She walked into my room, and I handed her a clean shirt.

"I should probably leave some of my clothes here," she joked. "And a toothbrush."

My heart did this stupid, swelling thing in my chest, so full of love for her it was almost painful. I could picture it instantly, vividly: a drawer of her things next to mine. Her toothbrush in the holder. The right to walk over and kiss her whenever I wanted. Waking up to her face on the pillow next to mine every single morning. The certainty that she was mine.

"You do have a toothbrush here," I teased back, wanting to make her smile, to keep this easy peace between us. "The one you used last time." Now that she knew how desperately I wanted her, I was terrified of scaring her off. I just wanted her to feel safe.

I watched her through the open bathroom door as she took off her makeup. Even like this, scrubbing her face clean, she was the most captivating thing I'd ever seen. I wanted to cross the room, to step into that small space with her, push her against the sink, and just kiss her until neither of us could think straight.

"Can I use the tub?" she asked unexpectedly, pulling me from the fantasy.

"Sure," I responded, a laugh bubbling up. Of all the things I thought she might say or do, that wasn't one of them.

"Great!" she called out, her voice suddenly bright and excited from inside the bathroom. "It's been a while since I've had a clean bathroom. The ones at the hostel are like a horror story."

I chuckled, relieved to see her acting like herself again—silly, particular, adorable.

"Thanks, da," she said, her voice softer now.

Thirty minutes had slipped by, and the bathroom was still silent. A thread of worry began to weave through me. Had she fallen asleep? Was she okay? I knocked softly on the door. "Fiza?"

"Come in."

The invitation was so casual, that I pushed the door open without thinking. And then I stopped dead. She was submerged in the tub, hidden under a mountain of fluffy white foam, looking like an absolute vision. She was grinning, her face lit up with a pure, childlike joy, as if she'd just discovered the magic of bubbles for the very first time.

"I didn't realize you were still in the bath," I stammered, my voice suddenly thick. The sight of her—her damp hair clinging to her neck, her smooth shoulders rising from the sea of suds—sent a jolt of pure, undiluted desire straight through me. My blood rushed south, and I knew she could see the obvious, straining evidence of it against my boxers. Her eyes dropped, and I saw her breath catch.

I took an automatic step back but she called out, stopping me. "It's okay, come in."

I moved as if in a trance, sitting gingerly on the cold porcelain edge of the tub. My mind was screaming, acutely, painfully aware that beneath those innocent, shifting bubbles, she was completely naked. Every shift of the water, every peek of her skin—a knee, a shoulder—was pure torture. My eyes roamed over her, drinking in the details: the damp tendrils of hair at her temples, the sleek curve of her shoulder, the delicate cap of a knee peeking through the foam.

It was becoming impossible to breathe, let alone think. I was fighting a losing battle against myself.

And she just smiled at me, seemingly oblivious to the devastating effect she was having on my every sense and my last shred of self-control.

"Fiza," I managed to utter, the words coming out as a low, desperate purr. "Do you know how much this is torturing me?"

The smile on her lips softened into something else. She nodded.

"I want you too," she whispered softly.

Every rule, every reason, every obstacle vanished, leaving only her whispered admission and the overwhelming, terrifying rightness of it.

Moving almost without conscious thought, I shifted to the side of the tub near her head and swiveled, lowering my legs into the warm, soapy water beside her. I hesitated for a fraction of a second, a final check. She said she wanted me too. That was permission. This was real.

Leaning forward, I cradled her beautiful face in my hands, and pressed a gentle kiss to her lips. It was soft, a barely-there touch, giving her every chance to pull away.

But she didn't. She just looked at me, her eyes wide with shock, her body perfectly still, as if she'd stopped breathing. Emboldened, driven by a need I could no longer contain, I let my hand slide from her face. It drifted down the sensitive column of her neck, over the smooth slope of her shoulder, and finally came to rest over the soft, tantalizing swell of her breast, just visible above the bubbles.

She gasped and her chest rose and fell with heavy, ragged breaths. I could see the pulse hammering in her throat. I kissed the side of her neck, tasting the clean scent of her skin and she moaned. I captured her lips again, swallowing her own soft sounds, kissing her until I felt her begin to tremble from head to toe.

What started as soft, exploratory kisses quickly spiraled into something more urgent, more desperate. Her body shook and shuddered under my touch, responding to sensations that were clearly, beautifully new to her.

"You are mine," I whispered against her ear, before claiming her mouth once more.

I wanted more. God, I wanted so much more. To brush away the bubbles and see all of her. To trace every curve with my hands and my lips. To be inside her, to finally make her completely and utterly mine.

