26 years later

NOTE TO READERS!!!!

This is oddly appearing in the wrong prompt!!!!

This was supposed to appear under the 'you meet someone you once loved' prompt!!

You know that moment, is it déjà vu, the one where you see someone and you know you know them? Can’t place them. But its definite. Something strikes you. It was her eyes. They feel like they are looking into my soul. The shape of her, the way I used to recognise her shadow.

I’m captivated and at the same time shitting myself, she knows me and I haven’t got a clue. Great interview this will be.

Man, I’d never heard music like it. The bass ripped the heart from under my ribs and made it dance.

Then, there she was. Mad eyes, crazy moves and teeth chewing incessantly. So fucking beautiful.

Two tabs in and guzzling water like I’d found an oasis, the light appeared to stick to her skin like fragrance. And I wanted to touch her. To steal her soul. To do the come down together.

She spiralled toward me, a fluorescent vision of perfection, lips mouthing ‘dance’ her tiny hands pushing out, sinuous, Beltram teasing my muscles…ecstasy, ecstasy.

Two people sharing energy, intensity and sweat. We danced for hours. Water bottles and fags passing back and forth. Then a bass drop, oh the pleasure. This was better then sex.

We danced like gods.

Fucking hell, love this tune. Sven Vath on the decks. Electric. Pills kicked in, the world melted, time folded in on itself. Lost in it, part of something holy, something filthy all at once. That grin. Wider and wider. Man, she is beautiful. Have I said that? Tuuuunnnnnnneee!!!

Her hair streaked across her face, streaks of glitter running down her neck, eyes like broken glass catching every strobe light. Her skin shone like plastic under the lights. She laughed without sound, head thrown back, jaw rolling, lost to it. I couldn’t stop watching. Every beat twisted her body, some mix of control and chaos, wild and free.

She danced like she’d been built for this. Mesmeric. Maybe I was built for her. Hard to tell anymore. The bass had taken my name.

Then the moment. It came too soon. Always did. The sunrise. The silence of white noise running through my skull. The gnashing of teeth. The insane jaw ache. Chewing? Laughter? Her tiny hand pulled me to the entrance. To stones and pebbles. To a wind whistling under the pier. To the cold and wet. Another fag. The light blistering retinas. Echoes of LFO filling minds.

The fog. Real or cerebral? Her smile, with tiny pupils. Freckles dotted on night worn pallor. Thin lips. Hair sticky.

“Hey, what’s your name?”

Did I ask her? Did she ask me? Brains still cavorting.

“Chem, I’m Chem” I offered, my voice reminding me of existence

“Sez, they call me Sez”, a small twinkly noise came from thin lips

Then we danced to the cries of seagulls and the lights of the road sweepers.

A polite voice interrupted my drift.

“Excuse me Kemal, Mr. Demir, would you like to come in please? We are ready for you” All I can think of is her. Sez. The one. I hadn’t seen her since that night in Goa — the best time, the worst night. Twenty‑six years ago. And if I’m honest, there hasn’t been a day I haven’t wondered what happened.

I walked into a boardroom built to intimidate. Long table, too much glass, too much silence. And then those eyes hit again. They used to shift with light, with mood, with whatever chemical was running through her bloodstream. Now they were steady. Controlled. Her hair — that wild, wavy mop of reds and blondes — was straightened into a neat shoulder‑length bob. Respectable. Her suit crisp. Back straight. A woman who’d ironed herself flat.

There’s no way she can’t know but she’s coming across hollow. Like someone’s replaced the vibrancy, the hope and enthusiasm with the promise of a stable pension plan and dinner at six-thirty.

“Mr Demir,” she said, voice level, professional. “Thank you for waiting.”

Her voice. Jesus. It was like hearing a song you’d forgotten you loved.

A man at the end of the table cleared his throat. “Shall we begin?”

But my head was already slipping.

We danced to the bus stop. Smoked more fags. It was fucking cold. Cold sweat, cold comedown. Her walk was off‑kilter, like someone with one leg shorter. Rain came sideways and we clung to the back of the shelter. The stench of piss, broken glass, bodily residues — none of it mattered. I pulled her in. To warm. Did I say it was freezing? Her head on my shoulder. The bus came. And went.

“Mr Demir,” another voice cut in. “Could you talk us through your experience with the restructuring project?”

I blinked. “Yes. Sorry. Of course.”

But I could still see her hair sticking to her skin. Red? Ginger? Strawberry blonde? Like I know colours. All of them. I stared at the patch of skin vibrating under the streetlight. Then her eyes — calling me in. My own eyes felt like flying saucers.

“Fucking hell, Chem. Kiss me.”

Dust Brothers in my skull. Her lips on mine. Bus comes. Goes. We kiss. Hands. Heat. Waves rolling in.

“Mr Demir,” Sez said — Sarah said — “could you expand on how you handled conflict within the team?”

Her tone was immaculate. Neutral. Like we hadn’t once tried to swallow each other whole on the top deck of a night bus.

