Page 147 of BounBound By Scars

Kabir.

He stood in the doorway like a ghost finally allowed to return. His shoulders were hunched, his frame visibly thinner, drawn. The weight he carried wasn’t just physical—it clung to him like grief soaked into skin. His face was pale, jaw unshaven, lips parted in disbelief.

But it was his eyes that broke me.

Awe. Fear. Relief. Pain.

All at once.

His gaze swept over me like I was a mirage he didn’t dare believe in. His chest shuddered as he exhaled, a soft, strangled sound leaving him.

Then his legs buckled.

He dropped to his knees on the floor just inside the room, like he couldn’t stand under it anymore.

“I thought he’d lied,” he whispered.

My heart lurched.

I should’ve moved immediately. I should’ve run to him. But I stood frozen, watching him fold into himself, eyes clenched shut, breath shaking like it hurt to even exist.

“I thought…” he rasped, voice cracking, “he told me you were alive, but I thought it was a lie. I thought it was to keep me compliant.”

My legs finally remembered how to move.

I stepped forward slowly, shakily—my body still unsure of itself, my heart too full to hold steady.

And then I was in front of him.

He looked up at me like he couldn’t believe I was real.

I knelt down.

His hands reached out before I could even speak—trembling, reverent, cradling my face like it was something sacred.

“You’re alive,” he breathed. “You’re alive—you’re here—you’re real—”

His lips brushed over every inch of my face. My forehead. My cheeks. My nose. My chin. Each kiss soft and frantic, like he was desperate to memorize me again.

Tears blurred my vision, falling freely now. I wasn’t sobbing—but I was unraveling.

“Kabir…” I whispered, my voice barely holding together.

His hands never stopped moving—one wrapped around the back of my neck, the other pressing to the side of my throat. He pressed his fingers against my pulse point.

And stayed there.

His expression shifted. Something soft and broken bloomed in his eyes.

“It’s beating,” he whispered, like it was a miracle. “It’s beating.”

He pressed his forehead to mine, eyes glistening.

I realized it then. He must have felt it—my pulse fade away.

I closed my eyes, fingers clutching his jacket.

My heart breaking.

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