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Leyla couldn’t quite place why the strobe lights cutting through the club’s dark had only started to become a problem now.
It wasn’t a rare event, clubbing with her friends—it made for one of the better pastimes, on a weekend especially. The feeling of the bass in her chest, however aggressive, was usually a good numbing agent against the disruptive thoughts she hated sitting with. It silenced every idea; it masked the beat of her heart; it grounded her no matter how much anxiety wanted her out. Which was all well and good and until the black-haired girl across the table ruined it—the bass had some serious competition now.
Maybe it was just because it had been harder to catch any glimpse of Sıla as of late. In shared classes, yes, though chatting away probably wasn’t the best way to work towards a medical career, and—between what she’d picked up during breaktime conversations and Sıla’s increasingly rare visits—it seemed she was caught in another fight with Teoman. So, Leyla concluded, the reason for the softness in her knees, her cold sweat, and awestruck stare could only have been due to how much she had platonically missed Sıla.
Platonically missed the sharpness of her eyes, the colour of dark tea, the allure of every glance caught. Platonically missed her silver tongue and her wits. Platonically missed the mean grip on Leyla’s wrists whenever she wanted to lead her to the dance floor, even. And in the dark, Leyla missed seeing Sıla at all, desperately holding on to any memory of her face—dolled up, gold shadow gleaming brighter than the kaleidoscope of colour framing her—every time the lights would flicker and catch her otherwise obscured expression.
Who was she kidding? Her captivation was a transgressing one—and a distracting one too, apparently.
Snapping her fingers dangerously close to Leyla’s face, Sıla beckoned twice as loud as the music, “Hellooo, anyone home?”
Rather than easing out of her trance as she normally would, Leyla flinched, equal parts shock and fluster, immediately attempting to parse her friend’s features through the dim haze. By the sound of her voice—clipped, but not the cheeky, teasing kind that Leyla knew—and the visible scrunch of her brow, Sıla, despite having been the one to insist they go out tonight, appeared peeved.
“Sorry,” Leyla murmured, waiting for the moment she could pivot to the topic of Sıla’s sour mood.
An awkward beat. Sıla periodically turned her head—the light from behind caught that much—like she was waiting for someone. To the rhythm of Sıla’s nails tap-tapping their tinny bar table, it slowly came down on Leyla that they were missing… everyone. They had arrived two-woman and three-man; that counted herself, Sıla, Teoman, Kutay, and Evren. When Leyla had pieced together that the three boys had surely run off to make a scene far away from here, her eyes met where she thought Sıla’s own were with pity.
“Did he run away?”
Sıla scoffed. “Of course. Anything to not have to spend a little time with his girlfriend.”
It was odd, being torn between the familial devotion to your brother and a different, more uncharted devotion to one of your closest friends. But now wasn’t the time to zone out in conflict, Leyla reckoned.
Tentatively, she suggested, “But this is still a night out, right?”
Sıla raised a brow, leaning over the table—Leyla’s heart did something inconvenient. She faltered before moving on.
“Why don’t we forget everyone else and have fun together? We can… uh,” it almost pained her to be the one to suggest it, but she could put her modesty aside for a night, “dance?”
Leyla thought she heard her laugh earnestly; a first for today.
“What’s gotten into you?” she asked, slowly straightening. Now, the reds that had previously only framed her dark silhouette danced like highlights in her hair.
Leyla shrugged. “You, apparently.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“See this as an act of charity from me.” Leyla smiled, just to sweeten her teasing. Her friend had seemingly gotten the memo as she sighed and tugged Leyla along, almost parting the wall of people in front of them to lead her to the dance floor.
“Uh-huh. Let’s see how far your charity goes.”
The blonde sighed. On the surface, it may have seemed like a sigh of shallow resignation and dread—Leyla was quite humble, after all, preferring to keep her movements subtle if not count herself out of dance entirely. Resignation definitely accounted for a lot of it, but so did the thought that, in reality, no matter the occasion, Sıla always made it hard for Leyla to say no, whether she meant it or not.
Even in her more vulnerable moments, Sıla never seemed to hesitate or want to escape. At least not like Leyla did. The hold of her hand on Leyla’s own was felt as assured as every word from her mouth sounded—it was as if doubt couldn’t ever occur to her, not in conversation nor in movement. She turned for one moment to flash a knowing grin, maybe just to banter a bit more—and the lights shifted across her face in a way that made it feel like they were the only people really there.
