Hearts against the Storm

Two weeks later, the world had changed — or maybe we had changed enough to see it clearly.

The headlines were still buzzing. Investigations were underway. Arrests had been made in the land fraud case tied to my uncle’s death. My father's political allies had started to disappear like shadows under sunlight.

But none of that mattered the way Alya’s hand in mine did.

We were no longer just lovers running from hate.

We were truth-seekers who had stared down the fire and survived.

Azeel had survived the blow Hamza gave him. He was arrested, charged with kidnapping, assault, and illegal possession of arms. But even in jail, he remained defiant. He refused to speak, even as the files we exposed shattered the narrative he and our families had lived by.

He sent me a note through his lawyer.

“You won for now. But remember, even truth gets tired when no one defends it.”

I burned the note without responding.

One evening, as the orange sky dipped behind the minarets of the old city, I took Alya to the one place where everything had begun for us — the narrow bookshop alley, where I’d first noticed her smile, years ago, during a monsoon evening.

The shopkeeper still remembered us. He gave us tea and space to sit. I held her hand and looked into her eyes — those same eyes that had once pleaded for rescue, now steady and full of strength.

“We’ve lost things,” I said. “Family. Trust. Safety. Even innocence.”

She nodded. “But we still have us.”

“And us,” I whispered, “was always worth fighting for.”

Back at Hamza’s apartment, the TV showed a breaking update: my father had resigned from his council seat. He hadn’t spoken to me since our confrontation, but I heard through a family friend that he had withdrawn from public life. My mother had called me — once — to say that she missed me, but she didn’t ask me to return.

And for now, that was enough.

I had chosen truth over comfort. Love over legacy.

Alya and I had decided we wouldn’t stay in the city.

Too many ghosts here.

Instead, we moved to a quiet town near the northern hills — peaceful, anonymous, forgiving. Hamza visited often, still publishing stories, still chasing justice. He said our story gave others courage to speak up.

One morning, Alya and I were walking through the green fields, dew still on the grass, when she stopped suddenly.

“I used to dream of this,” she said. “Freedom. Peace. Being loved without shame.”

“You have all three now,” I said.

She turned to me, smiling, then serious.

“Not yet.”

I blinked. “What’s missing?”

She held up a small wooden ring box.

Inside was a thin silver ring — simple, beautiful, and somehow, perfect.

“I wanted to ask you,” she said, voice trembling. “Will you still choose me? Even after everything?”

I couldn’t breathe for a second.

Then I pulled out the ring I had been hiding in my own coat pocket for weeks.

We both laughed through tears.

“Only if you still choose me,” I said.

We married beneath the cedar trees of the valley, with only a handful of people around — Hamza, the old bookshop owner, and a few new friends who had become family.

There were no cameras, no headlines.

Just vows whispered in wind, witnessed by sky.

Taimoor and Alya. Together. Not perfect. Not untouched by pain.

But free. And deeply, recklessly, entirely in love.

Sometimes, late at night, Alya still dreams of the farmhouse, of locked doors and Azeel’s voice. I still carry the scar from that night on my shoulder. But our wounds are no longer chains. They’re proof that we endured.

That we loved enough to fight.

That even when the world — and our bloodlines — tried to tear us apart, we became the story no one could silence.

Because in the end, the truth did survive.

And so did we.