SHANAYA’S POV

I don’t know what compelled me to keep flipping the pages of that notebook.

Maybe it was curiosity.

Maybe it was the ache in my chest that hadn’t left since I read his first broken thought.

Or maybe… it was the need to understand him beyond his touch, beyond his words, beyond the walls he let me tear down little by little.

The next few pages were blank.

And then came a name.

Zoya.

Written in calligraphic, ink-blotted handwriting. As if he’d written it when his hand shook. Or when he still couldn’t decide if he loved or hated it.

The paragraph underneath started soft… and turned into fire.

> Zoya was light. Until she wasn’t.

She was laughter, poetry, barefoot walks on cold floors.

She made love like she’d stay forever and lied like she’d never meant a word of it.

She told me I was hers. Then left me with a note that said she didn’t believe in ‘us’ anymore.

What kind of person promises forever and leaves when you finally believe it?

-----

My fingers trembled slightly. It felt wrong, reading this. But it also felt… necessary.

Because this? This pain? This was the shadow I’d seen behind his eyes.

I flipped the page and found a dried flower—pressed so carefully between two lines of haunting words.

> I stopped writing music after her.

Stopped painting for a while. Didn’t touch the piano for two years.

She didn’t just leave me.

She took pieces of me with her.

And I had no idea how to rebuild.

----

I bit my lip, feeling something heavy in my throat.

God, Kabir…

This wasn’t just heartbreak. It was a burial.

The next entry was dated over a year after the last one. And this time, the tone was colder.

Sharper.

> You don’t fall again after something like that. You build walls.

You become the man she swore she didn’t want—cold, untouchable, closed.

Because if no one gets in, no one can destroy you from the inside out.

Until she walked in.

Messy. Loud. Bright.

And now, all my walls feel like glass again.

-------

I froze.

Was he talking about… me?

My heart thudded in my chest. Too loud. Too fast.

I carefully placed the notebook back where I found it, like I hadn’t just read the most intimate parts of him he probably never shared with anyone.

Zoya.

The woman who broke him.

And me…

The girl trying to show him that love doesn’t always leave.

I looked around at the piano, the guitars, the paints…

All the things he brought back to life.

Maybe… I was part of that resurrection.

And maybe, just maybe, the real storm wasn’t Kabir.

It was what someone did to him.

But I’d weather it.

I wasn’t afraid of his scars. I wasn’t Zoya.

I wasn’t going to leave halfway through a love that felt like magic.

Not now.

Not ever.

-------

The silence in the room was deafening. It wrapped itself around me like a suffocating fog, making my chest feel too tight, too hollow. I sat there for what felt like forever—my eyes still stuck on the final lines scribbled on the last page of Kabir’s journal. My fingers were trembling, and I hadn’t even realized I was crying until a warm tear slipped down my cheek and dropped onto the paper.

He was broken. Not just hurt—but devastated. And no one had told me.

I closed the journal softly, like I was tucking away a secret, and placed it back exactly where it was. My head leaned against the edge of the bookshelf, my knees drawn up to my chest. My heartbeat wasn’t steady anymore—it thudded with pain, with confusion, and something I hadn’t expected… guilt.

Guilt that I didn’t know this part of him.

Guilt that I thought I was the only one who left pieces behind in love.

I stayed like that for a while. Numb. Quiet. Shattered for the boy I had fallen so madly in love with.

By the time I heard the main door unlock, the sun had already begun to dip lower in the sky, staining the living room in soft amber hues.

Footsteps. Familiar. Calm.

Then his voice—soft, hesitant—echoed gently through the silence.

“Shanaya?”

I didn’t answer.

He walked in, tall and calm as ever, the sleeves of his black shirt rolled up, veins prominent on his forearms, his jaw slightly tense. His eyes landed on me, and something in him shifted. Just a flicker—but it was enough. Enough to know he noticed the change in my silence.

He sat down beside me, close but careful, like he was reading the air between us.

“You didn’t call… or text,” he said softly, brushing a strand of hair away from my face.

“I didn’t feel like it,” I whispered.

He tilted his head. “Did something happen?”

I turned to look at him, my eyes holding all the questions I hadn’t yet voiced. I could see it now—every crack he tried so hard to hide behind those unreadable eyes. The boy who smiled like he had everything under control, when in reality, he was just good at carrying pain with elegance.

“I saw your journal.”

His body tensed, just barely—but I noticed.

“I didn’t mean to,” I added. “It was lying there. I was curious. And then… I couldn’t stop.”

