The week drifted past like a dream half-remembered,too fleeting for Kiara, too sluggish for Aryansh, as if time itself had chosen sides.

Aryansh moved through those seven days with a kind of restless devotion. Morning light found him already on his phone, coordinating with decorators who kept asking the same question.“Are you sure you want it this precise?” and receiving the same reply, steady and patient, “Yes. She’ll notice the difference.”

By afternoon he was walking with technicians through the penthouse, adjusting angles of warm lights, debating whether the glow should lean gold or ivory, testing how shadows would fall on the pathways of petals. In the evenings he paced the balcony, imagining the exact moment she would step outside… imagining how her breath would catch, how she might press a hand to her chest, how she might smile as if the whole city had dimmed its pulse just for her.

He kept telling himself he wasn’t nervous, only determined.

Their first anniversary deserved nothing less than precision.
Their first year together deserved celebration, not survival.
Their love,tired, tested, but still theirs…deserved a night untouched by storms.

The penthouse, already elegant in its everyday state, had transformed into something almost unrecognizable. Soft, warm lights curled along the ceiling like captured fireflies. Hundreds of candles stood like quiet sentinels, waiting for the signal to ignite the evening. Flower petals traced delicate trails from the entrance toward the balcony, as if guiding her step by step through a memory he hoped would last forever.

And yet, when it came to the flowers she’d actually hold,he trusted nobody.

He descended to the private garden himself.

The air was thick with the scent of soil and sweetness, a tiny world quiet and green beneath the rush of the city. He crouched among rows of lilies and roses, his fingers careful as he selected each bloom. White lilies are elegant, steady. Soft peach roses are her favorite shade, the one she once said “felt like a sunrise that wasn’t trying too hard.” And the tiny wildflowers she adored, the ones she said looked like “stars that forgot to make it to the sky.”

The gardener approached, wiping his hands. “Sir, we can prepare the bouquet if you want”

“No,” Aryansh murmured, adjusting a baby breath with reverent fingertips. “I’ll do it. She’ll know if I didn’t.”

The gardener stepped back without another word, watching a little awed, a little confused.

Aryansh tied the stems gently, speaking into the quiet, voice barely above a whisper.
“She says she doesn’t want big gestures… but she deserves everything.”
Another rose, angled perfectly.
“I just want her to be happy today.”

His smile was small but certainly hopeful in the way only someone unaware of the coming fracture could be.

Across the city, sunlight pooled over Kiara’s gallery floor, turning paint stains into small patches of color. Her canvases stood half-finished, their stories suspended mid-breath. The room usually hummed with creation, but today it felt still, too still like a museum holding its breath.

Her brush lay untouched.
Her palette cracked at the surface where the paint had dried.
The blue on her fingertips matched the quiet ache spreading behind her ribs.

She kept staring at the blank canvas in front of her as though answers might bleed out of the white if she stared long enough.

Her phone screen still glowed from the email:

The papers are finalized. Signed. Ready.

It should have brought relief.
It should have been closure.
Instead, it felt like someone had dropped a stone straight into her chest and let it sink.

She set the phone down carefully, almost ceremonially, as if any sudden movement might shatter something fragile inside her.

“Why today?” she breathed into the sun-lit silence. “Of all days… why today?”

She stood, walked to the window, then to the corner, then back again each movement restless, like she was trying to outrun her own thoughts. Nothing helped. The storm in her didn’t quiet; it thickened.

Soft footsteps approached.

Rhea’s voice drifted in from the doorway, gentle and hesitant. “Kiara? Do you need anything? You’ve been staring at that canvas for an hour.”

Kiara pulled together a smile thin as tissue paper. “Just… thinking.”

“Tonight, right? Your anniversary?” Rhea stepped inside, softening her tone. “Should I help you pick a dress? Or your shoes? Or”

“Not yet,” Kiara whispered, almost flinching at the word anniversary.

Rhea studied her. “You look worried.”

“I’m fine,” Kiara said quickly, too quickly. Her voice calmed a beat later. “Just… a lot on my mind.”

“Work?” Rhea asked.

Kiara nodded even though the truth sat at her feet like broken glass. “Yes.”

Rhea lingered a moment, then gave her a kind look. “If you need anything, I’m here.”

