Aiza's world was torn apart when her two-year relationship with Raahil ended in betrayal, leaving her heart shattered and her trust in love broken. A year later, just as the pieces of her soul were starting to mend, Karan-a mysterious and dangerousl...
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'There are wounds that never show on the body, but are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds." – Laurell K. Hamilton
Aiza stared blankly at the phone screen as another message from Raahil flashed across it. The words "I miss you" appeared, so simple, so innocent—yet to her, they held the weight of a thousand scars. It had been over a year since they had broken up, but Raahil’s presence lingered in the corners of her mind like a ghost that refused to be exorcised. His hold on her heart wasn’t just emotional—it was visceral, something she could feel in her bones, under her skin, haunting every waking moment.
She deleted the message without responding. It was the third time this week that he had reached out, as though testing her resolve, seeing how much of herself she had truly reclaimed. She was no longer the same girl who once thought that Raahil was her world. But even now, as she sat in her quiet apartment, she could feel the echoes of their past vibrate through the empty space.
The memories of their relationship were vivid, as if they had been painted into her mind with indelible ink. They met in college—a whirlwind of attraction, passion, and reckless abandon. Raahil was everything she had ever wanted: a tall, dark, enigmatic figure who walked into her life like a storm. The intensity of his gaze made her feel like the only person in the room, and for two years, she had been. But that intensity, which once thrilled her, became suffocating. Raahil loved fiercely, but he loved selfishly. His love was a prison disguised as affection.
"Love is supposed to be freedom, not chains," Aiza had told herself countless times, but for a long time, she had believed otherwise. Raahil's love came with a price—one that stripped her of her independence, her friends, and eventually, herself. The jealousy, the possessiveness, the endless questioning—it had eroded her, piece by piece, until she barely recognized the reflection that stared back at her in the mirror.
The breakup was inevitable. After years of fighting for her own identity, Aiza had mustered the courage to end things with Raahil, to tear herself away from the suffocating grasp of a man who couldn’t understand the meaning of mutual respect. But breaking up with Raahil wasn’t the end of the story—it was the beginning of a new kind of torment. He became the shadow that lingered on her doorstep, the whisper in her mind when she tried to move on, the reason she second-guessed every potential new relationship.
Now, more than a year later, she still hadn’t fully healed. She was working a job she hated, keeping acquaintances at arm’s length, and existing rather than living. She had deleted all of Raahil's messages, but his presence still lingered like a ghost in the corners of her mind, haunting her.
"I am not the woman I once was," she reminded herself, sipping on her wine and trying to focus on the soothing sounds of jazz playing softly in the background. Aiza had made progress in rebuilding her life, but something was missing—something that kept her from fully reclaiming herself. Trust was a foreign concept now, especially in men. Love was a dangerous game she wasn’t willing to play again.