Leyla found herself wishing to stop time for even just a minute until the bump of a stranger’s shoulder pulled her back into reality. Her shoulders twisted in an attempt to scout and apologise to whoever she’d brushed past so roughly (for whatever it would’ve been worth), but her attention surrendered the moment Sıla’s hand tugged again, insistent—unwilling to share her, she wanted to think.
Sıla’s hands found Leyla’s properly this time: a push, then a pull, as they fell vaguely into the rhythm of the Latin music that seemed to loop in the background. She tried to focus on the motions as best she could, unfamiliar as they were. The give and take of it, the mess becoming of her steps, effort be damned… All she needed was to tear her focus from the heat of Sıla’s palms against her own.
A step was miscounted—her foot landed squarely on Sıla’s.
“Sorry—” Leyla started, trying to step back so she could really assess the damage.
Somehow, Sıla didn’t even flinch. Didn’t move like she’d considered it at all, either. She pulled Leyla right back by the hands she’d barely let go of. “You’ll have to do worse than that.”
What was supposed to be reassurance—or sounded like reassurance, at least—unfortunately only made Leyla more nervous; and painfully more aware of everything. That counted her limbs that begged to stop cooperating and the clinking of her waist chain that suddenly felt tighter and that weird mingle of her floral perfume with Sıla’s intense and unfamiliar—where did she get that?—scent and—
It was no wonder that the next stumble sent her toppling entirely, caught barely by a pair of arms that had practically expected her in them at some point. Still pressed flush against her friend, Leyla swore she felt more than heard the giggle out of Sıla’s chest. It made her shiver; it was nothing like she’d experienced before—but she wouldn’t mind it staying this way for a little longer.
Though the background music didn’t call for it, Sıla noticed the way that Leyla’s arms, courageously and lazily, slid over her shoulders as the two continued rocking side-to-side, all out of time.
With a smile curling into her voice, Sıla jabbed, “Leyla, this isn’t exactly slow-dance music, you know?” She was right, but over all the chatter and under Leyla’s frenzied pulse, the music was perfectly dismissable.
“So what? We’re setting a trend.” Her words were muffled and chewed against the curve of Sıla’s shoulder when she solidly rested her chin on it.
Leyla’s chest rose and fell in tandem with Sıla’s as she let go of a tight exhale—it sounded like she’d been holding that one for longer than she’d like to admit. In the case that the sigh was one of annoyance, Leyla braced herself to say goodbye to the luxury of this position. If out of relaxation, however—which turned out to be the case—then that would be enough for the night.
Slowly but surely, Sıla consciously joined in on the rocking, emphasising certain beats and letting Leyla take the lead on others. As captivating as it was to watch her be so assured, a different kind of bliss bloomed at experiencing Sıla relaxed—actually relaxed instead of that relaxed-looking confidence she usually carried herself with. Within ample time, Sıla started to relent and soften her grip. Their rhythm had become lazier, less effortful.
“You’d make a great boyfriend, you know,” Sıla huffed, nearly a complaint but also not. “You’re pretty—even better looking than your brother. You’re smart and have life goals you actually work hard for.”
Leyla took the compliments—with a grain of salt. She forced herself to view them for what they were and not what they made her feel; that being both warmth (a kind that was uniquely different from the heat of the club) and a sense of being let-down (where she had no right to feel that way). That didn’t make the clenching ache somewhere in her chest any less painful, though.
“If only you were a boy,” Leyla braced herself, unsure of how much she wanted to hear what came next, “you’d be my dream man. Isn’t that unfair?”
Sıla’s voice sharpened as she went on. For once, Leyla tried as hard as she knew how to focus on the movement of their bodies, silently hissing at the coolness of Sıla’s necklace pressing against her collarbone. The thin fabric of her longer dress brushed lightly, insistently, against Leyla’s calf—now that she had noticed how ticklish it was, it wouldn’t leave her head. At the very least she’d found a good enough distraction.
But it’s strange how in cases like these—of a stolen moment you might never get to see again—even the strongest efforts to not think about how little time it would last can take you full circle. Each brush of skin reminded her whose skin that was, so soft and clean. Every little misstep, corrected by her rambling friend, pulled her back to where she didn’t want to be. Every sentence that Sıla finished looped twice in her head—not to comprehend, but just to cherish the tone of each word spoken for a few seconds more. What god would be so cruel as to take this from Leyla?
Her thoughts walled her in as Sıla took centre stage on the forefront of her mind; all the while, the physical sensations that were meant to soothe her grew increasingly uncomfortable. Great. She’d gone from warm and bothered to hot and bothered, all because she didn’t want to think at a time where nothing called for it. Her head was torture she couldn’t escape—Sıla was its own kind of torture Leyla couldn’t escape!
