Written For Us

Kiara Malik has spent her entire life being told who she should be.

The perfect daughter. The future doctor. The girl who carries herself with grace, never makes mistakes, and eventually marries someone "suitable."

But Kiara has never been good at following expectations.

With sharp green eyes, a sharper tongue, and a black BMW M3 everyone on campus recognises instantly, the twenty year old medical student is known for being intimidating, stubborn, and impossible to get close to. Beneath the confidence and late-night drives through London, however, is a girl constantly trying to hold herself together under the pressure of family, culture, and the exhausting reality of becoming a doctor.

Then there's Zayd Mirza.

A maths student with a black M4, a disciplined routine, and an unreadable calmness that gets under Kiara's skin more than she'd ever admit. Tall, quiet, and frustratingly observant, Zayd is the type of man people naturally respect - the type her brothers trust instantly and her mother never stops praising.

Kiara, unfortunately, cannot stand him.

Or at least that's what she tells herself.

Because no matter how hard she tries, Zayd always seems to notice the things nobody else does. The exhaustion hidden behind her sarcasm. The pressure she pretends doesn't affect her. The moments she feels like she's falling apart while everyone around her believes she has everything under control.

When their Bengali Muslim families begin pushing them toward an arranged marriage neither of them asked for, irritation slowly turns into something far more dangerous.

And somewhere between crowded family dinners, late-night conversations, jealousy neither of them will admit to, and feelings they're terrified to name, Kiara begins to realise that the one person she keeps trying to push away may be the only person who truly understands her.

But love was never meant to be simple.

Especially when it starts with two people convinced they could never belong together.