But the thought was a splash of cold reality. This was Fiza. This wasn't some casual hookup. She was trembling, she was new to this. And she was everything to me. With a Herculean effort, I broke the kiss, my forehead resting against hers, our breath mingling in ragged pants.

"We should stop," I breathed, the words agony as I forced myself to pull back, to look into her dazed, passion-clouded eyes. I had to stop. Because if I didn't stop now, I wouldn't be able to. And she deserved more than a frantic, clumsy first time in a bathtub. She deserved everything.

She just nodded, her eyes wide and dazed, and I knew with absolute certainty that she wouldn't have been the one to put on the brakes.

I climbed out of the tub, my clothes soaked and clinging to me.

"Can you turn around and pass me the towel?" she asked in a small voice.

I chuckled. "Yeah, of course." I turned my back, giving her privacy, and heard the soft slosh of water and the rustle of the towel.

I left the bathroom and quickly peeled off my wet clothes and pulled on a pair of sleep shorts and a thin t-shirt, my mind replaying every second of what had just happened. The feel of her skin, the taste of her, the way she'd trembled against me.

I heard her moving around, brushing her teeth, and then she appeared in the doorway of my room, dressed in my clothes, her day clothes clutched in her hands. She looked so beautiful, so rumpled and real, her face still flushed.

"Good night," she mumbled, not quite meeting my eyes, a deep blush staining her cheeks as she made a beeline for the guest room.

"Hey," I called out, my voice gentle. "Do you want to hang out for a bit before you go to sleep?" We needed to talk about this. I needed to know what she was thinking, to make sure she was okay, to see if her eyes would still hold that same want now that we weren't surrounded by steam and bubbles.

Her blush deepened. "I don't want to lose control again. I need to..." Her voice trailed off, and she practically fled down the hall, leaving me standing there.

I just smiled while climbing into bed, but I was burning up with a happiness so profound it was almost dizzying. I couldn't recall ever feeling like this—so full, so sure, so completely at peace.

"I can't separate physical touch from physical affection and love," I remembered her saying.

That... what had just happened in the bathroom... that hadn't just been physical touch. That had been affection. Love.

The smile was still on my face when I woke up. I stretched, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and practically floated to the guest room.

The bed was empty.

Maybe she was in the kitchen, getting water. I checked the kitchen. Nothing. The living room was quiet, except for my mother at the table. Her gaze caught mine, reading the frantic question in my eyes before I could ask.

"She said she had to leave early," she said, her voice neutral, but her eyes were watching me, curious and sharp.

Early? Without a word? Without waking me? My heart went into a frantic, sickening rhythm.

I fumbled for my phone, and typed out a message.

Me: Hey, just woke up. Did you get back okay?

I stared at the screen. Nothing. The little ticks didn't turn blue. I called. It rang and rang, before finally clicking over to voicemail. The subscriber you are trying to reach...

My mind began to race, a carousel of worst-case scenarios. Had I misunderstood everything? Had I completely crossed a line? I replayed it, over and over. She'd said it. "I want you too." I hadn't imagined that. She hadn't pushed me away. She'd... she'd melted. She'd trembled. She'd gasped. And I had been the one to stop. I'd been the one to pull back. So why was she running?

I paced my room, the anxiety, making me jittery. I called again. But nothing.

"Get ready for church," my mother called out, her voice slicing through my spiraling thoughts.

Desperation took over. I scrolled through my contacts and hit dial on Shahana's number. She answered on the first ring, and her voice wasn't just angry; it was volcanic.

"What the hell did you do?" she bellowed, bypassing any greeting.

The panic seized my throat. "What happened?" I managed to choke out.

"How would I know?" Shahana shot back, her fury now edged with a worry that scared me even more. "Fiza has been crying nonstop since she got here. I can't get her to tell me anything."

My vision swam. "Give the phone to her. Let me talk to her," I pleaded, my voice cracking. What had I done? Had I hurt her? Had she not wanted it after all? Was she disgusted? Ashamed?

"She won't take the phone," Shahana replied after a moment. "What happened, Alan?"

I sank onto the edge of my bed, the phone clutched in my hand. I had no answer.

"Please, just put me on speaker. Let me talk to her," I begged Shahana, my voice cracking. Disappointment followed by a wave of pure self-hatred hit me in full force. Aarthy's voice slithered into my mind. "You destroy everything you touch."

