Amber & Ivory

Iraaya (19) was to be married to her family friend's son - a decision made long before she was asked what she wanted. They had known each other for years, grown up in the same spaces, shared the same corridors, yet they had never truly spoken about what lingered unspoken between them.
From a young age, Iraaya despised the idea of marriage. She had watched women leave their homes with forced smiles, surrender their surnames, their ambitions, their identities - all to fit into another man's world. She refused to believe love required sacrifice of the self. She calls herself a proud misandrist, though beneath the sharpness of that word lies something far more fragile.
Ahaan, on the other hand, has loved her in silence since he first saw her at seventeen - sunlight caught in her hair, defiance in her eyes. He never approached her. Not because he lacked courage, but because he understood distance. He has always chosen restraint over possession. His devotion is not loud; it is patient. Dangerous in its certainty.
He knows the truth she hides - that behind her resistance and anger is a girl who feels too deeply, who fears being broken more than being alone.