After she left, silence settled again,but this silence felt heavier, like it had learned the shape of her worry.

Kiara lifted the brush, dipped it into warm brown, held it poised over the blank canvas… and froze.

Her pulse stuttered.

The brush trembled.

“What am I even doing?” she whispered.

She lowered it again.

Her phone buzzed another reminder from her lawyer.

The courier is scheduled. The package will arrive within the week.

Her stomach twisted.

“Happy anniversary to us…” she said under her breath, the words tasting bitter and tired. “This is not what I imagined or how I imagined this would go… I was supposed to not feel this must be just overthinking I’ll get what I want.”

She pressed her fingers to her eyes, breathing slowly and straining not crying, but holding herself together the way someone holds a door shut against a storm.

She wasn’t supposed to fall apart today.
Not today, of all days.

“I came this far,” she whispered. “I can’t stop now.”

But the tremor in her voice betrayed the quiet truth: she didn’t know how to keep going without breaking something.

And high above the city, Aryansh tied a ribbon around the finished bouquet, stepping back to admire it. It was perfect. Everything was perfect.

Lights.
Flowers.
Dinner under the sky.
Their song is waiting for the speaker.
A night crafted with devotion and hope.

He breathed in deeply, a calm smile settling across his face.

“Tonight will be perfect,” he said softly.

Across the city, Kiara stared at her shaking hands…
and wondered how she would tell the man decorating the world for her
that she had already signed the documents capable of undoing it.

After perfecting the last sweep of petals on the balcony floor, Aryansh stepped back from the glowing penthouse, letting himself look at it the way she would, a soft constellation of lights, flowers, and intentions. Yet even with everything in place, he felt one thread still loose, tugging gently at the edge of his mind.

Clothes.

Something no decorator’s hands should touch. Something that needed to come from him, chosen with the quiet care she always noticed, even if she never said it aloud.

He locked the penthouse behind him and headed to the boutique with purpose sharpened by affection.

The shop greeted him with gentle instrumentals and the muted gleam of fabric. The salesperson at the entrance straightened immediately.
“Sir, do you need help choosing something?”

“No.” His eyes were already moving across the rows. “I know what I’m looking for.”

He drifted through the aisles like someone reading a language only he knew. Sequined gowns dismissed. Dark silks are too heavy. Dresses loud enough to demand attention Kiara never needed that. She had a softness that made rooms pause without effort.

His hand brushed a pastel yellow fabric and stilled.

A frock hung there simple, delicate in its restraint. When he lifted it free, the skirt flowed like a quiet breath. The color wasn’t loud sunshine but something gentler, like morning light slipping into a room before the world wakes. A shade that could soothe, warm, coax a smile.

He imagined Kiara standing in it, the fabric catching the breeze, her shoulders relaxing the way they only did when she felt at ease.

“This one,” he murmured, more to the dress than anyone around.

The salesperson reappeared with a knowing nod. “It’s one of our newest arrivals. Hand-embroidered neckline. Should I pack it?”

“Yes.” He hesitated. “Wait.”

He followed a familiar scent of fresh jasmine. At the accessories counter, strings of gajras lay curled like soft white moons. He picked one up, lifted it toward his face, and breathed in.

The fragrance tugged at a memory: Kiara standing on their balcony late at night, her hair adorned with jasmine, telling him she felt like she was “carrying home in her hair,” voice soft enough that he’d wanted to cup it in his hands and keep it safe.

He chose not one but three, placing them gently on the counter.

“These too,” he said.

The salesperson’s voice floated from behind him. “And for you, sir?”

He turned toward the men’s section. Rows of colors waited navy, maroon, charcoal, ivory. Reliable, formal, predictable. The kinds of shades he wore to meetings, to events, to days that meant nothing personal.

Today wasn’t one of those days.

His gaze moved past the expected… and caught on a softer yellow. A kurta, simple and well-shaped, its hue aligning perfectly with the dress he’d chosen for her. He reached for it. The fabric was light beneath his fingers, soft in a way that made the moment feel intentional, not accidental.

The color felt like warmth stretched into fabric. Like a promise. Like a small, glowing thread that tied him to everything he hoped for tonight.

There were endless choices in the boutique. Dozens of safer options. But he wasn’t choosing for appearance he was choosing for meaning.

