Formula 1: The GOAT

“You believe her words immediately without even considering other options?” Seda looked disappointed and crushed that her husband trusted his niece more than he trusted her.

The hurt was genuine. She had expected her husband to be on her side if she was discovered. It would have been them against everyone else. But to her complete surprise, Enes immediately believed what he was shown and turned to question her, showing he had no intention of being on her side. If he had, he would have just bought time and asked for clarity when they were alone.

“She provided a sound argument, and your reaction in the video backed it up. I need you to clear things up,” Enes said, ignoring the other two women standing on opposite sides, looking at each other. He was fully focused on his wife, his face etched with a hurt that showed he had taken it badly.

“She said she told you. Who is to say that it is you who contacted her? There is really no way to tell which of us informed her, and you are currently trying to pin me as the suspect to clear yourself. Plus, she might have just followed us on her own. As for my smile, it could be that I just don’t know how to react when I’m nervous, which for her, who doesn’t know that about me, might be translated as me waiting to enjoy the drama. And against all of those possible answers to her suspicion, you immediately went for the one that painted me as the suspect?” Seda said, arguing her case with all the theatrics, even dropping a few tears for full believability.

For a moment, a look of doubt flashed on her husband’s face, and she didn’t miss it. She immediately removed her phone from her purse, unlocked it, and handed it to him as she said, “Check for yourself and see when was the last time I called or talked to her,” confident that she had already deleted all the evidence.

This incident wasn’t her first rodeo when it came to hiding evidence from her husband; she had some semblance of experience. For her naive husband, it was even more difficult to see through her perfected acting over the duration of their marriage. Hence, she was fully confident but wary of Hatice’s vigilant eyes. She covered her face with her hands as if she was feeling betrayed and was hiding her teary eyes to help conceal any potential facial expressions she might make following her husband’s response when he realized that Hatice’s theory had some holes in it. She was confident this alone was enough for the naive Enes.

A few seconds passed since she covered her face, but she hadn’t heard anything from Enes, to whom she had handed her unlocked phone, causing her to slightly spread her fingers and open a gap for her eyes to see what was going on, only to find Enes scrolling. She raised an eyebrow, sure that she hadn’t sent her mother-in-law a message, having only called her last night from the bathroom to update her on the new meeting location. But that confusion lasted only a moment before her heart dropped. She realized what he must be reading. She immediately rushed to snatch the phone from her husband, but he reacted first, moving his hand and leaving her catching nothing but air.

“I can explain that! It’s not what you think!” she said as she approached Enes again but couldn’t get closer, as he was now blocking her with his right hand while still reading the messages with his left. In desperation, she started shouting, “I SAID IT IS A MISUNDERSTANDING! WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NOSY, GOING THROUGH MY PHONE?! GIVE IT BACK! I SAID GIVE BACK MY PHONE!!!!”

“What’s wrong?” Hatice asked in a low voice, realizing that this was not related to the current situation.

“Excuse me for a moment, but can you hold her for a second? I need to leave to go through this with a piece of mind,” Enes said, his eyes now bloodshot, making it clear that he was very hurt by whatever he had found.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, wanting clarification.

“I will explain everything later when I have the full picture. So can you hold her for a moment?” Enes repeated his previous request.

“DON’T YOU DARE!” Seda shouted, getting more and more erratic when she heard what Enes said.

“Mom, care to help?” Hatice said as she walked over and held Seda, who was trying to get away from her grip and rush to Enes.

Emine didn’t argue with her daughter’s request as she rushed to help restrain her for a moment as Enes walked towards their car.

“I helped you, and this is how you repay me?!” Seda shouted at Emine, who completely ignored her plea.

They continued holding her until after Enes’s car had left and gained quite a distance, and only then did they release their hold.

Realizing that he had already left, Seda crouched down as she repeatedly said, “IT’S OVER; EVERYTHING IS OVER.”

“Now that we are done dealing with that, how about we go and spend time with my grandson?” Emine said as if everything that had happened was not related to her at all.

“I will say this with as much respect as I can muster, but if you want to have any memories with your grandson, you need to go to therapy to deal with your narcissistic behavior. Yesterday, when I had a conversation with Rümeysa, I told her that if you approach her or her grandson once again before you apologize and set to terms everything that you have done to them in the past, she is going to request a restraining order, and I’m going to act as a witness for it. You can argue that everything you did was for us and that you worked hard to raise us alone after Father left, but that argument has long lost its meaning to all of us since that has been your justification for everything you have done to us and our spouses, and I’m sure you know that I’m not joking.

And don’t think that the current situation is over, since I will decide on what to do with it once I hear everything from Enes. If you are in any way implicated, it will only worsen our already-distanced relationship.

So for your sake and everyone else’s, I better not see you around for the rest of this day. And the next time you call me, it better be to sincerely apologize for what you did to us and not just you acting as if everything is normal.”

Once she was done, she immediately left and didn’t wait for an answer from her mother, who, even if she had waited, would not have received one, which would have been a surprise.

Emine remained standing there for a few minutes, not saying anything as she looked into the distance, watching as her only daughter walked away. For the first time in a while, her face didn’t have the unbothered expression she usually wore, while her hand tightened around her purse.

Even after Hatice disappeared, she kept looking in the direction she had gone. It wasn’t until ten minutes later that she finally moved, but in the opposite direction. She hailed a taxi and boarded it, disappearing into the distance with no one left to wonder where she was going. Even if there had been someone who knew her there, most of them would not have wondered at all.

………..

“For the second and final time today, Fatih adds another trophy to his cabinet, keeping his streak of winning world titles every time he enters a new category. Had it not been for the severe injury at the start of the year that led to him leaving the competition he was in, he would have retained a one-hundred-percent record of winning all the titles he had participated in. It would have been a perfect record, one that most likely no one in the future will be able to break. It would have been a perfect run, but fate had other plans for him, leaving him with a near-perfect record as a reminder to everyone that there is no perfection, only the pursuit of it.

Because if anyone could have achieved something perfect, it would have been him. It is Fatih Yıldırım, the one and only, and I can say with confidence that I’m looking forward to everything he is going to accomplish in karting before he moves to single-seaters,” Michael, the main commentator, said with excitement, fully unaware that he was commentating on Fatih’s final competitive karting race of his career. Otherwise, he would have been more emotional and put in more effort than he did to make sure it was a perfect sendoff, which is very ironic, considering he had just said there is no perfection, only the pursuit of it.

Fatih waved enthusiastically to the crowd in the grandstand as he drove his cooldown and celebratory lap.