The Weight I Carry

"Ye maine kya kiya... ye maine kya kiya... Allah! I ruined him.. Azhaan." [What have I done... what have I done... Allah! I ruined him.. Azhaan.] She fell to the floor.

"I am sorry! I am sorry! Azhaan! I am sorry!"
She cried her heart out.

________

Hareem was older than Azhaan, but he never cared.

For him, age didn't matter. Love mattered, and he loved her beyond her imagination since they were kids. He always expressed it, but she never cared. His tease, his smile, his love-filled eyes only irritated her - but still he just kept loving her, quietly, year after year.

Then one day, one misunderstanding, one lie she believed with her whole heart destroyed his happiness, his dream, his life, completely.

He paid the price for the crime he never did.

The Azhaan everyone knew was happy, full of life, always smiling. He laughed easily and loved without fear. But after that day, he changed. He stopped smiling. He stopped feeling. The boy everyone loved slowly disappeared, and a quiet, broken man took his place.

Hareem doesn't know it yet, but she will find out the truth - and when she does, it will break her completely.

Because by then, it will be too late to undo what she did.

And somewhere in her guilt, something she never expected starts to grow - a quiet love for the boy she destroyed. A love she has no right to feel. A love she can never speak of.

She watches him. Every day. Carrying a secret that could destroy his life even more if it ever came out.

This is not just a love story.

This is about guilt. About silence. About a girl who has to live with what she did - and a boy who lost everything because of a lie.

★★★★