"Shatereds Dreams"

It was the kind of night that felt like the end of something you didn't even realize had already ended.

Rain hit the windows in soft, steady taps, like a memory trying to get in.

Zoya sat on the floor by the window. The lights were off except for one flickering candle, its flame swaying in the breeze like it, too, was tired of standing.

In her hands, a photograph—torn from the middle, but still recognizable. She and Ahmed, smiling, eyes bright, arms around each other as if nothing could ever come between them.

But something had.

Silence.

Distance.

Time.

Once Upon Always

Zoya and Ahmed had known each other since childhood.

Same neighborhood.

Same school.

Same streetlight they stood under every evening during load-shedding, sharing secrets and snacks.

He had been her best friend before he became her first love.

She never remembered the exact moment when friendship became love. Maybe it was the time he fought a bully for her. Maybe it was when he gifted her a handmade wooden ring in ninth grade and said with a grin,

“Someday, this will be gold. Mark my words.”

And she had.

Every memory they shared, she had marked. Every promise, she had counted like stars on a clear night.

Fading Colors

But love, as she would later learn, doesn’t always fade with drama. Sometimes, it fades like color from a photograph—so slowly, you don’t even notice until one day it’s all grey.

Ahmed started staying out late.

First, it was work.

Then it was “meetings.”

Eventually, it became no explanation at all.

Zoya didn’t fight. She waited.

Every evening, she made two cups of tea—his favorite masala chai and hers with extra sugar. She set the table. She folded his towel like he liked it. She waited at the window like a scene out of a poem.

But he didn’t come.

The chai grew cold. The silence grew warm—too familiar.

The Letter

Exactly 11 days after he disappeared, a letter arrived.

Slipped under the door, just like he used to leave chocolate bars when he was guilty.

Zoya stared at it for minutes before picking it up.

“Zoya,

I wish I could explain. I wish I could say something that wouldn’t break you. But the truth is… I’ve broken myself.

I lost my way, not just with us—but with me.

I left not because I stopped loving you.

I left because I didn’t know how to love you right anymore.

I’m sorry. I’ll always be sorry.

Yours, but not yours anymore,

Ahmed”

Zoya didn’t cry.

She didn’t scream.

She just folded the letter and placed it beside the photo.

That night, she poured only one cup of tea.

Grief in Motion

The days that followed weren’t loud. They were quiet in the cruelest way.

People came, said all the wrong things.

"He’ll come back."

"You’re strong."

"It happens to everyone."

Zoya smiled through them all, nodded politely, and went back to her silence.

But grief isn’t a polite visitor. It sneaks into the way you brush your hair. The way you fold the bedsheet. The way you avoid songs, mirrors, and the color blue.

Zoya stopped painting.

She was an artist—had once said that her brush knew her heart better than any diary ever could.

Now, the canvases stayed blank. Her heart, too.

The Turning

One evening, months later, something changed.

She found herself staring at a blank canvas.

Without thinking, she picked up a brush.

She didn’t plan the strokes. She didn’t choose the colors.

Her hands moved like they remembered something her heart had forgotten.

Red—raw. Blue—cold. Black—everywhere.

It wasn’t pretty.

It wasn’t meant to be.

It was pain, poured out in color.

And it made her feel something again.

That painting didn’t bring Ahmed back.

But it brought Zoya back, piece by piece.

The Knock

It had been 197 days since the letter.

Zoya remembered, not because she was counting—but because the calendar still hung on the day he left.

It was raining again.

She lit a candle. Made herself tea. Sat by the window.

That’s when she heard the knock.

A sound she hadn’t heard in months—but had imagined every night.

She opened the door slowly.

It was him.

Ahmed.

Thinner. Paler. His eyes carried storms. His hands trembled.

He didn’t say “I missed you.”

He didn’t say “I love you.”

He simply held out the same torn photo she had been holding the night he left.

Taped back together.

“I thought I could fix myself by running away,” he said.

“But the truth is… every road led me back here.”

Zoya didn’t cry.

She didn’t collapse into his arms.

She looked at the photo, then looked at him.

Then, she pointed to the painting that now hung on her wall.

“That’s what I became when you left.”

He stepped inside. Looked at the painting.

Tears filled his eyes.

“You survived.”

She nodded.

“Yes. I did.”

Aftermath

He didn’t ask to stay.

She didn’t ask him to leave.

They sat across from each other in silence.

Two people who once thought love was enough.

Maybe it still was. Maybe not.

But they weren’t here to rewrite the past.

They were simply two people who had both been broken—and were still learning how to live with the cracks.

Final Line

Love doesn’t always end with a fight.

Sometimes, it ends with a letter.

Sometimes, with a knock.

And sometimes, it doesn't end at all—it just becomes something else.

Something quieter.

Something… real.