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❝Once upon a time, a girl fell in love with her husband and made the stars realise that they'd gotten her soulmate wrong.❞
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It's a daunting thing, your first love. It's new, making you unsure and doubt whether it's love or just a mere...
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AN AMBER HAZE GLISTENED around us, the night summer sky vast and the stars so close that it felt as if I could just reach up and brush my fingers against the shining pieces of beauty masterfully placed on the inky canvas. The moon, so near, yet so far, glowed a reddish-amber tone as the lunar eclipse approached an end that would arrive in a few minutes.
The moment felt so picturesque that breaking the spell almost felt immoral.
"Did you know that people sometimes describe solar eclipses as being like a hug?"
"Hmm?" Zayaan hummed, the sound vibrating warmly against my hair. "Why?"
"Because they meet for that painfully short period every two and a half years or so. It's almost as if the sun just asks the moon for a hug, and the moon says to the Earth, 'you have him every day. Just give him to me for five minutes. Five minutes and we'll go back to simply meeting whenever a day ends or begins.'"
"Like two lovers, united simply for a fleeting moment." I felt him smile, as his fingers slowly drew shapes on my wrist. "Maybe lunar eclipses are then just a way for the moon to mourn the distance of the sun, hiding in the shadow the Earth casts. It's almost poetic."
"You're poetic."
He chuckled. "Why, thank you. But I don't think my poetry compares to that of a celestial embrace between two cosmic beings."
I just smiled to myself. The man had such a way with words that all you could do was pause and think. But a thought struck and I turned around to glance up at him. The moon cast a shadow on his face, making his lashes seem stunningly long and it emphasised the hollows of his cheek and the perfection of his bone structure. "You know, I used to think of you as my sun."
His brows furrowed. "When? Why?"
"Before." I waved a hand. "Before got together. When I realised that I was falling in love with you. But I thought that my feelings were unrequited and so you just seemed so far away. So close, yet so near. You lit up my life, yet when I came close, you went further away."
"Eshgham, what are you talking about?" His grasp around my wrist loosened as he brought his hand up, his fingers brushing against my cheek. "You thought my love was unrequited? I'd been obsessed with you from the second you left the car in a heap of traffic to help the blind man cross the road. You didn't care about anything but his safety; not when the lorry was coming at you at full speed and you didn't regret it an ounce even when you had to go to hospital. The fact that someone this selfless, this compassionate, could exist just astounded me. Made me think that arranged marriages weren't too bad, after all."
I rolled my eyes, turning back around and leaning my head on his chest again to hide my smile. "I bet, if you could, you would make Laleh get an arranged marriage as well."
"A hundred percent," he said without hesitation. "I'd find the perfect groom for her. A husband who would be happy to stay with us and someone who would make her smile every minute of the day. Someone who doesn't make her shed a single tear."