I heard a click, then the faint static of the speakerphone. And then, the sound that would haunt me forever: Fiza's sobs. Hysterical, gut-wrenching, raw. Each one was a knife twisting in my heart. My eyes burned, but the tears wouldn't come. I was the cause of this. I had done this to her.

"Fiza, darling," I called into the phone, my voice thick with anguish. "Princess, I'm heading over. It's okay."

"No. Don't. Come." She said between by sobs. I could barely make out the fragments—"can't" and "won't."

"You are repulsive." Aarthy's ghost whispered again, her cruel prophecy fulfilling itself. "Anyone who is with you will regret it in the end. Mark my words. You are nothing but a good fuck."

My breath hitched, coming in heavy, ragged gasps that couldn't find enough air. The tears I desperately needed to shed remained locked inside. I couldn't listen to another second of her pain. I ended the call, cutting off Shahana's voice before she could say anything else.

"Let's go," my mother said from the doorway, her saree on, ready for church. She stopped dead when she saw me. She rushed into the room, and pulled me into her arms. "Alan, mone, what happened?"

"I don't know," I choked out, the words barely audible. Dark thoughts, self-blame and doubt, consumed me. I should have known better. I should have kept my guard up, never let anyone get this close. What had I been thinking?

Fiza had given me everything—she'd pulled me from the brink, believed in me, saved me. And all she'd asked for in return was for me to respect her boundaries. And I had failed. My body began to shake violently with the force of my turmoil.

My mother held me tighter, her hand rubbing my back. "Did she reject you, Alan?" she asked gently, her voice filled with a mother's love that I felt I no longer deserved.

I shook my head against her shoulder, pausing to try and find the words. "We kissed," I finally confessed. I couldn't bring myself to tell her the rest, the steam, the tub, the unbearable want. "And now she won't talk to me."

My mother just held me, her heart breaking silently for her son. She didn't know the details, not really. But she knew something had happened a couple of years ago, something the doctors and the church elders said was dealt with. But a mother knows. She knew whatever it was had carved something out of her boy and left a shadow in its place. And now, she could only watch as that shadow threatened to swallow him whole.

The world felt gray, drained of all the color Fiza had brought into it. She had been this brilliant, blinding light in the darkness of my life.

"Do you want to see a counselor?" my mother offered, her voice gentle but laced with a worry that cut deep. She always knew there was more, some rotten core inside me I refused to show her.

The suggestion sent a cold dread through me. No. Not again. I didn't want to give another stranger the ammunition to break me. "I'll be okay."

I had hurt Fiza, the one person I wanted to protect above all else. And now I was causing my mother this anguish.

My mother didn't push. She just stayed. She canceled her plans and stayed home with me.

When my mother finally left my room, my fingers mindlessly traced the neat, color-coded blocks on the timetable Fiza had made for me. I looked at the schedule for the day, marked in solid purple for study blocks.

A grim determination settled over the despair. I may be unworthy of her love right now. I may have destroyed the one good thing in my life. But I could still do this.I didn't want to be the old Alan anymore. I wanted to be her Alan.  I could still become the person she saw when she looked at me.

I opened the textbook to the chapter she'd outlined and began to read.

The days bled into one another, a monotonous cycle of waking, studying, and trying to sleep. I buried myself in textbooks and notes, the rigorous schedule Fiza had crafted for me becoming both a prison and a salvation.

The pain of her absence was a phantom limb. I'd reach for my phone to text her a stupid joke, only to remember I couldn't. Life felt too quiet without the sound of her laughter, her explanations of complex topics, the soft sounds of her breathing while she studied beside me. I was haunted by her.

I'd reached out, of course.

Me: Can we talk? Please?

Fiza: I need time and space, Alan. I want to forget about everything until exams are done. We can talk after.

Exams were her focus. The last thing I wanted was to be the distraction that ruined everything she'd worked for. So I retreated. I would wait. I had to believe she would talk to me when she was ready.

But in the silence, my mind became my own worst enemy. It replayed that night in the bathroom on a loop, twisting the memory into something ugly. I had initiated it. I had seduced her. She, in a moment of weakness or confusion, had given in. And then, in the cold light of day, she had been consumed by regret. This was my fault.

I had to force myself to remember that dwelling on it, spiraling in this cycle of self-hatred, wouldn't change a thing. It wouldn't erase what happened. It wouldn't bring her back. The only way through was forward. With or without Fiza, I had to keep moving. I had to become the man she'd once seen in me, even if it was only for myself now.

So I turned the page. I solved another equation. I memorized another anatomical term. I made a silent promise to both of us that I wouldn't let this destroy me.