10th July, 2020

There are times in life when two souls desperately want to hold on to each other, to spill every emotion bottled up inside, to talk everything out—but they can’t. Sometimes, circumstances interfere. Other times, it's just awkwardness filling the space between them like fog—dense, invisible, and suffocating.

And then, there are moments when you have so much to say, but the other person doesn’t even want to hear it.

That’s how distance creeps into a relationship—not with screaming matches or dramatic exits, but with silence. Lingering silence. Avoided gazes. Words unspoken.

That was exactly what was happening between Shumail and Eram.

Eram had so much to say, so much to explain, but Shumail wasn’t interested in listening. Not anymore.

She had kissed him with every ounce of courage left in her, thinking—naively—that maybe he would feel her heart through that kiss. That maybe, just maybe, her lips would speak the truths her mouth couldn’t. But no. The result? Disaster. Emotional nuclear fallout. He had walked away abruptly, and she hadn’t seen him for two full days. Not even a flicker of his tailored suit or the distant whiff of his expensive cologne.

When he did return, he buried himself in his office and practically installed an “Emotionally Unavailable” sign on the door. Even when they were under the same roof, he avoided her like she was a live wire. Eye contact? Not a chance. She could’ve been a ghost and gotten more attention.

The days felt slow and heavy. Every second that passed seemed to widen the chasm between them. She had promised herself she’d fix everything once he was home. That she’d win back his trust. But nothing was going according to her over-optimistic post-repentance plan.

As she sat in the garden, waiting for her nurse, she stared at the sky like it held the answers. Could she ever win Shumail back? Would she ever be forgiven? She had absolutely zero confidence, but she was still going to try. Stubbornness was her only muscle still working at full strength.

Her thoughts were interrupted when a hand gently grasped the handle of her wheelchair and began pushing her forward.

“Ready for your walking session?” the nurse asked cheerily.

Eram turned to look at her and gave a small nod.

“Your hand movement has improved a lot,” the nurse said, inspecting her cast. “Happy to finally have this off your shoulder?”

“Are you kidding? I’ve been dreaming about throwing it into the fireplace and watching it burn. I’m dramatic like that.”

The nurse chuckled. “Let me check.” She unbuckled the shoulder strap and gently removed the support pouch. “Okay, now slowly try moving your arm.”

Eram winced, slowly letting go of her injured hand, and raised it halfway before the nurse caught it and helped her open it gently.

“Does it hurt?”

“A little. Like when you watch a slow internet buffering circle.”

“Good.” The nurse smiled. “At this rate, you might get the cast removed in a week or even sooner.”

That brought a small, genuine smile to Eram’s face. “You better not be lying. I might throw a tiny rebellion.”

The nurse laughed. “Alright, rebel queen. Let’s start walking.”

The nurse wheeled her to the rehab poles—two sets of parallel bars hammered into the garden walkway. With one hand, the nurse pulled Eram up carefully and positioned her hand on the nearest pole.

“Okay, now try to take a step.”

Eram tried moving her foot, but all she could manage was a twitch in her toes.

“I can’t,” she groaned, defeated. “Even my toes are being drama queens.”

“Keep trying,” the nurse encouraged. “Let me help you.”

With one arm supporting Eram’s shoulder and the other guiding her hand, the nurse helped her inch forward. Eram held onto the pole so tightly, her knuckles turned white. She looked like she was trying to bend the metal with sheer frustration.

By the time she reached the end of the pole, she was gasping.

“I’m done. I have no energy left. This feels like hiking Mount Everest… with both legs asleep.”

The nurse was about to help her sit when Eram spotted a familiar figure heading toward the backyard—Shumail, dressed in his running gear, damp hair, and zero eye contact, of course.

“Can you get me some water?” she blurted out to the nurse quickly.

“Sure, but let me seat you first—”

“No, no. It’s fine. My husband’s here. He’ll help me.”

The nurse hesitated, clearly unsure whether “husband” and “help” still belonged in the same sentence, but nodded and left.

Eram clung to the pole with trembling fingers, praying gravity would show mercy for once in her life. Her grip started to slip.

“Shumail!” she called out.

No response.

“Shumail, help me. My hand’s slipping!” Her voice cracked. Her legs wouldn’t hold her, her hand was about to betray her, and if she fell, her fractures would probably send her straight to round two of the hospital saga.

She heard footsteps—fast ones—coming her way, and just as her fingers slid completely off the pole, she braced herself for the worst.

“Shumaiillll—”

She didn’t hit the ground.

Instead, strong arms caught her mid-fall, and her entire body stilled in those familiar arms. Shumail’s.

Her heart, which had been racing like it was competing in a Formula One race, finally calmed as she opened her eyes and looked at him.

His face was unreadable, but his grip on her was steady.

“Thank you,” she whispered, breathless. “You saved me. Again. Maybe you’re secretly my guardian angel.”

Shumail said nothing.

“I thought I could do it… but apparently, my body still thinks it’s on strike.” She gave a sheepish smile.

He sighed, exasperated. “Why are you doing all this? It won’t change anything, Eram.”

Before she could respond, he scooped her up like she weighed nothing and walked her to the wheelchair. She blinked at him, touched by the gesture, but her heart clenched at the wall still between them.

Once he seated her, she reached up and cupped his cheek. He froze.

“I know I’ve wronged you. And no amount of apologies will undo the pain. But I want to try, Shumail. I’m not asking you to forget what I did. I’m just asking for one chance to make it right.”

He said nothing.

She gently tugged his hand, bringing him down to sit on his toes before her.

“Give me one chance. I want to prove your love changed me,” she whispered.

He looked at her, still silent, his gaze unreadable.