And today, meaning mattered more than anything.

“Yes,” he said, almost under his breath, as if saying it too loudly might break the fragile hope sitting in his chest. “This one.”

The bags were packed, tissue paper crackling softly as they were sealed. When the salesperson handed them over, Aryansh’s fingers closed around the handles with a tenderness that surprised even him.

He pictured Kiara’s reaction,not dramatic, not overdone. Just that subtle widening of her eyes, that quiet exhale she made when something reached her heart without warning. He pictured her touching the embroidery. Smiling when she saw the gajras. Noticing the matching color of his kurta and teasing him, softly, the way she used to.

He stepped out of the boutique into the late afternoon air, the sky glowing amber as if the world itself was preparing for evening.

The dress and gajras were in one hand.
His matching kurta in the other.
And in the space between his ribs, a silent prayer nestled,small, steady, persistent.

He wanted her to feel cherished. Not overwhelmed. Not dazzled.

Just held.
Understood.
Loved in a way that steadied her, no matter how the world spun.

Especially today.

Especially now, when he didn’t know how much she was struggling to hold her own heart together.

He stepped back from the final trail of petals in the penthouse, checking the glow of each light, the angle of each candle, the symmetry of the pathways he'd crafted. He had gone over everything twice, maybe more but satisfaction only settled when the place looked exactly like the memory he’d been carrying in his mind all week.

Only then did he grab his keys and slip into the elevator, the bouquet of jasmine-scented hope still lingering in the apartment behind him.

The drive from the penthouse to the gallery blurred into a single, steady heartbeat. He barely registered the shifting colors of traffic lights, the soft hum of the engine under his hands. His mind was already in the studio with her.

When he pushed through the gallery door, the familiar scent rushed up to meet him—paint, turpentine, solvents, and the faint, warm undertone of sunlit wood. A scent he’d come to associate with Kiara’s world, her moods, her storms.

Rhea straightened in surprise.
“Aryansh sir? I didn’t–”

He lifted a finger to his lips.

Instant understanding flickered in her eyes. She nodded, lowering her voice. “She’s been in there for a while.”

He moved past her quietly, the soft thud of his shoes echoing through the gallery’s stillness. When he reached the door to Kiara’s private studio, he pushed it open with a gentleness that felt instinctive.

She didn’t turn.

She sat in her chair, spine tense, shoulders fragile-looking beneath the soft green dress she’d worn that morning. Her hair was tied in a loose knot, strands falling out on one side. A faint streak of dried paint glimmered along her wrist like a bruise of color.

The canvas in front of her was blank an unmoved sheet of silence.

He crossed the room and wrapped his arms around her from behind, pulling her into the warmth of him with steady care.

Her entire body jolted.
“Woah—!” Her breath hitched sharply. Then she sagged into him just as fast, her shoulders loosening. “You scared me.”

She tilted her head just enough for her cheek to brush his. “You didn’t call.”

“I don’t need to call if I want to surprise you, dove.” His lips brushed her temple, soft as a sigh. She leaned into it before she even realized she had.

His gaze swept over the untouched canvas. Blank. Wide. Quiet. He didn’t need to ask what it meant, but he did anyway his voice a low hum against her ear.
“Still nothing?”

She shook her head faintly. “Didn’t get any ideas today.”

The exhaustion in her voice wasn’t the kind that came from work. It was heavier. Older. Weight pressing down on her ribs.

He didn’t say the hundreds of things hovering behind his tongue. Instead, he gently touched her chin and lifted her face toward him.
“Let’s go. Pack up, otherwise the bride herself will be late for her anniversary.”

A fragile smile came to life half-formed, weary, but real.
“Right.”

She moved mechanically, cleaning her brushes with automatic gestures. Putting paints away. Wiping the table even though it didn’t need wiping. Rhea appeared in the doorway again, concerned soft in her eyes.

Kiara spoke before Rhea could. “Lock up after you finish the inventory, okay?”

Rhea nodded. “I will. Have a good evening, both of you.”

The late afternoon sun washed the outside world in warm gold when they stepped out. Shadows stretched long across the pavement, and the air carried that quiet in-between feeling of day slipping into night.

Aryansh walked a step ahead, then turned with a half-bow of teasing charm.
“Shall we?”

