Life is nothing but a glass house built on borrowed dreams. We decorate it with moments of joy, fragile as crystal, believing it will never shatter. But when it does, the pieces don’t just break- they cut. And you are left holding the shards, bleeding, wondering why you ever thought it was safe to hope.

I stand now amidst the wreckage of my own house of glass. Her name, her face, her laughter- they haunt me like ghosts in a storm. I thought she was the light that would save me, but perhaps, I was always meant to drown in her shadow. They say love can heal. But for me, love was the blade, and she was the hand that wielded it.

---

The city stretched out before him, glowing faintly under the embrace of twilight. Zayn stood by the window of his office, a glass of whiskey in his hand, watching as the lights blinked into existence one by one. Each light felt like a distant star- beautiful, untouchable, mocking him with their brightness.

In the glass’s reflection, he could see himself: tired eyes, unkempt hair, and a face that carried the weight of too many sleepless nights. He looked like a man who had forgotten how to smile, like a statue worn smooth by the relentless erosion of time.

And then there was her photo on his desk. Laila.

Her smile, frozen in the frame, felt like an echo of a song he could no longer hear. She had been everything he wanted- everything he couldn’t have. Even now, her name burned on his tongue, a flame that refused to extinguish no matter how many times he tried to drown it with liquor.

But it hadn’t started this way. No, once upon a time, there had been hope. There had been a moment when he believed in the possibility of love.

---

It was a warm evening in the heart of summer, the kind of night where the air was thick with the scent of jasmine, and the sky blushed a deep orange before surrendering to the stars. Zayn had arrived late to the party, his tie already loosened, and his patience was wearing thin.

He didn’t belong here- he never had. The people in the room were polished, their smiles rehearsed, their laughter hollow. They moved like actors in a play he hadn’t been invited to join. And yet, he had come, drawn by the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, something- or someone- would make him feel alive.

And then he saw her.

She was standing by the balcony, the soft glow of lanterns casting a golden hue across her face. Laila. She wasn’t just beautiful; she was ethereal, like a painting that had stepped off its canvas to breathe. Her laughter drifted through the air like the first notes of a song, and Zayn felt something stir inside him- a quiet, desperate longing he hadn’t known he was capable of feeling.

For a moment, he simply stood there, watching her, afraid that if he moved, the spell would break. But then her eyes met his, and the world seemed to fall away.

She smiled, and Zayn’s breath caught in his throat. It was a smile that promised nothing and yet everything all at once- a fleeting invitation to a world he knew he could never enter. But he would try. God, how he would try.

He took a step toward her, his heart pounding like a distant drumbeat.

Zayn took another sip of his drink, trying to steady himself, to work up the courage to approach her. His hand trembled slightly - not from the alcohol but from something unfamiliar, something he hadn’t felt in years. Was it nervousness? Hope? He didn’t know.

As he moved toward them, the room seemed to dim, the noise fading into a distant hum. But just as he took a step closer, Mirza Sahib turned, his sharp eyes narrowing as they landed on the glass in Zayn’s hand.

"You’re drunk," Mirza Sahib said, his tone low but firm, his eyes glinting with quiet authority. "I wouldn’t want you around my daughter in that state."

Zayn stopped mid-step, the words hitting him like a slap. He looked down at the amber liquid in his glass, shame creeping up his neck. Slowly, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

"It’s okay," he said softly, his voice laced with regret. "I won’t."

For a fleeting moment, he let his gaze drift to Laila. Her eyes met his- warm, deep, and piercing, like they were looking straight into his soul. The intensity of her gaze caught him off guard, and for a second, he forgot to breathe. His heart stuttered, caught between awe and panic.

But then, out of respect for Mirza Sahib, he broke the eye contact, nodding slightly before turning away. As he walked back toward the bar, his heart pounded so loudly in his chest that it drowned out the music. He took another sip of his drink, but the taste was bitter now, tainted by the weight of his own inadequacy.

"How could I approach her in this state? "he thought to himself, bitterness and reverence mingling in his heart. "You don’t step into a mosque without wudhu, and she… she was purer than any prayer I’ve ever whispered. What right did I have to stain her world with the chaos of mine?"

She was different - he could see it in the way she carried herself, the grace in her movements, the purity in her smile. In his world, there weren’t many people like her. The men and women he knew were as reckless and indulgent as he was - drunkards, womanizers, rich souls chasing fleeting pleasures. But Laila... she was untouched by the chaos. She was a diamond in the rough, a light in the darkness he had grown so used to.

