A brother who never was

The photograph was old and torn — frayed at the edges, yellowed by time. One half showed a young boy, perhaps five years old, smiling shyly at the camera with a paper kite in his hand. The other half, the one Arham had never seen, was missing — lost long ago, just like the brother who should have stood beside him.

Arham kept that half of the photo in a shoebox beneath his bed. He didn’t look at it often, but he never forgot it was there. He couldn’t. It was all he had left of a connection that never fully existed — and yet, never truly left him.

His mother once told him the truth in a whisper, one quiet night when he was seven and had asked, “Was I ever supposed to have a brother?”

She looked at him, startled — not because of the question, but because she had never told him. Not directly.

“You had a twin,” she said gently. “His name was Azaan. He... he didn’t survive the night you were born.”

Arham didn’t cry. He didn’t know how to feel. But later that night, he sat beside the window and looked up at the stars. He picked the brightest one and whispered, “Goodnight, Azaan.”

From that night on, Azaan wasn’t just a name. He became a presence — soft, silent, and always near.

Arham talked to him when he was lonely. He imagined him sitting on the swing beside him in the park, racing him home from school, cheering for him in the crowd during school plays. In his heart, Azaan became the boy who knew every secret, who never judged him, who loved him unconditionally.

At times, it worried his parents. They thought it was just his imagination, perhaps a way to cope with loneliness. But Arham didn’t need anyone to explain it. He knew — deep down — he wasn’t making Azaan up. He was simply remembering someone his soul had never forgotten.

As Arham grew older, life pulled him forward — exams, friendships, heartbreaks, and dreams. But even as time pressed on, that quiet bond never faded. On the night of his high school graduation, he looked up at the stars again and whispered, “We did it, Azaan.”

It wasn’t until he turned sixteen that he found the photo again. He had been cleaning out his closet, preparing for another move, when he uncovered the old shoebox. Inside was the torn photograph — still the same, still incomplete.

But something stirred in him that day.

He took it to a photo restoration shop near the city center. The man behind the counter examined it with curiosity. “Do you know what was on the missing side?” he asked.

Arham smiled softly, voice steady. “Yes. My brother.”

The man looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “We can try to recreate it. Do you have any reference?”

Arham shook his head. “No photo. Just... love. Just the feeling that he’d have been like me, but better.”

That night, when he got home, he placed the photo — now digitally restored with a soft, mirrored image of himself beside the original — beside his bed. Two boys, standing side by side, one real, one imagined. And yet... both deeply felt.

He stared at it for a long time.

“Azaan,” he whispered, “thank you for being there… even when you weren’t.”

Years passed.

Arham became a man — a teacher, a husband, and eventually a father. The day his son was born, he held the fragile, perfect child in his arms, overwhelmed with love. And without thinking, he whispered into the newborn’s ear, “You have an uncle. He’s always been watching over us.”

His wife, Zara, looked at him with quiet curiosity.

“You never talk much about your twin,” she said.

“I don’t have to,” he replied. “He’s part of me. He always has been.”

And she understood.

On their son’s fifth birthday, Arham gave him a paper kite — the same kind in the photo — and watched as the little boy ran across the field, laughing. For a fleeting second, he saw another figure beside him. A boy just his size. Running. Laughing.

And Arham smiled.

Because some brothers are never held, never seen, never known to the world.
But they are felt — in dreams, in hearts, in moments of quiet love.

Azaan had never spoken a word, never taken a breath.
But he had lived, deeply, within Arham’s soul.

He always would.