I swallowed. “Conflict. Yes. I… I tend to address it early.”

Understatement of the century.

We sat at the front of the bus, tangled. Her mole on her neck begging to be bitten. Her finger tracing my chest. Her laughter — god, that laugh — starting every sentence.

“Dad’s Turkish, it’s Kemal. Mates call me Chemical.”

She giggled. Always giggling. Then that magic finger drifted south—

“Mr Demir,” the man on the left, who looked like he had been born on a dull uninspiring day and had spent the rest of his life in a relentless monotonous drizzle asked, “what would you say is your greatest professional strength?”

Professional strength.

I almost laughed.

Because right now my greatest strength was not collapsing under the weight of twenty‑six years and one woman who used to dance like a god and now sat in a navy suit with a pen poised over a notepad.

Sez — Sarah — looked up at me. Those eyes. Controlled now. But still hers.

“Let’s start with something simple,” she said. “Why do you want this role?”

The mole on her neck, those little freckles, still there. Diluted but enough to catalyse my memories. What good memories.

Sarah gave me a smile, you know the one. A little reassurance smile that you get from managers, the one saying, I’m listening but please get on with it, I’ve got a Teams meeting in fifteen minutes.

The bus turned a dual carriageway. I didn’t recognise where we were. Condensation and rain entwined on the windows.

“Where we going?”

“Yours I thought…”

“Fuck. I just followed you. I ain’t got a scooby where we are”

Her eyes shone. She almost threw her head back. Dark tired rings under her eyes. Brilliant radiance from them as she giggled, “well let’s just go there anywhere” she teased me with a ‘fuck me’ smile and then her mouth on me hard.

A cheer rang out. Before a Scout leader shouted, “Boys…eyes”.

“Mr Demir?”

“Sorry. I always think it better to pause and reflect on an answer. Obviously, my experience closely matches the role that you are offering and I’ve worked hard to reach the point where I can offer responsibility aligned with a cutting edge. Its important that where a brand has stifled, we are able to reshape opinion to gain new clients looking for 21st century solutions without upsetting the loyal client base it has taken you years to build”.

I could feel a trickle of sweat meandering down my neck. I could not concentrate. Here she was. The love of my life interviewing me and I held 26 years’ worth of fucking questions for her. I couldn’t see the suit, the pad, the opportunity. All I could see was that maelstrom, that wonderful, amazing crazy girl.

I hadn’t slept.

Didn’t feel like the world had either.

Hours didn’t mean anything.

Somewhere it was morning. Somewhere it was still Saturday.

“Still awake?” Sez whispered.

“Don’t think we ever stopped.”

“Brain won’t shut up.”

“Let it talk.”

We laughed — dry, cracked laughter that felt like sandpaper in the throat.

Her face was close. Hair flickering red in the weak streetlight bleeding through the blinds.

She looked saintly and alien all at once — glowing, strange, too close to name.

We kissed. Slow. Weird. Too aware of it.

Our tongues didn’t match, teeth clashed. Still felt right.

She smiled against my mouth. “Bit crap at this, aren’t we?”

“Legendary,” I said.

Her laugh hit something deep in me — chemical, ancient, like a sound I’d been waiting for all my life.

The kissing kept going, and clothes got in the way.

Her top off. My hands moving without asking.

Skin everywhere — cool then hot then cool again.

Her ribs under my palms, rising like a xylophone, music made of bone and breath.

Her fingers caught the band of my boxers, slid them down, set me free, then stopped.

We looked at each other and cracked up — stupid, honest laughter.

“God, this is tragic,” she said.

“Tragic’s fine,” I said.

And it was.

She brushed her thumb along my hip. I followed the curve of her spine.

The contact was everything.

She moved against me and my body tried. Failed. Tried again.

I groaned. “Brilliant timing.”

She smiled. “Don’t care. Not the point.”

“So Kemal”, her voice still carried that tone. Oh man, she could sing, I remember her singing ‘Into the Mystic’ and the silence that fell in the room as her mesmeric voice enraptured all. “Your recent CV is very impressive. Very” I could hear the but coming, “but, there is a five year gap twenty six years ago, were you not working?” Did I hear a sense of mischievousness in her question? She knew where I was. Surely?

Brighton never stopped moving. Even in winter.

Weekenders dragging hangovers down West Street. Stags in tutus. Hen parties in tears and recrimination.

You could smell fried onions, weed, piss, perfume, and seaweed all at once.

I loved it. Hated it. Lived off it.

Sez did too. She said the place buzzed like bad wiring. Always sparking, always about to burn out.

Sundays we’d walk through town, her wearing my hoody, watching real people eat breakfast.

Old men with their Times and coffees. Hen parties already back on the Prosecco. The freaks from the 90s still spinning poi by the pier. Hippies in the Pavilion gardens weaving yoghurt and philosophy.

She’d link her arm through mine. “This is heaven,” she’d say, and somehow it was.

