Esther:

The Mirror & The Fire

Esther was now in her late thirties, and healing had become her second language—spoken in pastel brushstrokes, barefoot dances on marble, and lullabies hummed only her inner child could hear. Once, she had been a woman of fire. Now, she lives in the afterglow. Soft. Earned. Whole in fragments.

But healing was not a straight road—it curled, dipped, and sometimes broke entirely. There were days the mirror still asked her, “Are you enough yet?” On those days, when memory pressed heavily and silence whispered old names, she would walk to the women’s rehabilitation center nearby. She didn’t go to give. She went to listen.

That’s where she met Saira—a woman in her early thirties, as still as a lake at dawn. She didn’t speak much, but her silence wasn’t empty. It was full—of storms that survived, dignity retained, love lost and not mourned aloud. Their friendship began with nods and glances. Then, a still companionship grew between two women who knew the taste of quiet survival.

...Then Came Meeta!

She was barely in her twenties but carried an old sorrow in her bones. Esther met her during a support circle at the rehabilitation center—a small woman with tired eyes and a voice so faint it felt like breath on glass.

Meeta was an AIDS patient.

Not by her own fault.

She hadn’t lived recklessly; she hadn’t made dangerous choices. She was simply a wife—faithful, young, and obedient in the eyes of her family and society. But her husband, a man twice her age and full of charm, had brought the virus into their home like a ghost cloaked in love. He never told her. Never got tested. Never gave her a choice.

By the time he died, it was too late—for treatment, for protection, for trust.

Now, Meeta’s body was failing.

And yet, what haunted her more than death was the thought of her son growing up without a mother—or worse, with the shame the world would pin to his back like a scarlet letter.

“I just want him to live,” she whispered to Esther one afternoon, after signing the papers that placed her little boy in the care of an orphanage.

Her eyes were hollow, but her love? Fierce. Unbroken. Pure.

Esther held her hand, fingers trembling. She didn’t know what to say. There were no words to answer grief born from betrayal, no balm for injustice stitched into skin.

But she stayed. Sometimes presence is the only prayer we can offer.

A Sisterhood

That evening, Esther walked out carrying the unbearable weight of Meeta’s story. It sat in her chest like a stone—sharp and unmoving.

Later that evening, at the bus stop, Saira pulled up on her Activa, helmetless and glowing in dusk light.

“Need a ride?” she asked.

Esther hesitated. Then climbed on.

The wind wasn’t loud. It carried hymns.

They rode in silence until Esther’s voice broke through.

“How do you look so... still? Like you’ve made peace with everything. I feel like I’m always gathering the pieces of who I used to be.”

Saira didn’t answer immediately.

But when she did, her words poured like rain after a drought...

Wings Beneath the Wounds

“There is a kind of silence that isn’t empty,”

Saira began, “It’s full—of memory, of fire, of all the things I no longer carry out loud.”

Esther listened.

Each word was a key turning in her chest.

Saira always dreamed of soaring above the clouds. Becoming an air hostess wasn’t just a job—it was her soul’s calling. But in her conservative community, where tradition loomed larger than individual aspirations, her dreams were dismissed as rebellious. Her parents, fearful of societal judgment, arranged for her marriage instead. But Saira couldn’t let her dreams die quietly. She ran away—alone, scared, yet fiercely determined. She worked, studied, and survived. Eventually, she flew not just in planes but in spirit. She became someone her younger self would have applauded.

Then came Iman—elegant, admired, magnetic. He noticed her—really noticed her. Where others saw hesitation, he saw potential. Where she trembled, he steadied her. He made her feel real. Until the night he didn’t…

Love, as we call it, she realized, wears many masks.

One evening, he leaned in closer—not with affection, but with desire. He wanted more—

His voice, once her anchor, now became a blade—cold, precise, and merciless. There was no trace of the man who had once made her feel seen. Instead, standing before her was someone unrecognizable—poisoned by ego and entitlement. His face tightened, eyes narrowed with a quiet rage, and then he struck—not with fists, but with words so laced in contempt, they bruised her soul.

