Dear Paris,

neither of them were supposed to fall.

but one accidental encounter was all it took to crack the calm, and marked out the world khalid had built for himself. zainab was meant to be a fleeting distraction; loud where he was quiet, reckless where he was deliberate, a walking contradiction to every rule his precise-and-tradition-bound-life obeyed.

the thing about fire? once it kisses your skin, control becomes nothing but smoke.