Rain tapped gently against the glass windows of Arvi's office, soft and steady—so different from the storm inside Rose.
She sat at her desk that evening long after everyone had left. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, but her mind was far away. Somewhere darker. Somewhere red.
It had been years since she talked about it.
Since she let herself remember the sound of twisting metal, her mother's scream, the shattering glass… and the silence that followed.
But tonight… she couldn't escape it.
She didn't hear Arvi enter until he was standing right behind her.
"You're still here?" he asked.
His voice wasn't cold this time. Just curious.
"I couldn't sleep," she said.
He watched her quietly, then pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. Not at his desk—at hers. That alone felt strange. Like the rules between them were shifting again.
"Tell me what's keeping you awake," he said.
She looked at him, startled.
"Why?"
"Because if you're going to stay in my world," he said calmly, "I need to know what breaks you."
The words were brutal—but his tone was not.
Rose took a breath. Looked down at her hands. And for the first time, she let it out.
"I was sixteen when the car crashed," she began, her voice shaking. "We were driving home from my birthday dinner. My mom, my dad, and my little sister Ruma. She was only nine."
She paused, the image rising in her mind like a ghost.
"Another car jumped the light. Drunk driver. We spun twice. I remember screaming… then nothing but metal. I woke up to smoke and blood. My mother was already gone. My dad too. Ruma was still breathing… barely."
Her voice cracked.
"She died holding my hand. Begging me not to leave her."
Silence filled the room.
A heavy, haunted silence.
"I still see her face when I close my eyes," Rose whispered. "Still smell the blood. That's why I can't handle it. Why I freeze every time I see it. It's not just blood to me—it's the last thing I saw before losing everyone I loved."
She looked up at him.
"I know that makes me weak in your world. But I'm not sorry. I'd rather feel everything than nothing at all."
Arvi didn't speak.
He didn't mock her. Didn't give some cold lecture about pain being a lesson.
He just looked at her.
For a long, long time.
"I was ten when I watched my father get shot in front of me," he said suddenly.
Her breath caught.
"He was careless. Trusted someone he shouldn't have. I remember the blood on the wall. My mother didn't cry. She just pulled me into another room and said, 'This is what happens to men who trust feelings.'"
He lit a cigarette. Didn't smoke it. Just watched the smoke curl into the air.
"That was the day I learned love is weakness. That softness gets people killed. So I became the opposite."
His eyes met hers.
"And then you walked into my office—afraid of blood, but brave enough to speak to me like I was human."
She blinked, stunned by his honesty.
"Why are you telling me this?" she asked softly.
"Because for the first time," he said, voice low, "I don't want to scare you."
Her eyes welled up with tears, but she blinked them away.
He didn't reach for her.
He didn't hug her.
But he didn't leave, either.
They sat in silence for a while, two broken hearts trying to understand each other in a world built on lies and violence.
Finally, he stood up.
"I'll have a car take you home," he said. "And Rose?"
"Yes?"
"Don't hide your fear from me again. If you break in front of anyone," he said, eyes intense, "let it be me."
She didn't answer. Couldn't.
But when the door closed behind him, her heart was no longer heavy with only pain.
It carried something else now.
Something she was too afraid to name.