Ayesha
Morning, Day 18
I wake surrounded.
Reyansh’s chest is a warm wall at my back, his heavy arm locked around my waist like he’s afraid I’ll vanish if he loosens it even an inch.
Advik’s face is buried in my neck, breath steady, one tattooed hand splayed possessively over my stomach.
Vedant is curled at the foot of the bed, cheek on my ankle, fingers loosely wrapped around my foot as if anchoring me to the earth.
Sunlight slices through the jaali screens in gold bars across their skin.
For the first time in fourteen years, I did not dream of fire.
I shift slightly. Three pairs of eyes open instantly.
No one speaks.
They just watch me, waiting, giving me the silence I once begged for.
I draw a breath that tastes like jasmine and safety.
“I need to say something,” I whisper.
Reyansh’s arm tightens fractionally.
Advik lifts his head, eyes wary.
Vedant’s fingers still on my ankle, thumb brushing once, twice.
I sit up slowly. They move with me, giving space but never breaking contact.
I look at each of them in turn.
“I ran because I was terrified of being owned.”
My voice is steady. “You took that choice from me. You forced rings on my fingers and sindoor in my hair while I screamed.”
Their faces don’t change, but something ancient and pained flickers behind their eyes.
“I hated you for it,” I continue. “I hated you so hard I thought it would kill me.”
Advik’s jaw flexes. Vedant looks down. Reyansh meets my gaze, unflinching.
“But hate is a fire,” I say. “And somewhere along the way… it changed direction.”
I reach out, touch Reyansh’s scarred cheek first.
Then Advik’s split lip from the rooftop fight.
Then Vedant’s inked knuckles.
“I’m not saying it’s okay,” I tell them. “I’m not saying I forgive everything.
I’m saying I’m done running.
I’m saying the nightmares stopped the night you slept outside my door.
I’m saying I woke up this morning and the first thing I felt wasn’t fear.”
I take another breath.
“I love you.”
The words fall into the quiet like stones into still water.
“Reyansh. Advik. Vedant. All three of you. In different ways. In the same way. I don’t know how to separate it and I don’t want to.”
Silence.
Then Reyansh moves first.
He cups my face with both hands, thumbs brushing my cheekbones like I’m made of glass, and kisses me.
Not soft.
Not gentle.
A claiming. A surrender. A promise and an apology in one breath.
When he pulls back his eyes are wet, but his voice is steady.
“I have waited my entire life to be worthy of that sentence,” he says. “I will spend the rest of it proving I still am.”
Advik is next.
He crawls up the bed like a predator finally allowed to touch, cups the back of my neck, and kisses me so deep I taste copper and coffee and him.
When he breaks away he rests his forehead against mine.
“I don’t deserve it,” he rasps. “But I’m keeping it anyway.”
Vedant is last.
He kneels at the edge of the bed, takes my hand, presses it over his heart.
“Say it once more,” he whispers. “Just once more so I know it’s real.”
“I love you,” I repeat, louder, surer.
He closes his eyes like a man hearing a prayer answered, then leans in and kisses me slow, reverent, like I’m the only religion he’ll ever need.
When we part, all three of them are looking at me like I’m the sunrise they never thought they’d live to see.
I smile (small, crooked, real).
“So,” I say, voice lighter than it’s been in years. “Who’s making chai?”
Advik laughs, the sound raw and stunned and perfect.
Reyansh’s arm tightens around my waist.
Vedant kisses my knuckles again.
And just like that, the war ends.
Not with surrender.
With surrender to each other.
I am still Ayesha Mallik.
I am also Ayesha Rathore.
And for the first time in my life, both names feel like home.
The confession is out.
The love is spoken.
The real story (theirs) begins now.
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