Her fingers slid onto his arm with a softness she didn’t feel inside. “We shall.”

He opened the car door for her with an easy, old-fashioned courtesy he never abandoned. But as she angled herself to sit, something inside the car caught her eyes.

A bouquet.

Peach roses. Baby’s breath. Fresh and impossibly gentle. Arranged not like a florist’s piece but like something shaped by uncertain hands trying very hard to get it right.

She froze at the sight. Only for a breath but enough for him to notice.

“From which shop did you buy these?” she asked, her voice steady but her heart anything but.

His hand drifted to the back of his neck, rubbing it awkwardly.
“Uhh… I handpicked.”

The faintest red warmed his ears. His eyes darted away, like admitting this was more embarrassing than any business meeting, any public event.

He had picked each flower himself.

For her.

The realization struck her like a sudden, unexpected current sharp, warm, disarming. Something inside her twisted painfully, as if a thread she’d been gripping too tightly finally snapped.

Why did it hurt?
Why did it soothe?
Why did it make everything more complicated than before?

She swallowed the knot rising in her throat.

“They’re beautiful,” she whispered, brushing a petal with trembling fingers.

His smile came slowly, gentle, and deeply certain.
“Good. They’re supposed to be.”

He shut the door softly, as if afraid of disturbing the moment she hadn’t fully understood herself.

And somewhere in that quiet, between the bouquet in her lap and the man walking around to the driver’s seat, the world tilted just enough to make her wonder how she was ever going to carry the truth she had to give him tonight.

Once they reached home, Aryansh set the shopping bags gently on the bed as though placing something fragile, something alive.

“I… kind of shopped for both of us,” he admitted, opening the zipper with a flourish that didn’t match the faint nervousness flickering in his eyes.

Kiara crossed her arms, trying to mask how exhausted she felt.
Her gaze landed on the soft yellow fabric sunlight made tangible, warm even from across the room.

“Ansh,” she said, brow arching with teasing disbelief, “it’s not our haldi. It’s our anniversary.”

“I know.” His answer came without hesitation. He held up the dress, letting the fabric spill like liquid dawn between his fingers. When he placed it lightly against her, he measured the way it fell, how the color played against her skin. “But yellow means joy. Happiness. And honestly… nothing felt right except this.”

The smile that followed wasn’t casual, it was the kind of smile that came from the center of him, unguarded, bright. A simple truth offered without a shield.

She stared at the dress again. It was beautiful. Thoughtful. And far more personal than she expected.

“Alright,” she breathed. “I’ll go get ready. It’s almost time.”

He nodded, already reaching for his own bag.
“I’ll change in Ayush’s room so you take your time.”

The mention of Ayush’s room was almost a warning because the moment Aryansh opened that door, reality struck.

Ayush was sprawled on the beanbag, legs thrown over the armrest, headset half-on, eyes glued to the PS5 screen.

“Why are you in my room?” Ayush asked without looking up. “Did bhabhi kick you out?”

“Idiot. No. I left so she can get ready,” Aryansh muttered, nudging Ayush’s ankle with mock irritation. “Move. I need the mirror.”

“Then use the mirror without kicking me off the game,” Ayush said, offering a controller like a devil offering temptation. “I’ll get ready later. It’s just clothes. One game?”

Aryansh hesitated.

He had candles waiting.
Guests arriving.
A plan timed down to the minute.

Yet here was Ayush, grinning like a child who knew exactly how to unravel him.

He took the controller. “Only one round. And if I lose, I’m blaming you.”

“You always blame me.”
“You always deserve it.”

The room erupted into chaotic sibling warfare shouting, cursing, arguing, laughing.
Buttons clicked like rapid-fire.
Ayush accused him of cheating.
Aryansh accused him of being blind.

For a few minutes, they were not the polished Singhania brothers the world expected. They were just two boys who grew up stealing each other’s food, ruining each other’s homework, and secretly loving each other more fiercely than either would ever admit.

Meanwhile, Kiara stepped out of the bath, steam curling around her like a fading dream. She towel-dried her hair, her gaze falling once again on the yellow dress draped across the bed.

Yellow.
Joy.
Meaning.

It weighed heavier than fabric should.

She slipped into it slowly, the hem whispering against her skin. The fit was so perfect she wondered if he’d remembered her measurements or simply remembered her.