He looked away for a second. “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“I know,” I breathed. “But I’m glad I did.”

He stayed silent.

I placed my hand on his. “Kabir… you were in love, weren’t you? Really in love.”

He finally met my gaze. And god, the pain in those eyes… it sliced right through me.

“I was stupid,” he said bitterly. “I thought it was love. Turns out, it was just another mistake dressed in promises.”

I gently squeezed his hand. “She broke you, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t just break me,” he muttered. “She turned me into someone I couldn’t even recognize. I gave her all of me, Shanaya. Everything. And she made me feel like I was never enough.”

My heart cracked. “You are enough. You’ve always been more than enough.”

He looked at me, something flickering in his eyes—hope? fear? pain?

“But you never told me,” I said, my voice trembling. “All this time… you let me fall for you without knowing you were still bleeding.”

“Because I didn’t want to bleed on you,” he whispered. “You were the light, Shanaya. I couldn’t stain you with my darkness.”

I shook my head, eyes glistening. “But I wanted to hold your darkness too, Kabir. All of it. Not just the version you wanted me to see.”

“I was afraid you’d leave if you saw the rest,” he admitted, voice raw. “Everyone does.”

“I’m not everyone,” I said, softly but fiercely. “You say you want me, but love isn’t about kissing someone in the rain or whispering sweet things in bed. It’s about baring your soul—even the bruised, ugly parts—and still choosing each other. Every single day.”

His jaw clenched, the emotion rising in his throat like it was too much to hold back anymore. “I didn’t know how to be loved without conditions.”

“You do now,” I whispered, gently touching his face. “Because I’m here. And I’m not walking away.”

And in that moment, I saw the walls begin to crumble. Not all at once. But enough. Enough to let me in.

He leaned in, forehead resting against mine, breathing me in like I was his oxygen. And maybe I was.

“I’m scared, Shanaya,” he confessed.

I closed my eyes. “Me too. But that’s how I know it’s real.”

------

I had never seen him like that.

Kabir—fierce, composed, untouchable. The man who walked into rooms like he owned the air itself. The one who barely blinked when the world tried to claw at him. But that night, the man I loved didn’t walk… he collapsed quietly in front of me.

There was no dramatic outburst. No shaking fists or shattered glass. Just… silence. Deafening, aching silence.

And then—his eyes.

They weren’t cold. They weren’t sharp. They were… drowning.

He looked at me like I was the only thing left keeping him tethered to this world, and it broke something inside me. His jaw clenched like he was trying not to let go, like crying would make him weak—but I saw it. I saw the tremble in his hands. The pain behind his pride.

And when the first tear slipped down his cheek, I froze.

Not because I didn’t care.

But because I’d never seen a man like him cry.

Never seen someone so ruthless… look so lost.

I felt the air punch out of my lungs.

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. I just moved forward slowly, afraid even my breath might make him shatter. I knelt in front of him, reached out, and touched his face as if I was holding the universe trying to fall apart in my palms.

His eyes shut tightly at the contact, like even that small ounce of tenderness was too much.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” My voice was softer than a sigh.

“Like I’m broken.”

My heart splintered. “You’re not.”

He didn’t believe me. I could tell.

But in that moment, I wasn’t looking at the billionaire, the man with the sharp tongue and sharper instincts. I was looking at a boy who had carried too much grief, too much abandonment, too much betrayal—and had never been taught how to ask for help.

“I’ve never let anyone see this part of me,” he admitted, eyes still closed, jaw tight.

“Then you’ve never truly been loved,” I whispered, brushing his tear away with my thumb.

That was when he finally broke. His arms wrapped around me with a desperation I hadn’t felt before. His head rested on my shoulder as he held me, tightly, silently, like I was the only real thing left in the world.

And maybe in that moment, I was.

I held him until the shivering stopped.

Until his breaths slowed.

Until he realized I wasn’t going anywhere.

Because love isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it’s quiet. It’s steady. It’s choosing to stay when someone hands you their pain instead of their perfection.

I had always loved Kabir for his strength.

But that night, I fell in love with his softness.

The kind of softness that few would ever get to see.

And I was honored—no, blessed—to be the one he chose to fall apart with.

And I knew—no matter what his past held, no matter what ghosts still haunted him—I would fight them with him. I would love every fractured piece of him, fiercely and fully.

Because men like him…

They don’t break for just anyone.

And when they do—

You hold them closer.

You never let go.

----

END OF CHAPTER

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