Saira, raised on a fragile diet of dreams and dignity, had always seen intimacy as sacred—a merging of spirits, not bodies; a slow unfolding of trust, not a hurried surrender. Her ideas of love were shaped by poetry whispered by the wind through her cracked window, by stories of fierce women who waited for meaning over momentum, and by the silent resolve of her mother, who had quietly sacrificed everything just to be respected.

She wasn’t naive—she had known the world could be harsh, impatient, even transactional. But she had always hoped—believed—that real love would transcend the urgency to possess. That someone, someday, would honour her boundaries not as barriers, but as doorways to something deeper.

So that night, when Iman leaned in closer—not with the warmth of understanding, but with a hunger that unsettled her—she didn’t panic, didn’t accuse, didn’t preach. She simply paused. Looked into his eyes and softly said, “Not yet… not like this. Let’s give this time. Let’s make it sacred.”

She expected stillness. Maybe even discomfort. But she believed, at the very least, there would be a conversation. A meeting of intentions. A moment of shared humanity.

Instead, what followed shattered her.

"You’ve been wearing a mask all along," he hissed, eyes narrowed. "This whole shy, innocent act—it’s your weapon, isn’t it? You lure people in with your softness and then pull back like you're some saint."

His voice was low, but the words burned.

"You pretend to be pure, but you knew exactly what you were doing. You wanted me hooked, wanted the comfort, the attention—just not the responsibility. Don’t act like you’re above it all."

He leaned in, cruelly calm now.

"You didn’t love me—you used me. To escape your past, to feel powerful. And now you're playing the victim? You're no different from the rest."

Each word was a blade, aimed not at her body—but at her soul. And it worked. Something inside her cracked. Not because she believed him—but because for a moment, she almost did.

She stood frozen. Not because she couldn’t respond, but because everything within her was imploding. She couldn’t understand how someone who once admired her soul could now accuse her of weaponizing it.

What devastated her wasn’t the loss of love—it was the death of trust. He took the one part of herself she believed was untouchable—her inner truth—and dragged it through the dirt.

And perhaps the most chilling part?

He didn’t even raise his voice. His calmness made it worse. As if this was always who he was beneath the mask of affection—a man who would destroy her if something was denied.

That night didn’t just leave Saira broken.

It left her questioning whether she had ever been whole.

Shattered, she left the job—and him. She retreated from the limelight, took up a modest desk job, and tried to heal in silence for a whole. Going back to her family wasn't an option—they would only see her as a failed runaway.

His words weren’t rage—they were erasure.

And for a moment, Saira almost believed him. Because the deepest cuts come not from strangers, but from those who once held your heart like glass.

And shame followed. Gossip shadowed her. “Too modern,” they said. “Too proud.” “She traps men.”

Still, somewhere within, a part of her wanted to believe. Maybe he hurt her because he loved her too much. Maybe she misunderstood him. She decided to meet him once more—to honour what they once had.

So, hopeful and hesitant, Saira stepped into the sleek, glass-panelled corridor of the airline's corporate wing, her heels echoing softly against the polished floor. At the far end, behind a frosted glass door etched with Head of Cabin Services, sat Iman — poised, focused, and surrounded by crisp folders, crew schedules, and service reports. The room exuded quiet command: minimalist design, a model aircraft on the shelf, and framed photos from international crew trainings lining the wall.

She waited.

Too long.

Then texted him. No reply!

Moments later, he emerged from a cabin, laughing, his arm slung around another woman. The woman kissed him goodbye.

Saira watched from a distance.

Her world shifted.

Again!

Then he was there, across the corridor—immaculate, poised, exuding that same quiet confidence that once drew her in like gravity. But his eyes slid past her without a flicker of recognition.