In that warm daze—the kind that blurred Leyla’s vision—Leyla chanced a look up at Sıla who had stopped speaking and returned her stare, this time without commenting. The blur was definitely annoying, but something about it made that fleeting second more romantic: it almost seemed to soften the edges of Sıla’s face, twisted her expression into a smile. Leyla hoped that was a smile, because she reciprocated.
Sıla’s beauty wasn’t the type that could be done justice with big and flowery descriptions. It was simple—she was simple and pretty. If Leyla said that out loud, Sıla might’ve taken it as an insult. After all, Leyla found that Sıla strived for more than she needed to; nothing was ever enough for that girl. All the charm in the world, all the smarts in the world, all the ambition and success and recognition in the world… And none of it ever sufficed.
She didn’t assume it was because Sıla was ungrateful, per se—Sıla surely knew the worth of what she had (regardless of the occasional ignorance). It’s just that Sıla came across as a girl who struggled to recognise her own worth if others weren’t willing to reinforce it. As soon as she cleared one bar and the laughter died out, she’d strain for the next. And then the next. Sometimes even others’ recognition wouldn’t satiate her drive—sometimes she needed her own recognition, but being who she is, her standards for herself would oftentimes border on the ridiculous.
It was difficult not to feel at least a little bad for her; knowing why it was like this and not knowing if you could meaningfully change it made it worse.
The memory occurred to Leyla clear as day: Sıla must’ve been eleven, twelve at most, the week she’d fully spent memorising every province in Türkiye (in alphabetical order, no less) for an extracurricular school project no one else, not even Leyla, had bothered taking seriously. For every recital, Leyla had been sat—both absent and there, in a way—and amazed with just how passionate Sıla was. It hadn’t felt like a regular, boring geography assignment than it had like a performance that brought out something in her that Leyla had never seen before.
After every recital, Sıla had declared that this would, finally, be ‘the thing’—the thing that would win her father over, impress him so much that he’d want to stay. Maybe ask her to recite it more than once. She had pledged to stay up past her bedtime just to see her father come home and snag the first chance she would get. Leyla had been happy to enable Sıla’s wishful thinking—she hadn’t known any better, given she could’ve imagined that outcome with her parents. Why would it have been any different for Sıla if she was pouring in so much effort, working toward something much more impressive?
The next day, however, young Sıla had turned up despondent. Leyla had already known her to be the kind to deflect through sadness then—but her spirits seemed to have been broken down so much that not even energy to fake it remained. It took hours for Leyla to get Sıla to finally budge: it turned out that it had worked—only briefly.
That night she’d caught him packing his suitcase and roped him into listening for the whole two minutes that it took to recite all eighty-one. She’d said that he seemed enthusiastic. She’d said he patted her on the head, said he was proud of her and even given her the first hug she’d gotten from him in some time. And the morning after, before she’d been woken up for school, he’d gone and left nothing in his wake.
Disappointment—at herself, mostly for her failure to properly comfort her friend back then and change who she turned out to be now—washed over Leyla at the same time as a sudden, hot discomfort did. The blush in her face felt more like a rash. As if one more touch would send her over the edge, she pushed Sıla away and breathed out heavily, struggling to appear composed. She averted her eyes the moment Sıla met them with discontent—she shrank like a child about to get a scolding.
“What’s the problem now?”
“I have to go,” Leyla murmured, drowned out by the music she’d forgotten was actually deafening.
Sıla didn’t seem to have heard, calling, “What?”
“I have to go!”
The ache of witnessing Sıla’s face fall—Leyla didn’t have to see it in full, she experienced the full force of it inside of her—was unlike anything she’d endured before. The blonde stepped back, awaiting a response and ready to sprint at the same time. She was stuck in limbo until Sıla took a slow step forward and extended her hand—which set Leyla into motion.
Her head couldn’t catch up well enough to count how many times she’d stumbled and nearly fallen into a twisted ankle. The moment the cooler air of the outside hit her—reality hit her harder. She’d been blissfully dazed back there, praying for clarity, and now that she couldn’t do anything but remember each moment painfully clearly, like shards of a mirror, she wanted out so desperately.
Whether somebody was around or not didn’t matter to her. Leyla shoved her back to the nearest wall and slid grittingly to the floor, allowing her forehead to fall into her lap as she folded into herself. All of the hindsight mixed with the scratch of the brick on her open back made her eyes well as her hands clasped uselessly around her calves.
She wanted so badly to imagine they were Sıla’s slender arms—that the chance was still there (if it ever was at all).