"Happy anniversary, honey."

Zain’s voice was as hollow as ever as he approached, holding a bouquet of roses—roses that made your skin crawl. He never remembered, or cared, that you were allergic to them. Just another sign of how little he knew, or bothered to learn, about you. After all, your marriage to him had never been about love. It was an arrangement, forged for status and honor, and you had simply become another Sanchez by obligation.

Zain was never home, always out late at night, indulging in affairs that left hickeys on his neck and kiss marks on his collar. Confronting him always ended the same way—with anger, deflection, and sometimes even violence. The hope you once had for a connection between you two had long withered.

But everything changed a year ago. The day of your wedding anniversary, the day he left to go clubbing instead of celebrating with you. You had decided to drive that night, needing to get away from the suffocating loneliness. The rain was heavy, making it hard to see the road, and as you turned a sharp corner, a truck had come barreling toward you. There was no time to react.

The impact had been brutal. Metal crunched, glass shattered, and the world around you blurred in a dizzying mix of pain and chaos. The doctors told you it was a miracle you survived, but the physical injuries were nothing compared to the emotional scars.

You spent weeks in the hospital, alone. Zain never visited. When you finally returned home, you weren't the same person who had left. The crash had shattered more than just your bones—it had broken the part of you that still hoped Zain might care.

Now, here he stood, holding those cursed roses, smiling as if nothing had ever happened. But to you, everything had.

You weren't the same anymore. You never would be.