When the Moon Stopped Moving

The night Amina realized something had changed forever, the moon looked strangely still, as if it was holding its breath with her. She stood by the window of her small apartment, watching the clouds drift over the sky, clutching her phone the way a drowning person holds a piece of wood. She kept telling herself the message wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. Not after the promises, not after the way he held her, not after the way he whispered, “You’re the part of me the world was missing.”

But the message was still there.

Have you heard from Zayn? It’s urgent.

It came from his sister.

Amina’s pulse raced. She typed quickly: No, is everything okay?

The reply came as if someone had been waiting for her:

He’s been arrested. They say he violated his release terms. They took him back this morning.

Amina sank onto the floor, the cold tiles pressing into her knees, but she didn’t feel them. She didn’t feel anything except the sharp, tearing pain moving through her chest.

Just three months ago, she had been in his arms in Manchester. She remembered the night clearly. The city lights glowed like tiny fires, and Zayn held her close as if he wanted to protect her from everything—cold wind, loneliness, and even time itself.

“Little Star,” he had whispered, “I will always find my way back to you.”

Back then, she believed him. His voice had that effect. Soft, steady, warm. It wrapped around her like a blanket and made her forget all the warnings she once read about him.

Because Zayn wasn’t a perfect man, not by any definition. His past was a storm he had tried to outrun. A crime. A sentence. A life license that meant his freedom was never fully his. The media painted him as violent, dangerous, unpredictable. But Amina saw something else. She saw the man who cooked for her when she had the flu, the man who gently tied her shoelaces in the airport because she was too sleepy to do it herself, the man who held her hand like she was a fragile treasure.

Her friends never understood.

“How can you love someone like him?”

Her answer was always the same.

“You don’t know him.”

And she was right. They didn’t.

But now, suddenly, she was confronted with a truth she wasn’t ready to accept. Zayn was gone. Not lost, not missing—taken.

The next days passed like long shadows. She went to work but heard nothing. She went to sleep but dreamed of prison gates closing. She checked her phone every hour, hoping for his name to appear on the screen, hoping for his familiar greeting: Good morning, Star.

But nothing came.

Then, one evening, a familiar melody echoed in her mind. A song he always sang for her:

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine…”

She covered her face and cried. Not the soft tears of sadness, but the deep, shaking cries that come from a place of shattered hope.

She remembered December. The carousel lights spinning around her. Zayn laughing as he tried to keep his balance. “I look ridiculous,” he had said. She pulled his scarf straighter and replied, “You look like someone who belongs in my life.”

Now those memories felt like a cruel gift. Something beautiful that hurt to touch.

Weeks passed before she received another message. This time from him. A short letter written from inside the prison.

Star,

I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. I only know I’m sorry I didn’t tell you the truth. I was getting worse. My mind. My health. I didn’t want you to watch me fall apart. I thought lying would protect you. But it only broke us both.

If the world forgets me, that’s fine. Just don't let yourself disappear the way I have.

Live. Stay bright.

—Zayn

Her tears fell onto the pages.

The one thing she feared most had happened.

She was here.

He was there.

Two worlds separated by iron and truth.

Amina closed the letter, held it against her chest, and whispered into the quiet room:

“I won’t disappear. Not for you. Not for anyone.”

The moon began to move again.