The mirror reflected someone beautiful delicately.
But her eyes told a different story.
Brightness threaded with conflict.
Softness wrapped around something sharp.

She whispered to her reflection, “Get it together,” even though she already felt herself fracturing at the seams.

She pinned the gajra into her hair. Its fragrance rose like a memory of childhood, like old summers, like safety and that only made the ache deepen.

She dialed Aryansh.

No reply.

She tried again.

Still nothing.

She exhaled, somewhere between fondness and frustration, and went searching.

When she found her mother-in-law, the older woman looked her up and down with a kind of tender pride. “You look lovely, beta. They must be in Ayush’s room. Those two forget the world when they play.”

Kiara followed the hallway and right as she reached the door, it swung open.

Inside, chaos froze mid-motion.

Ayush dropped his controller.
Aryansh’s mouth hung open.
Both stared like children caught stealing sweets.

Their mother stood in the doorway, hands on hips, her patience long evaporated.
“Ayush and Aryansh Singhania,” she said, her voice sharp enough to slice tension in half.

Both brothers straightened instantly.

Ayush looked like someone who’d seen the end of the world.
Aryansh looked like someone reconsidering every life choice he’d made that day.

Kiara held the doorframe and bit her lip, trying desperately not to laugh.

Their mother stepped in, eyes blazing.
“Is this how two grown men behave on an anniversary day? Guests will arrive soon. Your father is downstairs. And look at you—one in a towel, the other in yesterday’s shorts!”

“Ma–listen..” Aryansh tried.

“You keep quiet,” she snapped.

Ayush wasted no time. “He dragged me into playing!”

Aryansh looked betrayed. “You gave me the controller!”

“You agreed!”
“You tempted me!”
“You’re weak!”
“You’re shameless!”

Their mother glared at both of them and, without warning, tugged each of their ears.

“MAAAA!” they howled in tandem. “We’re grown-ups!”

She twisted a little harder. “If you are grown-ups, behave like grown-ups.”

Ayush groaned dramatically. “Ma, don’t! I need these ears!I have a date next week!”

“You need sense first,” she said, flicking his forehead with impressive precision.

Then she turned to Aryansh. “And you. Your wife is downstairs looking like a dream, and you’re here acting like a ten-year-old.”

The words hit him square in the chest.

He glanced at Kiara and the world seemed to pause.

The yellow dress.
The jasmine in her hair.
Her soft, quiet beauty.

He forgot the game.
Forgot the scolding.
Forgot time.

For a moment, he simply stared.

“Go,” their mother commanded, shooing them away. “Both of you. Get ready before I take a broom to you.”

“Yes, Ma,” they echoed, shoulders slumped in identical defeat.

As she walked off, Ayush whispered fiercely,
“Bro, she gets scarier every year.”

“You deserve it,” Aryansh muttered.
“You agreed to play!”
“That’s not the point!”
“It literally is!”

Their bickering trailed behind them as they rushed to get dressed.

Kiara shook her head softly, her smile blooming despite the heaviness inside.

And for a moment, just one fleeting moment, joy managed to slip through the cracks.

The evening settled around them like a soft curtain gold turned to amber, chatter dissolved into echoes, and the last of the relatives stepped out with warm goodbyes trailing behind them. The house, moments ago a hive of laughter, grew still. Almost reverent.

Kiara stood in the hallway, the hem of her yellow dress brushing her ankles, carrying the warmth of the day but also the ache of it. Yellow joy, hope. A color chosen with tenderness. Yet under her ribs sat a silence sharp enough to bruise.

Aryansh exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. When he turned, there she was leaning lightly against the banister, fingers trailing along the carved wood as though she needed something solid to anchor her.

“Dove,” he murmured, his voice softened by the hush of the crowded house, “come. I set everything up.”

She swallowed. The word everything pressed against her chest.
His plans.
Her secrets.
A collision waiting to happen.

He walked toward her, each step heavy with a sweetness that tightened the air. When he reached her, he paused not touching, not crowding, just watching her with that unguarded devotion he didn’t bother hiding anymore.

“You sure you’re not tired?” he asked gently. “We can start later, if you want.”

His kindness made her exhale unevenly. “No. I’m alright.”