He didn’t scream.

He just smiled. A thin, rehearsed smile.

Like she was someone he once vaguely remembered.

“Oh, you’re here?” He said finally. Flat tone, tinged with sarcasm.

No warmth. No trace of the man who once whispered away her midnight fears.

His voice—once her refuge—now rang cold with indifference.

She offered a nervous smile, unsure whether to sit, speak, or leave.

He gestured toward the cabin like a boss summoning an ex-employee.

Not like a man facing someone who had once held his heart.

He leaned back, arms folded, gaze cool and assessing.

“Why do you even care how I’m doing? What is this—guilt? Closure?” He scoffed.

“That woman you saw—yeah, she’s my girlfriend. She looks after me. Gives me peace. She doesn’t make me prove myself at every turn. I’m happy.”

Then came the pause. And the final blow.

“You chose to cut the connection. You don’t matter anymore, Saira.”

The words weren’t loud. But they echoed louder than a scream.

He hadn’t lashed out. He had erased her.

She clutched the armrest to still her trembling hands.

Inside, everything tilted. The man who once revered her fears now dismissed her as an unwanted task.

“You shouldn’t have come,” he added, glancing at his watch.

“Anyway, good to see you’re… managing.”

No invitation to explain.

No attempt to ask why she was there.

No trace of longing or love.

Saira didn’t cry. Didn’t plead!

She rose—head high, smile barely stitched together, dignity her only shield. And as she walked out, her heart collapsed beneath the weight of all that remained unsaid.

But slowly, she tuned out the noise—the blame, the whispered judgments, the cruel names.

Law school!

She now decided to plunge back for a greater purpose. Brick by brick, she rebuilt herself.

A quieter kind of strength!

Now, she advocates for women like her—wronged, silenced, and misread.

She no longer soars above the clouds.

But her spirit?

It flies.

“But why did you go back to Iman after everything that happened?” Esther asked, voice edged with disbelief.

Saira’s response was quiet but certain.

“I didn’t go back because I’d forgotten. I went because a part of me still needed something—closure. Not the kind that reason provides, but the kind that soothes a heart that once loved deeply.”

She hadn’t been naive. She remembered every wound. Every twist of his words, every time he’d chipped away at her sense of worth.

But memory doesn’t fade just because the truth is found.

Iman hadn’t just been a man—he’d been her anchor in a world that barely tolerated her.

He had helped her find her wings.

Then broke them...

And still, a fragile hope had remained. That maybe he’d regret it. That maybe anger had clouded what they once had. That something real still lived beneath the damage.

She hadn’t gone to rekindle love.

She went to find meaning in its wreckage.

To look him in the eye, one last time, and ask—not with words, but with silence—Did any of it mean something?

Yes, because some part of her still craved closure—not because she needed him, but because she needed truth.

So she met him one last time.

Closure wasn’t his to give.

It was hers to claim.

And in the end, it was his indifference that set her free.

The Mirror, The Fire..All Within…

When they reached Esther’s street, neither moved to speak first. Then Saira turned, eyes steady.

“You’re not lost, Esther. You’re just remembering. Healing isn’t becoming someone new. It’s coming back to who you were—before the world tried to edit you.”

Esther swallowed hard.

“Why does it still ache?” She whispered.

“Because you’re still loving the pieces of yourself you had to abandon to survive. That’s sacred work.”

Then came the words Esther would carry like prayer:

“We all have storms inside us. Some people wear them like lightning. Others, like silence. But we’re all fighting something. And that means none of us are alone.”

That night, Esther took off her Medusa pendant—the one she’d worn as a battle cry—and laid it on her desk. She no longer needed to prove she had survived.

Instead, she picked up a small chain. A silver mirror hung from it—not to reflect herself, but to remember Saira. To remember Meeta. To remember that we heal not by standing apart but by walking each other home.

*****************

The Esther Triology Part 2 : The Mirror & The Fire