been his and might still be, if only I dared to reach for it. His hands at my waist tightened, pulling me even closer, as though he could feel every fractured thought spilling through me. And in that quiet, brimming space between us, I felt the tiniest, most reckless part of myself begin to believe.