As he reached the bar, he whispered her name under his breath, savouring the way it felt on his tongue. "Laila." The word was a prayer, a song, a promise he wasn’t sure he had the strength to keep.

And then, to his own surprise, he smiled - a rare, genuine smile that felt almost foreign to his lips. He felt his heart bloom, a quiet warmth spreading through his chest like the first rays of sunlight after a storm.

The bartender turned the radio up slightly, and a slow, haunting melody filled the room. Zayn closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. Her face was all he could see now, her eyes, her smile, the way she had looked at him as if he were something more than what he had become.

He laughed softly, a sound full of disbelief and wonder. Setting his drink down, he moved to the corner of the room, away from the crowd, and let the music guide him. Slowly, tentatively, he began to dance alone, his movements unsteady but full of something he hadn’t felt in years.

Her name echoed in his mind, her presence filling the emptiness he had carried for so long. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, Zayn wasn’t just surviving - he was living.

__

He sank into the leather chair by the fireplace, his head resting against the back as he stared at the ceiling. The flames crackled faintly, but even the fire seemed distant, as though it burned for someone else.

“Do you hear me?” he asked the empty room, his voice rough and low. “Laila, do you know what you’ve done to me?”

His hand trembled slightly as he took another sip of whiskey. The liquid felt like molten steel sliding down his throat, but he drank anyway. Anything to drown her name, her face, her laughter that still haunted him like a ghost refusing to leave.

But it didn’t work.

He closed his eyes, and there she was, smiling at him from the edge of a memory he hadn’t dared to revisit in years. Her eyes, deep and piercing, seemed to see through the layers of his soul, exposing the raw, broken pieces he tried so hard to hide.

“You’re ruining me,” he murmured to the air, his voice barely audible.

The servants didn’t come near. They had learned to let him be, to let him wrestle with his demons alone. Sometimes, Zayn wondered if they pitied him or if they just didn’t care.

He laughed bitterly, the sound hollow in the emptiness. “Even they know. I’m just a man drowning in his own misery. Who would want to share this silence?”

He stood up abruptly, pacing the room like a man searching for something he couldn’t name. His footsteps echoed in the vast emptiness, each step a reminder of how alone he was. The walls, the furniture, even the air itself seemed to press in on him, suffocating him with their silence.

“Why did you have to be so perfect?” he asked the shadows. “Why couldn’t you be like the rest of them? Shallow, fleeting, easy to forget.”

But she wasn’t. She was everything he wasn’t- pure, untouched by the chaos that consumed him. And that was the cruelest part. She deserved better than a man like him, and he knew it. But knowing didn’t stop him from wanting her, from needing her like he needed the air to breathe.

“Laila,” he whispered again, his voice breaking. The sound of her name was both a balm and a wound, soothing him even as it tore him apart.

The radio played softly in the background, a mournful melody that matched the rhythm of his breaking heart. Zayn closed his eyes and let the music wash over him, her face filling the darkness behind his eyelids.

Setting his glass down, he moved to the center of the room, his arms spreading as if to welcome an invisible partner. Slowly, he began to sway to the music, his movements unsteady but full of longing.

“This is what I’ve become,” he murmured to himself, his voice heavy with self-loathing. “A man who dances alone, chasing the ghost of a woman who’ll never be mine.”

But in that moment, as he moved to the haunting tune, he felt a flicker of something- hope, perhaps, or maybe just the illusion of it. He closed his eyes, and for a brief second, he could almost feel her presence, her warmth, her hand in his.

“Laila,” he whispered one last time, the name a promise, a plea, a prayer.

And as the music faded, the silence returned, heavier than before. Zayn sank to the floor, his head resting against the cold marble, the weight of her absence crushing him.

The servants didn’t come. The house remained silent. Zayn, a man surrounded by wealth and grandeur, was left alone with nothing but the echoes of a name that burned like fire in his heart.

___

Looking back now, I realize that she was never truly mine. She was like a mirage in the desert - a beautiful illusion that disappeared the moment I reached for it. But I was thirsty, and I drank deeply of her false promises, even as they poisoned me.

Perhaps that’s the cruellest part of love. It doesn’t just destroy you - it teaches you to destroy yourself. And now, as I sit in the ruins of what we once were, I wonder if I was ever whole to begin with, or if I was always destined to be broken by her.