Snowflake
Despite my best efforts to stay afloat, I found myself drowning again — not in water, but in thought. It comes in waves, silent and slow, tugging me into places I've long tried to forget. I hate it, yet I crave it. I hate the way my mind drags me beneath the surface, yet I can't seem to breathe without it anymore. I've tried to bury the pain, but now it's become part of me — stitched into every breath I take.
The story of you and me refuses to end. It lingers like unfinished music — a melody suspended midair. Every morning I pretend it's over, but the truth waits for me in the quiet, patient and cruel. This isn't a new beginning. It's the haunting of an old one — a chapter that ended seven years ago but refuses to stay buried.
When I hated myself the most, she was the one who loved me.
"Ayah," I remember asking, my voice small, almost breaking, "how can you love me when I don't even love myself?"
She smiled — soft, teasing, radiant in that way that disarmed everything dark in me. "So you can keep loving me," she said.
I still remember how our laughter filled the room afterward — bright, easy, and fleeting, like a ray of light slipping through storm clouds. That sound has never left me. It echoes in every quiet moment, like an angel's whisper reminding me I once belonged somewhere.
Some miracles are sent to change you, not to stay. God lends them to you, then takes them back — not out of cruelty, but mercy.
"Ayah," I whispered her name into the silence, feeling it tremble on my lips. "She was the sweet thirst I could never quench."
I have seen beauty — I have stood beneath chandeliers of gold, played before thousands, held the applause of strangers — but nothing, nothing compared to her. She was serenity born from chaos. Her voice was the sound of peace, her scent the ghost of safety. She was my moonlight in darkness and my daylight when the world turned cold.
Ayah Ferdous wasn't just a woman. She was a prayer in motion — my addiction, my patience, my wisdom, and my faith. She was the soft answer to every question I never dared to ask. Even now, I still orbit her memory, trapped in her gravity, unable to escape even if I wanted to.
It began seven years ago — the day I decided to stop pretending that my father's dream was mine.
The air inside my office was suffocating — thick with anger, with disappointment, with the sound of two generations colliding. My father stood behind his desk, jaw clenched, and Michael hovered nearby, watching like someone trying to stop lightning from striking twice.
"I'm happy where I am," I said, forcing calm into my voice. "I don't want to compete."
My father's reply was thunder. "It's not just about you, Aubrey! Think about the staff — about Michael — about everyone who's worked to build this around you!"
"Why should I care what they want?" I shot back.
He leaned forward, his voice sharp as glass. "Because you owe it to them!"
That word — owe — it cracked something inside me. I had already traded everything I loved for this — my art, my passion, my freedom — and he still spoke as if I were his investment, not his son.
He had never once asked what I wanted. Not once. All I'd ever wanted was to hear him say, Son, do what your heart desires. Even if it fails, I'll stand behind you.
But he didn't.
Instead, he said the one thing he shouldn't have. "Alex would be disappointed in you."
The air froze. Even the lights seemed to flicker under the weight of it.
"You have no right to bring up Alex," I said, my voice trembling, low. "He's not your son anymore. Don't you dare say his name."
Michael went still. My father said nothing.
I grabbed my coat and walked out before rage could turn me into something I couldn't undo.
Outside, the city hit me like ice. The cold bit my skin, the wind howled through the streets, and for the first time, I welcomed the pain. It was honest — cleaner than the lies I'd been living.
"I wish it was me who had died, Alex," I muttered, breath fogging in the air. The words left my mouth and vanished into the dark, but they didn't leave me.
The city was alive in ways I wasn't. A florist hummed softly as she arranged roses by the window. A pair of children laughed as snow melted on their mittens. A vendor handed a bag of roasted chestnuts to a stranger and smiled, like life had never hurt him. I watched them all, wondering how people could carry such simple happiness in a world so cruel.
And then I saw her.
She sat on a park bench, a lone figure in a sea of white. Her orange beanie glowed against the snow, her brown hair tumbling in soft waves around her face. She was bent over a sketchbook, her pencil moving carefully, deliberately. There was something in the way she concentrated — quiet, steady, alive — that caught me and held me there.
I don't know what pulled me closer. Maybe curiosity. Maybe fate.
"What are you drawing?"
She jumped, clutching her chest. "Oh my God — don't sneak up on people like that!"
I held my hands up in surrender, smiling despite myself. "Sorry. I didn't mean to scare you."
She squinted at me, wary but amused. "You want to know?"
I nodded.
She turned the sketchbook toward me. The page was covered in rough, uncertain lines — a snowflake, she said. It looked nothing like one, but the effort, the care, was there.
"Have you ever seen one before?" I asked.
"No," she said softly. "Not really."
I blinked. "You live in New York. How have you never seen a snowflake?"
Her lips curved into a wistful smile. "Maybe I was too busy trying to survive to notice the small things."
Something about that hit me like a memory.
"May I?" I gestured toward her sketchbook.
She hesitated, then handed it over. I knelt beside the bench, the paper cool beneath my fingertips. My pencil moved before I could think — years of muscle memory taking over. Each stroke fell into place, the snowflake taking form, fragile yet perfect.
When I handed it back, her eyes widened.
"It's beautiful," she whispered. "I've never seen anyone draw something so delicate."
"Snowflakes are meant to be," I said.
She looked up at me with those amber eyes, her breath visible in the cold. "You should be a painter," she said softly.
I smiled — a real one, rare and small. "I was."
Her watch beeped, startling her. "Oh no—my break's over." She scrambled to pack her things, nearly tripping over her bag. Before running off, she turned to me one last time, her smile luminous. "Thank you… for showing me what I couldn't see."
Then she was gone — swallowed by the warmth of the café, the door swinging shut behind her.
For a long moment, I just stood there, watching the spot where she'd been. The snow fell heavier now, flakes landing on the drawing she'd left open on her bench. I brushed them off gently, as though touching something sacred.
A hand fell on my shoulder. Michael's voice followed. "What's wrong?"
I looked at him, then back at the café. Through the window, I could see her, faintly — smiling at something behind the counter.
"Nothing," I said, though it wasn't true.
Because for the first time in years, something inside me stirred. The cold no longer burned. It soothed.
And for the first time in a very long while, I felt it again — that small, dangerous, beautiful thing.
Hope.