I realized at the end of my freshman year that love wasn't going to find me.
More precisely, I decided that telling myself this was the safest explanation.
Because if I stopped waiting for something, the chance of being disappointed would decrease too. I'm good at reducing possibilities. Sometimes I reduce them until there aren't any left in my life.
I'm twenty-one years old. I'm 6'6" tall and I weigh 165 pounds. I'm too tall to hide in a crowd, but too quiet to be talked about. People notice me right away. But being noticed isn't the same as being seen.
I know that better than anyone.
When people first notice me, the same thing usually happens. First they look at my height. Then my face. Then my height again.
As if they're trying to understand the difference between the two.
Sometimes they ask outright:
“Are you really 6'6"?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Do you play basketball?”
“I do.”
A brief look of surprise appears on their faces when they hear that answer. As if they were expecting me to say no. They think I might play basketball because I'm tall, but when they learn that I actually do, they realize it's also a perfectly natural answer.
“Are you any good?”
“I'm not bad.”
I'm not exactly modest about it. I'm good at basketball. Volleyball too. In soccer, nobody takes me seriously at first because of my height, but they change their minds after a few minutes. Being tall doesn't always mean being slow. Sometimes I've already reached the place people are going to run to before they even choose which way to get away from me.
Still, playing sports doesn't make it easier to get close to people.
I can play on a team. I can pass, steal the ball, and change the course of the game when necessary. I read people's movements more easily than their words. I can tell who has been left in open space, who's getting tired, and who doesn't want the ball but has to take it anyway.
But after the game, I don't know what I'm supposed to say.
“Good game” is easy.
“If you want, we could grab a drink together” isn't.
That's how my first year in the journalism department went. I memorized where the classrooms were, figured out what time had the shortest line in the cafeteria, and found the table in the library where I could sit with my back to the wall. I met people, but I never got close enough to remember their names.
That was a deliberate choice.
If you don't enter people's lives, they can't slam the door in your face when you leave.
During the first week of freshman year, I joined the department volleyball team. When he saw me, the captain looked first at my head, then at my feet.
“Have you played volleyball before?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
The answer didn't satisfy him. He sent me to the net to test me. When the first ball came, I jumped and hit a spike. The ball landed on the opposing team's court. A few people shouted. The captain nodded.
“Don't think we picked you just because you're tall,” he said.
“I didn't think that.”
“Good. Because height alone isn't enough.”
“I know.”
I really did know. My height opened a lot of doors, but it didn't keep me inside. At the net, it was an advantage. In life, it was usually just the first thing people talked about.
I made the team. I went to practice twice a week. After games, everyone ate together while I usually went home. If someone insisted, I went, but I sat there calculating how long I could stay silent at the table.
After a while, no one insisted anymore.
I wasn't hurt by that.
I decided I shouldn't be hurt.
I saw Ece for the first time in the middle of October.
She was standing in front of the bulletin board outside the psychology department. She had a stack of papers in her hands, and the wind kept trying to blow away the top page. Ece held on to that page, and then the ones underneath scattered.
Watching someone struggle with a single sheet of paper for that long might have looked funny from the outside.
I could have helped.
I didn't.
Because when a six-foot-six man approaches some people saying, “Would you like some help?” it can inspire more of an urge to run away than a desire to be helped. I'd learned that before.
Ece finally pressed the papers against her chest. Just as she was about to leave, one of the pages on top flew away again. This time it came all the way to the front of my shoes.
I bent down and picked it up.
I looked at the paper. It was a notice written in colored marker. It was about an event organized by the psychology club.
I held it out to her.
“Is this yours?” I asked.
Ece looked up. First at my face, then at the paper in my hand.
“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”
“You're welcome.”
The conversation ended.
At least from my perspective, it had. Most people come up with a new sentence to keep a conversation going. I usually argue that staying quiet after the first sentence is also an option.
Ece took the paper but didn't leave right away.
“Are you in journalism?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“I can tell.”
I looked down at myself. I was wearing a black T-shirt, old jeans, and a bag over my shoulder. I couldn't figure out what gave away the journalism part.