She placed his hand over her heart. “Feel that? It beats for you.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes. “I wish we had met some other way. But even if life brought us together in chaos, I’m still glad it did.”

Shumail blinked slowly.

“You’re the best soul I’ve ever known,” she said softly. “Every little thing you do, even your stubborn silences, somehow make me love you more. And that terrifies me.”

He finally stood up.

“You want a chance?” he asked, his voice low.

“Yes,” she replied instantly.

“Didn’t I already give it to you?” His tone sharpened. “I kept asking. Again and again. And not once did you tell me the truth. That this was a damn plan!”

She lowered her gaze. Her fists clenched on her lap.

“I was ready to forget everything,” he said, voice breaking. “Everything, Eram. I just wanted one thing—your belief in me. But you couldn’t give me that.”

“I…” Her voice cracked. “I…”

He looked at her for a long moment, then let out a weary breath and walked away again.

The air felt heavier the moment he walked away.

Not because he left—but because he didn’t look back.

Eram remained frozen, eyes fixed on the space where Shumail had stood just moments ago. Her fingers still tingled from the brief contact with his skin—his face, his hand, the rawness in his voice.

But that last part—his heart—she wasn’t sure she had touched that at all.

How did someone apologize for breaking the very thing they were entrusted to protect? There was no eloquent speech for that. No dramatic line that could fix it. Just regret and the slow, creeping realization that perhaps she had already run out of chances.

Tears blurred her vision before she could stop them. She wiped them away quickly, irritated at how easily they came these days.

Pathetic, she thought bitterly. Her whole plan—if she could even call it that—had hinged on hope and one dangerously idealistic assumption: that love would be enough. That maybe, just maybe, he would still see something in her worth holding onto.

She glanced down at her legs, half-covered by the blanket in her wheelchair. “Come on, guys,” she muttered under her breath. “We need to have a team meeting. If you both don’t cooperate soon, I’ll have to emotionally blackmail my husband from a wheelchair, and that doesn’t sound sexy at all.”

One toe twitched. Slightly.

Eram raised an eyebrow. “Was that a yes or a sarcastic no?”

The silence that followed told her it was probably the latter.

When the nurse returned with a bottle of water, Eram plastered on her best ‘I’m totally fine’ smile.

“Everything okay?” the nurse asked cautiously.

“Oh, absolutely,” Eram replied brightly. “My husband just carried me like a Bollywood hero, rejected my love like a K-drama lead, and walked off like an Oscar-winning heartbreak. It’s been a productive five minutes.”

The nurse blinked. “...Right.”

Eram sipped the water quietly after that, the silence of the room pressing down on her like the weight of all the words she hadn’t said sooner.

“Didn’t I give it to you already?”

Shumail’s voice echoed in her head again, sharper now. Final.

Yes. He had. He gave her all of him—and in her attempt to protect him from the truth, she had protected nothing but her own guilt.

Still, Eram wasn’t ready to give up. Not yet.
Not until he told her—face to face, heart to heart—that he didn’t love her anymore. Even then, she might need a signed legal affidavit to believe it.

Later that Night

The light spilling from his office door was a small beacon in the otherwise dark hallway. Eram sat in her wheelchair just outside it, debating whether to knock or turn around and wallow in her pride.

Eventually, she knocked—twice—and peeked in. “Permission to enter the dungeon?”

Shumail didn’t look up. “You already did.”

“You didn’t say no,” she said, slowly rolling inside. “That’s progress.”

His eyes remained glued to his laptop. “That’s semantics.”

“I brought peace offerings.”

That got his attention—barely. He raised a brow but said nothing.

“I know,” she continued, holding up a mug, “unless it’s a time machine or a portal to undo the past, it probably doesn’t interest you. But it’s coffee. Your favorite blend.”

He glanced briefly at the mug. “I make better coffee.”

“Sure,” she said, placing it on the desk. “But mine has guilt stirred in. Adds a bitter twist.”

A faint twitch pulled at the corner of his lips, but it disappeared almost immediately.

She smiled softly, hopeful. “Look, I know I said a lot today. Maybe too much. But I just want to be near you. Even if you don’t talk. Even if you don’t look at me. I’ll sit quietly in your silence.”

His gaze flicked toward her. “That sounds contradictory.”

“I’m a contradictory woman,” she said with a shrug. “I betrayed the love of my life... and then fell harder for him.”

That one hit home. He looked away, jaw tightening.

Eram didn’t push further. She sat quietly for a moment, eyes scanning the lines of tension in his shoulders, the way he avoided meeting her gaze.

“I’ll wait,” she whispered. “For as long as it takes. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll haunt you with my pitiful puppy eyes until you get tired of ignoring me.”

“No offense,” he said, voice quieter now, “but your puppy eyes are more raccoon eyes lately. Sleep deprived and... haunting in the wrong way.” She laughed. It surprised even her.

“Then maybe you’ll start feeding me just to shut me up.”

“Don’t count on it.”

Silence fell between them again. This time, less suffocating.

Eram studied his face, searching for the man she once knew and still loved with every fiber of her being. And then, without theatrics or desperation, she said the only truth that mattered right now.

“I miss you, Shumail. And I’ll keep showing up... until you miss me back.”

He said nothing. But his hands stilled on the keyboard, and the untouched coffee sat between them like a silent truce.

For tonight, that was enough.

Assalamualaikum!

Back with an update! I don't know why but this chapter felt heartbreaking to me!

Eram's actually been counting days! Someone tell Shumail about all this! T_T

I seriously don't know how these two will reunite, or if they'll ever get back with each other?!

And if you guys don't know then a new story "Sometjing in the first Snow.." is up on my profile. Go ahead and read the story of Kinza Malik. I'm sure sure you'll love her and everyone else too ;)

Until next time....lamtumirë!