Forward.

The first time Noor met him, it was during a late shift. The kind where the world outside faded into the darkness of the night, and everything that mattered was under the cold lights of the hospital. He stood at the nurses’ station, skimming through a file, sleeves pushed up. She nearly passed him by. He was just another face in a world full of them, sharp, tired, intent. But then he looked up, and for some reason, something shifted.

She didn’t believe in fate or the fated, not really. But something in her stilled. A door had cracked open somewhere. She was not entirely sure where it led, or what lay on the other side. But whatever it was, beckoned her, reaching through the pain and suffering that clung to the hospital walls.

Only in retrospect did she realise that the soft whisper in her mind, the feeble voice telling her to stay away, was probably her better judgment. Her common sense. But they were no match for the feeling slowly igniting her veins, the excitement and nervousness that churned in her chest every time she laid eyes on him. Every time he acknowledged her existence or shot her a small, hesitant smile, that door cracked open just a little more. It was just a feeling, she told herself. Something to put a little kick in her step, caffeine for her soul. Just a feeling. Formless and ephemeral, and more importantly, temporary.

They didn’t speak much, not at first. A nod in the hallway. A passing glance at the desk. Sometimes their shifts overlapped. She’d find herself hyper aware of his presence, how he tilted his head slightly when he read through files, the small furrow in his brow. It was nothing. It had to stay nothing.

One particularly bad night, once the incessant wave of patients had finally stopped, they both collapsed into empty chairs, too exhausted to think, too exhausted to move.

‘I'm pretty sure every person in the city just came into the hospital tonight,’ she said

He laughed, a low chuckle in the back of his throat. ‘Yeah, every person and their mother, their Dadi, their Nani, their chachi. Like someone was having a party.’

‘Yeah, and they didn’t invite us,’ she quipped back

He laughed again, a real laugh, warm, rich, and full. And suddenly Noor wasn’t tired anymore.

They fell effortlessly into an easy routine after that shift. Trading off on difficult patients, a quiet extra hand when either of them needed one. Long nights over paperwork, sharing bad chai and old stories. She would never be able to pinpoint exactly when it began, but she would always remember how.

The soft reassurance on bad days, and quiet pride on good ones. The thrum of anticipation as she skimmed the schedules, looking for overlaps. The warmth in his eyes when they unexpectedly did. Moments gently strung together, slowly giving her feelings shape and weight and definition. She thinks it might have been the night he stayed back, helping her with a patient well past his shift. Exhausted, shirt untucked, eyes rimmed red, but still there. Hands holding the patient steady as she finished the procedure. That night, she thinks, was when she knew

Maybe what Noor felt about him should have been obvious. Looking back now, it certainly was. Her eyes would always find his, warm and brown and bright. His voice, his words, his laugh, somehow always reaching her through the chaos, grounding her. Lifting burdens off her shoulders. Letting her know he was there. For a few hours each day, he was there. And on days when they caught the tail end of each other’s shift. Polite greetings exchanged, passing thoughts between coworkers. Casual. Simple. But she always felt more in them. Conversations packed with the weight of the unsaid. Things that she swore would never see the light of day. She would watch him walk away, taking her heart with him, hoping she would see it again tomorrow, but too afraid to ask. Too afraid of what it would mean.

Noor was convinced she could live her life this way. Unspoken questions and unacknowledged feelings quickly becoming permanent house guests. Suppressed fantasies fading away the moment she opened her eyes. She shrugged them all off. She was good at it. What Noor didn’t count on, what she underestimated, was the strength of this thing growing between them. Slowly, it had gained strength, texture, and power. A quiet gravitational pull, drawing them in, catching them in a common orbit. The way he subconsciously stepped towards her while working. The crackle of electricity in the air, charging the space between them. The way his gaze would tangle with hers, the way her casual touch lingered those extra moments. She craved him. And just maybe, just maybe he craved her too. They both knew it wasn’t just unlikely; it was impossible. The thought of Him and Her, the thought of Them, was so far away from reality, from practicality. But despite it all, despite every rationalization, Noor knew what she felt. Every single inch of her called out to him. And slowly, Noor knew he felt it too.

She remembers the day everything changed. Every moment of that day is seared into her mind. His quiet confession the night before, just as his shift ended. The color of his shirt, the stark contrast of dark fabric against his pale skin. She remembers how it charged the space between them. How her skin reignited the moment her eyes found him again the next day. Hopeful brown eyes. The softest of smiles. She remembers him asking if he could come down with her. The elevator ride, too short and too long. Her mind insisting it was nothing, just two friends seeking a sliver of privacy. Her heart, distracted and reckless, thundering in her chest.

