“Because fire isn’t always destruction,” Şahin said. “Sometimes it’s transformation. Sometimes it’s the only light in the dark. But you don’t have to hold it alone. Give me the lighter.”
But tired people don’t memorize emergency exits in every room. Tired people don’t wash their hands until the skin cracks and weeps. Levent’s hands had looked like a map of earthquakes when Şahin first held them.
“No. I’ll sit with you in it.”
“I said yanıyorum ,” Levent whispered. His voice was sandpaper on glass. “But you don’t feel it. Nobody feels it. It’s inside. Like my blood is gasoline.”
Levent fell to his knees. Şahin knelt with him. He didn’t say it’s okay , because it wasn’t. He didn’t say you’ll be fine , because he didn’t know. He said:
He got out. No umbrella. The building’s intercom was broken — Levent had mentioned that in session four, laughing nervously, as if broken things were a personal failure. Şahin pressed random buzzers until someone let him in.
Tonight, Şahin sat in his parked car outside Levent’s apartment building. The rain was the kind that doesn’t fall but hangs in the air like a held breath. He had tried calling. Six times. No answer. The last message, sent two hours ago, was just three letters: “ATEŞ.” Fire.
“Levent. It’s Şahin.”
Levent stood in the middle of the room. He was wearing only a thin t-shirt and pajama pants, soaked with sweat despite the cold. His eyes were two black holes. In his right hand, a kitchen lighter. In his left, a photograph — his wife and daughter, from before the divorce, before the drinking, before the thoughts that ate everything soft.