“How?” I asked.
“You look around.”
I hadn't expected that answer.
“You do too,” I said.
“I study psychology. I have to look around.”
“I have to, too.”
“For what?”
“The news.”
Ece felt like laughing but didn't right away. She couldn't tell whether Aras was being serious or had answered that way to end the conversation. There was a difference between the two. The fact that Aras could wear both expressions on his face at once caught Ece's attention.
In the end, she smiled. It wasn't a big smile. Just the corners of her lips lifting a little.
“Good luck,” she said.
“See you around,” I said.
After Ece had walked a few steps away, she looked back. Aras was still looking at the bulletin board, but he wasn't reading the notice anymore. When he'd handed her the paper, he'd pulled his fingers away faster than necessary. Ece didn't want to interpret that as shyness. She knew it was dangerous to try to understand people from a single gesture.
Still, she remembered him.
And that was the first day I truly remembered her voice.
We saw each other like that throughout our first year.
That didn't mean everything suddenly changed after our first meeting. When Ece saw me, she still usually just nodded. I did the same in return. What grew between us wasn't closeness at first, but a habit. Recognizing each other when we met in the same hallway. Not finding silence strange while waiting in the same cafeteria line. Both of us understanding that knowing someone's name didn't mean we'd entered their life.
Sometimes we ran into each other in the same hallway. Sometimes we waited in the same line in the cafeteria. When she talked with her friends, I stood a few people behind her. I pretended not to listen to what I could hear. I could have said that I noticed the conversations around me because I studied journalism.
But separating Ece's voice from the others had nothing to do with my department.
Once, I was playing basketball on the outdoor campus court. It was after class. A few people from the team were missing, so one of the opposing players had matched up with me. He was at least six inches shorter than I was, but he was quite good on defense.
“Dude, you're blocking the hoop,” he said.
“That's the point.”
“Play like a normal person.”
“Not my fault.”
I took the ball from him. I ran quickly to the opposing side of the court. He'd assumed I was slow because of my height. Like most people who made that mistake, he'd decided without seeing my first step.
A few people standing on the sidelines shouted when I scored.
Ece was there too.
I noticed that later.
She was standing at the edge of the court with two friends. She had a brown folder in her hand. She didn't seem to be watching the game, but her eyes stayed on me for a few seconds.
When I bent down to get the ball back, she turned her head away.
I kept playing so I wouldn't think about what that meant.
Sometimes you'd rather dribble a ball than figure out what a look means. At least the ball makes it clear what it wants.
That day, Ece watched Aras on the court for the first time for more than a moment. The boy who walked quietly through the halls and the player who covered everyone's openings on the court were the same person, but they didn't resemble each other. When Aras had the ball in his hands, he didn't hesitate or wait for anyone to show him the way.
A thought passed through Ece's mind: So he isn't quiet because he doesn't know everything.
Then she pulled the thought back, deciding it was too quick. Acting as if you'd figured out a person after a few minutes of a game was a bad habit even for psychology students. Still, she couldn't stop noticing that Aras didn't go over to his friends after the game, but quietly gathered his bag instead.
There had to be a connection between Aras's confidence on the court and his tendency to withdraw off it. Ece didn't want to make that connection right away. Because some people deserved to be understood over time, not explained.
I saw her again while playing soccer during the spring semester of freshman year. The grass field was covered in mud after the rain. Our shoes had grown heavy, and our jerseys clung to us. I was in goal. I wasn't very good at goalkeeping, but nobody shorter than me wanted to take the position.
In the final minute of the game, a player from the opposing team took a hard shot. The ball was heading for the corner. I threw myself to the ground and knocked it away with one hand.
I landed in the mud.
Someone from the team came over and grabbed my arm.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
“Except for the mud.”
A laugh came from the edge of the field.
It was Ece.
She was alone this time. She had an umbrella in her hand, but it wasn't open. The rain had started again.
When I saw that she was looking at me, I stood up. I tried to wipe the mud off myself. When I realized it wasn't doing any good, I stopped.
Ece came a few steps closer.
