LOVE IN THE MOONLIGHT

Chapter 10: Under the same moon

The decision about the festival hung over us for three days, three days of me pretending I was fine and Rayyan pretending he wasn't torn apart inside, and on the third night we ended up on the rooftop again because that's where we always went when words failed us and the only thing we knew how to do was sit next to each other under the moon and hope that it would give us answers.

"I don't want to regret this," he said finally, breaking the silence. "I don't want to regret saying no and wondering what if. And I don't want to regret saying yes and losing you."

"You won't lose me," I said, and I meant it this time. "I meant what I said. I'm not going anywhere. But Rayyan, this is your dream. You can't give it up for me. That's not love. That's fear."

He looked at me like I had just said something profound, and maybe I had, because for the first time since we met I felt like the strong one, like I was the one holding us together instead of falling apart.

"So what do we do?" he asked.

"We do both," I said. "You go. You play. You chase this. And I stay here and finish school and we call each other and we miss each other and we come back to each other. Because that's what official means, right? It means we choose each other even when it's hard."

He was quiet for a long time, and then he nodded slowly. "Okay. Both."

Two weeks later, he was on stage at the festival.

I wasn't there. I was in my dorm, watching the livestream with Nadia and 20 other people who had crammed into our tiny room, and when he walked out with his guitar and looked straight into the camera like he knew I was watching, I cried.

He played `2 AM`. He played `Stay`. And right before the last song he said into the mic, "This one is for the girl who taught me that home isn't a place. It's a person. I love you, Aira."

The chat exploded. My phone exploded.

And I sat there with tears streaming down my face thinking that a month ago I was failing exams and now I was the girl a musician dedicated a song to in front of 50,000 people.

After the festival he came home for good. No more touring. No more long trips. The label was mad at first but then his EP dropped and did even better than `2 AM` and suddenly they didn't care as long as he kept making music.

We fell into a rhythm.

Classes in the morning. Studio in the afternoon. Rooftop at 2 AM.

Sometimes we fought about stupid things like what to order for dinner or whether his songs were too cheesy. Sometimes we didn't talk for a day because we were both stressed. But we always came back to the rooftop. Always.

Graduation came six months later.

I walked across the stage in my cap and gown with my mom in the audience crying, and the first person I saw when I stepped down was Rayyan holding flowers and a sign that said `Official Graduate` with a doodle of a moon on it.

"I'm so proud of you," he said, hugging me. "Dr. Aira has a nice ring to it."

"I'm not a doctor," I laughed. "I have a degree in business."

"Same thing," he said. "Smart and official."

That summer we moved into a small apartment off campus, just the two of us, with fairy lights and too many books and his guitars in every corner, and I got a job at a startup and he kept making music, and we were happy, really happy, in the quiet, boring, everyday kind of way that no one writes songs about but that I wouldn't trade for anything.

One year after we met on the rooftop, we went back.

It was 2 AM. The moon was full. He had his guitar. I had two cups of bad coffee.

"Remember the first night?" he asked, playing a soft chord.

"I remember thinking you were a jerk," I said, leaning on his shoulder.

"And I remember thinking you were going to cry all night," he said.

We both laughed.

"Do you ever wonder what would have happened if we didn't meet here?" I asked.

"No," he said without hesitation. "Because the moon would have found a way to bring us together anyway."

He set his guitar down and pulled me into his lap, and we sat there for hours, not talking, just watching the city lights and listening to the quiet.

"Hey," he said after a while.

"Hmm?"

"I wrote something new."

"Another song?"

"No," he said, and I could feel him smiling against my hair. "A promise."

"What kind of promise?"

"A forever kind," he said. "That no matter where we go or what we do, we always come back here. To 2 AM. To us. To this."

Tears pricked my eyes. "I promise too."

We stayed until the sun came up, and when we finally went home, hand in hand, I realized that love wasn't the big dramatic moments or the viral songs or the festival stages.

Love was choosing each other on ordinary days.

Love was bad coffee and messy apartments and fighting and making up.

Love was finding someone in the dark and deciding to stay in the light together.

A year ago I was alone on this rooftop, scared and broken.

Today I was here with him, whole and loved.

The moon hadn't changed.

But we had.

And under the same moon that brought us together, I knew we would be okay.

Because we were official.

Because we were home.

Because we were us.

**THE END**