He smiled, small and earnest. “Then come.”

He offered his hand, palm open. A quiet invitation. Not a demand. Never a demand.

She hesitated only a second before placing her hand in his. His fingers closed around hers like a promise he didn’t know was slipping through her grasp.

He led her down  the stairs, their steps slow, the house around them humming with the glow of celebration.

When they reached their room, he pushed the door open, and the soft yellow of fairy lights greeted them strung across the wall, woven through the curtains, glimmering like tiny suns caught in spun thread. On the table sat candles waiting to be lit, petals scattered with a deliberate, delicate hand.

He had created a cocoon of warmth.

For her.
For them.

She stepped inside, and for one impossible moment, she felt suspended in a space made of tenderness.

Aryansh watched her reaction like a man hoping for sunlight after weeks of cloud. “Do you like it?” he asked, voice low.

Her throat tightened. “It’s… beautiful.”

His shoulders relaxed. A breath of relief, so pure it hurt her more than anything else.

“Good,” he said, moving to light the candles. The soft glow curled around them, wrapping the room in a kind of quiet that invited confessions or destroyed them.

Kiara stood still, fingers clasped together.
The dress felt too perfect.
The lights too gentle.
The moment too painfully kind.

He turned back to her once the candles flickered fully to life. His gaze softened as he walked closer.

“You’ve been a little distant today,” he said quietly, not accusing, just noticing because he always noticed. “Is something bothering you?”

Her breath caught.

This was the moment.
This was the edge of the truth.
The night he wanted to turn into a memory.
The night she feared would become a wound.

She opened her mouth
but the words stayed trapped under everything she hadn’t yet gathered the courage to say.

He reached out, brushing a stray curl from her cheek, fingertips gentle as a whisper. “Kiara… talk to me.”

She closed her eyes.

The lights glowed softly.
The room waited.
Her heart trembled.

And the afternoon stretched before them golden, fragile, and on the verge of breaking.

Between all the laughter those bright little bursts that ricocheted off walls and plates and half-finished conversations and the playful teasing that stitched the family together like a familiar quilt, a thin, metallic chime cut through the warmth. It didn’t belong. It was too sharp, too precise.

A soft ring echoed from the entrance.

“Courier,” someone announced, careless, as if naming the color of the sky.

Kiara felt her stomach fall in a slow spiral, as though gravity had singled her out.

She slipped away from the crowd, letting the tide of relatives conceal her retreat. Aunts arguing over recipes, cousins showing off new phone cases she became a shadow threading through them, quiet, unremarkable, invisible by intent. At the door, the delivery man waited with a kind of polite impatience, holding out a brown envelope that looked absurdly ordinary.

Plain. Unassuming. And somehow, for her, dangerous enough to make the air sting.

“Sign here, ma’am,” he said, tapping the form.

Her fingers trembled, a private earthquake she hoped no one else could see. She signed quickly and pressed the envelope to her chest as though it might leap from her hands if she loosened her grip even a little. Then she turned, almost tripping over the welcome rug, and hurried upstairs with the controlled panic of someone trying not to run.

Inside her room, the door clicked shut with a small, traitorous sound too loud in the hush that followed. She forced her bag open, shoved the envelope inside, and zipped it up with frantic precision. Her breaths came unevenly, as if her lungs hadn’t been warned about any of this.

“Calm down,” she whispered to herself.
“Just… calm down.”

The words were fragile. They barely survived the air.

She wiped away the thin sheen of sweat gathering at her temples, pressed her dress flat again, and practiced the illusion of collectedness until her reflection looked almost like her. Then, the absence turned into suspicion… before he noticed…

She walked downstairs.

And he didn’t notice at all.

Because the moment she rejoined the crowd, he was laughing head thrown back, eyes bright poking Ayush for sneaking another plate of dessert, as if the whole world was made of harmless sweetness.

The guilt pulled deeper, an ember sinking into her ribs, glowing where no one could see.

Evening settled like a soft veil over everything hushed, tender, touched with the ache of goodbyes. When the final guests drifted out and the door clicked shut behind the last lingering relative, Aryansh reached for her hand. The gesture was simple, but his fingers wrapped around hers with a familiarity that once felt like home.

“Ready, dove?” he asked, voice lowered as though this moment was a secret only the two of them could hear.