We didn’t talk about love. Didn’t need to. It was in the way she pinched my fag, the way her hair stuck to her neck after dancing, the way she could still laugh at 5 a.m. when everyone else had gone home or gone under.

One morning she woke me by whispering, “Goa.”

That was it. Just the word.

She said it like an answer, not an idea.

I saw her eyes — tired, bright, cracked with hope. And I knew we were going.

“I was travelling at the time. Extended travel. Goa.”

I cleared my throat.

“I went with my partner. We’d been together a long time. I intended to propose.”

A pause. Too long for an interview.

“While we were there, I became aware she’d been involved in selling drugs. I hadn’t known. I believed she had independent means.”

Another breath.

“She was detained by local police. At the time, informal payments were… expected. She didn’t have the money. They said they would take her away.”

I looked at the table.

“I didn’t understand what that meant until it was already happening.”

“Thanks Kemal, I think we get the picture” Sarah stopped me, “Your CV is fine”

I looked at her asleep. I wanted to see her wake every day forever. I rolled a small number and pulled back the beads that were masquerading as a door. The sea air lifted my spirit and the gentle wash of waves massaged my senses, this was perfect.

“Hey Chem, you going to bogart that joint?”. I tugged one more little toke, laughed and passed it to her. “Hey Sez, this is just beautiful here. And you make it more so”

“Haha you just got morning wood?” she joked.

“Always” she made me smile in the best way.

Mr. Drizzle interrupted, “Actually Kemal, I’d like to know. Trust is important to us here at Worthingtons, please do go on”.

Her eyes looked at me, this time not with anything other than, “shut up”.

“The police began to drag her off into some woods, not the station. They were laughing”

“What the fuck are you doing? It’s just a couple of pills. I’ve got money just not here”

A uniform struck her, a slap. Across the face. An arm reached to a hip and pulled a stick, raised it to her. Three of them laughing. Looking at me. I could feel them gloating. A sense of ‘fuck you tourist boy’.

Tunes were drifting from the beach. Sundown ambience. The waves still whispered but the trees seemed to move around them, pulling her away from paradise.

“The way they handled her was aggressive. They pushed her, made lewd remarks. I could hear them moving around her, her space entirely disregarded. Then they touched her. I felt I had no choice but to intervene.”

“Let go of her. Now. She hasn’t hurt you”

The tall one turned his head and looked at me, with disdain. Then tugged at her shirt. Ripping the cloth. He laughed.

I lost it. I charged.

She ran. I felt the first blow. The first split of skin. The first trickle.

I was beaten up, arrested and thrown in a cell. No trial, no words. Must have been a month before they let me out. When they let me out I looked for her and never found her. I had no money, no home. Nothing. I worked, slept rough and eventually saved enough for a ticket home after 5 years.”

“Well that certainly shows resilience Kemal. Thank you for your honesty. Out of interest, did you ever find your girlfriend?”

“No, I looked in Goa, all the Full Moon parties, traipsed every beach and all the hostels. Then after about three months I met someone she knew who said she had left that same evening, gone back to England. No goodbye, no note, just left me to rot really.

I looked around Brighton when I got back, we’d shared a flat. It was just like she’d disappeared. If I’m truly honest I didn’t even know her real name, I just called her Sez”

For a heartbeat her face emptied — recognition, shock, something like guilt — before the professional mask snapped back into place.

“Oh that’s a coincidence Sarah here used to be called Sez years ago” smiled Mr Drizzle “luckily I married my Sez, Kemal, not quite as dramatic a story” He looked across at Sez, “although I call her Sarah, and smiled, first at her and then at me. “Well I do hope you find her at some point. Sounds like you’d have a few questions for her!”

Married. So she hadn’t disappeared, she’d abandoned me. Worse, she’d abandoned the version of herself that burned so bright I thought the world might catch fire around her. The girl who was all maelstrom and motion had stepped out of the storm and into something neat, something measured, mortgages and purchase ledgers and polite dinners. Had she run from me, or from who she was when she was with me? Twenty six years I’d carried the memory of that wild, impossible woman, and all along she had been choosing a life where neither of us existed

Sez interrupted, “Thank you Mr Demir. I think we have enough to be getting on with for now. We will be in touch”

Her eyes lifted to mine — just for a second — and everything she’d buried for twenty‑six years flickered across her face like a faulty light. Recognition. Fear. Want. Regret. Then it was gone.

She closed the folder with a soft snap, the kind of sound that pretends to be final.

“Please see yourself out.”

I stood. My legs didn’t feel like mine. Mr Drizzle was already reaching for his next set of papers, oblivious.

But Sarah… She kept her gaze fixed on the table, jaw tight, shoulders rigid, as if looking at me again might split her open.

I reached the door. My hand touched the handle.

Behind me, barely audible, she exhaled — a small, broken sound, like someone letting go of a truth they’d held too long “Thanks Chem”

I didn’t turn. If I did, I wasn’t sure either of us would survive it.

The door clicked shut.