“So you can play goalie,” she said.
“For today.”
“You did well today.”
“The ball might have taken pity on me.”
Ece laughed. This time, she didn't hold it back.
It was easier to joke about myself around her. Because when Ece laughed, she wasn't making fun of me. At least that's what I wanted to think.
“Do you play sports too?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” Ece said. “But not three different ones like you.”
“How do you know I play three different sports?”
Ece paused for a moment. Aras's eyes narrowed right away. He didn't want it to seem as if he'd accidentally revealed that he knew too much about her.
“I heard,” she said. “People talk on campus.”
“About me?”
“Mostly about your height.”
That answer made both of us laugh.
“Basketball, volleyball, soccer,” I said. “I play all of them.”
“Are you good?”
“I'm not bad.”
“Do you say that for every sport?”
“I don't want to seem too full of myself.”
“It's a little hard not to seem full of yourself when you're six-six.”
“My height has nothing to do with that.”
“I think it does.”
The rain picked up a little. Ece opened her umbrella, but held it toward me instead of herself.
“You're getting wet,” I said.
“You're already covered in mud.”
“That doesn't mean I need to get wetter.”
“The umbrella isn't big enough for you.”
She was right. No matter how high she held it, half my shoulders were still outside.
“I could make this into a news story,” I said. “Psychology student with a tiny umbrella tries to help a tall man.”
“I won't allow it.”
“Permission isn't always required in journalism.”
“If you write a story about me, I'll punish you by interviewing you.”
“Is that a threat?”
“Academic research.”
We both laughed.
Ece thought that Aras could talk more easily than she'd expected. But she didn't think that ease only appeared around her. Maybe Aras was like that with everyone; maybe his silence wasn't as special as Ece had thought.
She didn't like that thought. She didn't immediately name why she didn't like it, either. Wanting Aras to treat her specially blurred the line between trying to get to know him and wanting him for herself. Ece didn't hurry to cross that line.
Then she lifted the umbrella a little higher.
Aras noticed but didn't thank her. Ece understood that it wasn't rudeness. She didn't yet know that Aras was afraid thanking her would end the little moment between them; she only saw that he chose to stay beside her instead of saying certain things.
Toward the end of freshman year, a small habit formed between Ece and me. We greeted each other when we ran into each other. Sometimes we exchanged a short sentence. Sometimes we only nodded.
To other people, it was nothing.
To me, it meant becoming someone who appeared regularly in another person's life.
I don't know when Ece first noticed me. I know when I stopped being able not to notice her.
She would sit by the window in the library. When she studied, she'd tuck her pencil into her hair. When she didn't understand something, she'd furrow her brows. When her friends talked, she really listened to them; she wasn't just waiting for her turn, but trying to find what was hidden inside what they were saying.
I saw those things too.
Seeing was part of my department.
Explained that way, it felt less personal.
Ece, meanwhile, wasn't trying to figure out whether Aras was looking at her in the library. Instead, she noticed him straightening the edges of books without anyone noticing, picking up trash left on the table, and holding the door for the person behind him as he left.
Aras didn't think of these things as kindness. To him, they were small things that, if left undone, made someone else's life unnecessarily harder.
Ece believed people showed their character through small actions like these more than through grand statements.
But she still didn't believe she knew Aras.
All she knew about him was a few silences, a few jokes, and a short umbrella shared in the rain. That wasn't enough to love someone. Maybe it was enough to be curious about them.
Ece didn't admit to herself that she was curious about Aras.
Nothing major happened between us when freshman year ended. No one confessed their love, and no one suddenly entered the other's life. A small space simply opened between us—not just as we got to know each other, but as we chose not to forget each other.
One day during summer break, Ece was looking at photos of campus when she saw the basketball hoop on the outdoor court and remembered Aras's face as he dribbled the ball. She didn't dwell on it. She thought you had to truly know someone to miss them.
Still, when fall came, knowing she would see him again comforted Ece in a way she couldn't explain.