“…yes,” she answered, though the word barely had a spine.

In the parking area, the world smelled of cooling concrete and night air. He pulled out the blindfold with a kind of reverence, as if the cloth held a ritual. His touch was impossibly gentle, no force, no hurry, just a quiet wrapping of fabric over her eyes, as though shielding her from the rest of the world. He guided her to the car, one steady hand on her arm, and she followed him with the obedient stillness of someone who is afraid her own heartbeat might betray her.

The drive was silent except for the engine’s hum. She kept her palms pressed together, her chest tight, afraid that the frantic drumming inside her ribcage was loud enough to rattle the windows.

At the penthouse, he became her compass again, his voice soft, close.

“Careful.”
“One more step.”
“Almost there.”

She felt her bag being lifted from her shoulder, and heard it settle onto the console table. Then the warmth of him behind her, his breath grazing the shell of her ear.

“Ready?”

She nodded.

The blindfold unfurled under his fingers, and the world opened like a slow-blooming flower.

Candles dotted the penthouse, their flames swaying as though whispering secrets of their own. Soft light brushed the walls with gold. Flower petals trailed across the floor in intricate shapes, circles that suggested forever, spirals that whispered persistence, delicate pathways leading nowhere and everywhere at once. The petals were a touch wilted at the edges, but the intention behind them pulsed like a heartbeat.

He pointed toward a bouquet on the table.

Ninety-nine roses.
One rose tucked among them with petals that would never fade.

His voice dipped to almost nothing.
“I know this line is overrated… but just so you know, I’ll love you until the last rose withers.”

Her smile rose like a fragile tide beautiful, shimmering, laced with a pain no light could soften.

“Aryansh…”

He didn’t give her time to gather the pieces of herself.

He lifted a balloon tied with a note. The latex rustled gently, playful, innocent. He handed it to her like an offering.

Inside the first note:

I know I made mistakes at the beginning, leaving you alone for three months. Forgive me.

Then balloon two:

Sorry for every mistake I made in present and past

Balloon three:

Thank you for giving me another chance.

Balloon four carried a small polaroid leaning against him on their first date after they stitched themselves back together the first time. Both of them smiled too brightly, as if trying to convince the camera that everything was fine.

Balloon five held an image of her laughing in the kitchen while he stood behind her with a wooden spoon, pretending he knew what he was doing.

Each memory felt like a small hand pressing against her ribs not hurting, but widening the cracks already spreading there. Each apology felt heavier than the last. Each gesture felt like love trying to rewrite a truth she had already been forced to face.

She should’ve felt her heart lift.
She should’ve felt warmth flood her.

Instead, the papers inside her bag dragged at her like an anchor pulling her into a dark sea. Every reminder of his devotion made her sinking feel sharper, crueler.

She looked at him, hope shining in his eyes like a star reaching for dawn and her smile wavered, trembling at the edges.

“Kiara?” he asked quietly, searching her face. “You okay?”

“I…” She swallowed hard. Her voice felt scraped raw. “I want to go to the washroom.”

A small crease formed between his brows, but he nodded. “Okay, dove. Take your time.”

She walked into the washroom and turned the lock with a soft snap. Relief unfurled inside her like a shudder. She exhaled for the first time in hours, maybe days.

She pressed both palms against the sink cool porcelain grounding her, though her knees felt unsteady. Her reflection met her like a stranger she was trying to remember. The makeup is flawless. The smile is still painted carefully. But her eyes…

They told the truth. They didn’t know how to lie tonight.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered to the girl in the mirror. Her voice barely made it past her lips.

But she knew she would.

One year of marriage had already etched itself into the quiet corners of her life.
And tonight, despite the candlelit promises blooming outside the door…

was the beginning of the end.

The story can deepen from either side her turmoil, his unawareness, or the slow unraveling of the truth waiting in that envelope.

Night deepened around the penthouse, gathering itself like a velvet cloak drawn close against the windows. Shadows softened the walls, stretching long and quiet, as if even they understood they were trespassing on an intimate, unraveling moment. The candles, small sentinels of warmth flickered with a kind of hesitant gentleness, their flames wavering as though they were wary of witnessing the truth about to bare itself.