Whatever they’d been pretending not to feel, whatever had remained conveniently formless for months, suddenly crystallized. It filled the air between them. Heavy, crackling, undeniable. And yet, they feigned nonchalance. She remembers the silence of her car. The quiet. The timbre of his voice as he asked for permission. The cadence. The pitch. The warmth. The hope.

And into the quiet space between them, she whispered, Yes.

There are days when she would think back on that moment. The moment that finally damned her, damned them both. She would wonder what would have happened if she had said no. Would he still be in her life? Would things have unfolded differently? Deep down inside, she knew the truth; There is no universe where she could live and not know the softness of his lips. Not know their shape and warmth. There is no universe where this moment could be kept from her. No version of Noor existed that could not know how this felt, how he felt.

She remembered the lines of his chest, the slope of his shoulders. How he pulled her close and how his arms finally, finally felt around her. The warmth of his body against hers. The silk of his hair between her fingers. The hush of his breath on her skin. Now that she had tasted him, Noor couldn’t get enough. And neither could he. They fell together, into madness, and into salvation. In a place teeming with death and suffering, he made her feel alive. She craved him. Not just his touch, but his presence. His steadiness, the quiet safety he offered in a chaotic world. And the more she let herself have him, the more she wanted.

She tried to resist, feebly, painfully. But how could she? How could she resist how he made her feel? So, she gave him everything, everything she could. She knew it wasn’t enough. It was never going to be. He was her saving grace and her damnation rolled into one.

Her holiest sin.

His name was her prayer, whispered into lonely nights, echoing in her heart and soul. She loved him. And he, he loved her. Before she knew it, those quiet feelings skimming across her skin had evolved into something, bigger, wilder. Something that lived and breathed. It lived in the way his hand hovered near hers, like reaching for her had become instinct. In the way he remembered the smallest things, her favourite type of chocolate, a small breakfast sent her way after a terrible night shift, In the way his gaze softened, always, when it found her. And for a while, that was enough. Enough to silence the questions. Enough to blur the edges.

Until it wasn’t.

She caught her reflection one night, staring back at her from a foggy hospital mirror, frazzled hair pulled loose, eyes too wide, too raw, too unsteady. She was waiting again, in the shadows outside the on-call room, waiting for him. And for the first time, she didn’t recognize herself. There was a hollowness in her gaze, a quiet desperation she had never seen before. And not a single thought in her head except the feel of his skin against hers. And that’s when it hit her. She had been shrinking, day by day, moment by moment, into a version of herself built entirely around him. Around his presence. And worse, around his absence.

She had collapsed the boundaries of her life into a shape that fit him, and only him. Every move, every moment, every thought of her life calibrated to the things she couldn’t say out loud. There wasn’t an inch of space for anything else. No space where she could breathe. This, love, of theirs. It had burned everything else away

And if this, if they, meant living in the margins of his life, and the margins of hers. If it meant losing herself, her identity, her fire, everything that made her, her, then maybe this wasn’t love. Maybe this was something lonelier. Like a junkie aching for her next fix.

And Noor knew, if she didn’t end it now, she never would. It wasn’t because the feeling had faded.

It hadn’t. It was because it consumed her. And if she let it, it would hollow her out. She couldn’t keep calling it love if it asked her to disappear. Couldn’t keep forgiving a kind of hunger that devoured more than it gave. Love was supposed to have her back. Love was supposed to let her breathe.

And this, this wasn’t love. Not anymore.

So Noor did the hardest thing she had ever done. She picked herself, and she walked away. Not because she stopped loving him. But because love, real love, wasn’t supposed to make her disappear. It wasn’t meant to eclipse everything else she was. And if the only way to keep him was to lose herself, then the cost was too high. She wanted to be whole. And so, even with her heart breaking, she stepped away. Not from him, but from the version of herself who thought this was all she was allowed to have.

Even now, there’s a part of her that screams that she made the wrong choice. A part of her that wants to burn, that insists that it would have been better to burn. But she was more than that part of her. She had to be. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t brave. It was brutal. And maybe, just maybe, it was cruel too.

She knows he deserved better. More than anything, more than the flickering hope she carries that she will see him again, she hopes that he will find better. That he finds peace. That he finds love. And on the nights when memories of brown eyes and a warm smile keep her up longer than they should, that hope is the only thing pushing her forward. Hope, and a handful of bruising memories. It’s possible that these memories will haunt her. In fact, she expects them too. But she made her choice. And there isn’t anywhere else Noor can go from here but forward.

Forward, without him.