When we started our sophomore year, Ece and I began running into each other more often. Actually, it wasn't the first time we'd run into each other. The small habits we'd formed during freshman year hadn't disappeared over the summer; a few months had simply come between us. When Ece saw me, she still knew to say hi. And I still couldn't help noticing what time she left the psychology building.
We ran into each other in the cafeteria during the first week of our second year.
Ece was standing in line with two coffees in her hands. When she saw me, she lifted one slightly.
“Black, right?” she asked.
For a moment, I didn't know what to say.
I didn't even know she drank coffee. She looked as if she'd been forced to explain how she knew what kind of coffee I drank.
“You got the same thing three times last year,” she said. “It wasn't hard to remember.”
“I don't remember getting the same thing three times.”
“You looked around while you were getting it.”
“That's my job.”
“I have to look around too.”
That was a line from the previous year. Ece remembered it. I tried not to show that I did too.
She didn't hand me the coffee. She simply held it and smiled.
“You're buying today,” she said.
“Are you inviting me?”
“No. I just saved your place in line.”
“There's an important difference.”
“For you?”
“I like reducing possibilities.”
Ece thought Aras had said it as a joke, but she sensed a real fear beneath the words. She didn't bombard him with questions. She simply made room for him beside her in line.
After that day, we started talking more often. The silences of our first year didn't suddenly disappear in our second. The space between us was the same space, but now we were both aware of it.
Sometimes Ece asked me about class notes. Sometimes I pretended to be curious about what was written on the psychology club's bulletin board. Once, when it started pouring, we walked together from the library to the faculty building. I carried the umbrella this time, but because of my height, it stayed too far above Ece's head.
“This is better,” Ece said.
“You said the same thing last year.”
“You remember?”
“Some things.”
Ece fell silent after that answer. She didn't ask what I remembered. Because some answers got smaller when you asked for them.
I noticed that she slowed her steps to match mine as we walked beside each other. Ece wasn't short, but she still had to speed up next to my stride. I didn't mention it. If I did, what she was doing would stop being a kindness and become a behavior that needed explaining.
In October, I was sitting on a bench outside the journalism faculty, deleting the opening sentence of my new assignment for the third time.
“The process of students adapting to campus life at universities...”
Boring.
“A new beginning for sophomores...”
Even more boring.
My reflection stared back at me from my phone screen. My long face, messy hair, and the tired expression that came from not having spoken to anyone more than necessary all day.
I don't like looking at myself. Sometimes when you see yourself the way other people see you, it's easier to notice your flaws.
The faculty door opened.
Ece stepped outside with three books in her arms and a yellow folder in her hand. When she saw me, she stopped. This wasn't the unfamiliar hesitation from the year before. She knew me. She'd known me since freshman year. She was only gauging whether she should come over now.
“Aras?” she called.
I looked up.
“Yes?”
“Can I talk to you about something?”
My first thought was that I might have done something wrong. My second was that she'd mistaken me for another Aras. I silenced the third thought. Third thoughts usually give people unnecessary hope.
“Sure,” I said.
Ece sat at the other end of the bench. There was enough space between us for one person to sit comfortably. I'm good at looking at empty spaces. I don't have to fill them.
“You know that campus article you wrote last week?” Ece said. “I read it.”
My shoulders tensed.
“It wasn't very good.”
“I didn't think so.”
“Our professor marked up a few parts.”
“Because you used emotional language.”
I fell silent.
Ece placed her folder on her knees. She saw the small change in Aras's face. He seemed uncomfortable not because she was criticizing his article, but because it might have been liked.
“You wrote about things people don't notice,” she said. “I like that.”
It was easy to misunderstand that sentence.
I chose not to misunderstand it.
“Coincidence,” I said. “I'm so tall I can see more from up there.”
Ece laughed.
“Do you make everything about your height into a joke?”
“Not everything.”
“Like what?”
I thought about it.
“There are still things I haven't tried.”
This time, she laughed longer. I smiled too, then turned my face away to check whether anyone had noticed.
When people realize you're happy, your happiness turns into something they can take away.