Behind the washroom door, Kiara steadied her breathing in shallow, measured pulls. The mirror still held the ghost of the tears she had wiped away, the faint shine on her cheeks betraying the storm she’d tried to tame.
“Let’s take what you wanted for a long Kiara…what you feel are just imaginations.”
Her fingers, damp and unsteady, lingered over the cool edge of the sink, gathering whatever strength she had left to step back into the world outside a world she knew was already beginning to shift beneath her feet.

Meanwhile, Aryansh drifted toward the console table with a quiet, unassuming ease. His footsteps made barely a whisper on the polished floor. There was a softness curled in the curve of his smile, an affection that had grown from years of shared glances, familiar arguments, and the unspoken comfort of belonging to someone.

Her bag sat exactly where Kiara had left it leaning as if caught mid-motion, like it had tried to follow her but lost its nerve halfway. A familiar sight, one he had gently teased her about for years.

“Kiara always forgets this,” he murmured, voice touched by something tender routine affection woven through the smallest of habits. He let out a fond, barely-there sigh and reached for the bag, fingers brushing the worn leather handle.

The strap slid from his hand like silk.

Gravity curled its fingers around the bag’s belly and pulled.

Everything spilled soft objects tumbling, light things scattering, the clutter of a life unfolding at his feet. A comb skittered under the table with a little wooden click. A lipstick rolled in a lazy arc. Her sketchbook landed open-faced, paper sighing against the floor as though it too had something to confess. And then came the envelope, last and heaviest even without weight, somehow the heaviest of all.

It hit the floor with a subdued thud that didn’t belong to paper. It sounded like a consequence.

He crouched automatically, instinctively, collecting her things with the quiet muscle memory of someone who had done this a thousand times without thinking.

Then his hand brushed the envelope.

No name. No markings, only her address nestled in the corner with an unnerving stillness, like a secret trying too hard not to be seen.

The flap wasn’t sealed cleanly. It gaped, just slightly, the kind of careless closure that spoke of haste… or fear. As though the fingers closing it had trembled. As though they had faltered.

A faint line gathered between his brows, the kind of frown that didn’t need anger to exist just confusion wrapped in a thin ribbon of worry.

He lifted the envelope, the weight of what he did not yet know settling into his palm.

Curiosity nudged at him soft and natural, the kind that grows in the space between trust and familiarity. Nothing sharp. Nothing accusatory. Only the quiet expectation that the world he knew would remain the world he knew.

He eased the papers free.

Paper slid against paper, whispering secrets directly into the hush the penthouse held.

He read the first line.

The universe shifted.

Confusion flickered.
A blink.
The kind that tries to deny what the eyes have clearly seen.

Then understanding came, too fast, like a tide that didn’t bother to check whether the shore was ready.

Something caved in his chest subtle, silent, but devastating. His breath stuttered, catching on the sharp edge of disbelief. The sound that escaped him was thin and broken at the edges, nothing like the steady voice that usually commanded rooms with quiet authority.

His knees wavered, grounding him only because the floor had nowhere else for him to fall. The papers trembled against his fingers; the words etched on them seemed to tremble back.

The bathroom door clicked open.

Footsteps, soft as apologies.

Kiara emerged with a fragile composure, a mask stitched together quickly too quickly. Her cheeks bore the faint remnants of what she had tried to wash away. Her shoulders were lifted in a posture of borrowed calm. She had hoped the night would forgive her just a few more minutes.

She saw the envelope first.

Her body stilled.

Her gaze traced the path she feared it would: the torn-open flap, the papers in his hand, the cracking expression on his face.

The quiet inside her sank like a stone dropped into deep water.

Aryansh lifted his head.

There was no blaze in his eyes. No heat. No accusation.

Just the raw, stripped-down ache of a man standing inside the wreckage of a future he had lovingly built with both hands.

She whispered his name, her voice trembling with the fragile edges of truth. “Aryansh…”

He said her name like it might shatter if spoken too loud.

“Dov- no…Kiara,” he breathed. His voice had steadiness only heartbreak could force an unnatural calm stretched too thin. “What… is this?”

The question didn’t rise.
It didn’t cut.
It simply collapsed in the space between them, turning the silence into something sharp enough to bleed.

The room held its breath, as if waiting to see which of them would step into the storm now gathering at their feet.