The Promises We Broke

33

Nadiya sat across from him in a diner that smelled of burnt coffee and grease, the kind of place where the floors stuck to your shoes and the lights flickered faintly overhead.

She stirred more creamer into her coffee than anyone should reasonably be allowed. Zaan watched her, unable to tear his gaze away from the way she meticulously sweetened her drink.

All he could think was: I want you.

She looked up, catching his stare, and Zaan quickly glanced down at his own cup of black coffee. The bitter taste grounded him, pulling him back into the uncomfortable reality between them.

He and Nadiya—they were wrong. In every way, two people could be wrong together.

From the moment they started their 'date', everything about them had been at odds—their conversation, their energy, their lives. Even now, he sipped from a cup of bitterness while she believed there could never be enough sweetness in the world.

It was as though they were living in two different realities, bound together by a thin thread of something unnamed.

"Diabetes must be terrified of you," he muttered, taking a sip of his coffee, hoping the bitterness might drown out the fluttering in his stomach.

"We only live once, Zaan," Nadiya laughed, defying his mockery by adding yet another spoonful of creamer. The cup seemed barely coffee now, just cream and sweetness. "A little sweetness never killed anyone."

Zaan raised an eyebrow. "A little?" he scoffed, unable to hide his amusement. "If this is a little, I don't want to know what 'more' looks like in your world."

"You should meet my brother," she said, taking a satisfied sip, her smile widening. "He'd use twice the amount I did and still complain it's not enough."

"A brother?" Zaan asked, hungry for any detail she would give him.

The entire day had been spent in playful banter, skimming the surface of their lives, never diving deeper.

She'd been a fortress, sharing nothing personal, and now, with just a mention of her family, a door had cracked open.

He'd spent hours with her, pretending to know about art as they wandered through museums, inventing stories about the pieces.

She told him the Mona Lisa was a self-portrait of Da Vinci, imagining himself as a woman, and Zaan had believed her—because when Nadiya spoke, everything she said felt like truth, no matter how impossible.

He would likely believe it if she told him there were two suns in the sky or that she wants him too.

"A twin, actually." Her lips curled into a small, nostalgic smile.

"Are you close?" he asked, twirling a strand of noodles from the single plate they shared, offering her the first bite without thinking.

He wanted to share this moment, this meal, this fleeting time—knowing it could never last, yet unable to stop himself from wanting it.

It wasn't love. That much he knew. But in that moment, he didn't care. Sitting across from her felt like finding something he didn't know he was searching for.

"No, not really," Nadiya admitted softly, her smile fading. "But we're getting there. Slowly. Our father wasn't a good man, and we dealt with him very differently."

"How so?" Zaan asked, lifting the fork toward her again as though it were the most natural thing in the world to feed her in the middle of a shabby diner.

"He wanted to fix the broken pieces of our family," Nadiya continued, her voice quieter now. "I wanted to run. From everything—every memory tied to our father. That included my brother. And other things, too."