Ece felt like laughing too, but this time she didn't immediately suppress it. She wondered what Aras was actually hiding when he made fun of himself. People usually joked to look strong. Aras seemed to do it to remain invisible.
Ece still didn't see most of the things she'd thought about him since freshman year as certainties. She didn't want to figure Aras out; she wanted to let him open up at his own pace. But the calm she felt sitting beside him had gone beyond curiosity. She didn't hurry to give the feeling a name.
Ece pulled a folded sheet of paper from her yellow folder.
“We're doing a small study on loneliness on campus for the psychology club,” she said. “I want to interview you.”
I looked at the paper.
Then at her.
“Do I look lonely?” I asked.
“No,” Ece said. “You don't look lonely.”
“People usually think I am.”
“People usually think too quickly.”
Her answer went deeper than I'd expected.
We hadn't met during freshman year. Ece hadn't entered my life on the first day. She hadn't found me and solved all my loneliness. For months, we'd noticed each other from a distance. Sometimes a glance, sometimes a flying sheet of paper, sometimes a short distance shared beneath the rain. Things hadn't suddenly changed in sophomore year either. We'd simply started carrying that small distance a little more carefully, both of us.
Now she was sitting across from me.
Thinking that she really saw me was even more dangerous than the possibility of being loved.
While waiting for Aras's answer, Ece smoothed the corner of the paper with her thumb. She'd prepared the interview offer as part of the club's study. That was true. But his seeming lonely wasn't the only reason she'd chosen Aras.
She was curious about how he could remove himself from a sentence even while talking about himself. The curiosity that had begun in freshman year had become a more patient closeness in sophomore year. Ece wanted to understand when Aras felt comfortable around her, not change or save him.
Still, she didn't call that curiosity love.
Love was too big a word to exist between them yet.
“When's the interview?” I asked.
Ece wrote the date on the paper.
“Tomorrow, after classes. Want to meet at Kirk Iki?”
I knew the café. It was the smallest café on campus. The door was low for me, the chairs were narrow, and the tables were smaller than they needed to be.
“It's too crowded,” I said.
“You'll be less noticeable in a crowd.”
I looked at her.
Had she said that on purpose?
“I don't want to be noticed.”
“I know.”
Ece closed her folder.
“Sometimes it isn't a bad thing for someone to notice you,” she said.
I couldn't answer.
Ece stood up. She waited for a few seconds.
“Will you come tomorrow?” she asked.
I wanted to say this was only an interview. That she'd asked because she felt sorry for me, that psychology students tried to understand everyone, that I wasn't special...
All of those things made sense.
Logic had been the refuge I trusted most for years.
“I'll come,” I said.
Ece smiled.
“Okay. See you tomorrow, tall guy.”
As Ece walked away, I took out my phone. I put the time, the café, and the reason for the meeting in my calendar. Then I checked the note twice.
I still believed love wasn't going to find me.
But for the first time, I wasn't waiting for someone to find me.
Maybe tomorrow I would go somewhere of my own accord.
It was a small thing.
For me, small things could sometimes grow large enough to change an entire life.
That day, I thought I was going to Kirk Iki only for an interview.
I would understand later that our story with Ece hadn't begun there. It was simply the place where, for the first time, we made room at the same table for the silence we'd both been carrying since freshman year.
Love didn't come right away.
First came coffee. Then long silences. Then misunderstood sentences, postponed confessions, bad days spent apart, and the need to tell each other about the good ones.
Ece didn't save me. And I didn't complete her.
We got to know each other as we were, unfinished.
And years later, when Ece took my hand as we walked side by side across the campus's outdoor court one evening, I still remembered the first thing she'd done: before asking me for the sheet of paper flying in the wind, she'd looked into my eyes.
This time, I didn't pull my hand away.
And Ece didn't let go.
Happiness looked like something huge, but ours was made of small things. Remembered coffees, umbrellas shared in the rain, games won on the court, silences protected in the library, and one person you could stand beside without hiding yourself.
I once believed love wasn't going to find me.
I was wrong.
Sometimes love doesn't find you.
Sometimes someone notices you for a long time. And eventually, you choose to stay beside them without running away.