Kabir rarely drank. But that night, he poured glass after glass of something darker than the usual amber.
Meher found him on the rooftop, shirt half-unbuttoned, hair tousled, eyes distant — not sharp like steel, but soft like ruin.
“You’re drunk,” she said quietly.
He didn’t look at her. “For the first time in years.”
She walked closer, cautious. “Why?”
“Because for the first time in years, I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She sat beside him, wrapping her shawl tighter against the wind.
He passed her a photo — wrinkled, edges torn. A younger Kabir. No scars. Smiling wide with a girl around his age. Sister? Friend?
“She was killed over a debt my father owed. They made me watch.”
His voice cracked, just slightly. Like the ice inside had shifted.
“I swore I’d never feel powerless again.”
Meher held the photo gently, her fingers brushing his.
“I’m sorry,” she said, meaning it more than she expected.
He turned to her then, eyes glassy. “Do you ever wonder who we could’ve been, Meher? If we hadn’t been broken?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “But then I remember… broken things still cut deepest.”
He looked at her with something almost like awe.
Because in that moment — wind in her hair, pain in her voice —
Meher didn’t look like a victim.
She looked like the only person who’d ever survived him…
And stayed.
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