Riya_3506

They say a girl’s first love is her father. But what happens when that love is just a void? When the space he should have filled becomes an ache you carry like a scar?

I grew up searching for him — in the eyes of every man I met, in friendships that drained me, in relationships that promised forever but slipped away. I wore my heart like an apology, hoping someone might see the emptiness inside me and choose to stay anyway. And every time they left, I blamed myself, quietly wondering if I was too broken to be loved.

I wrote about it in my journal, words spilling out like confessions I couldn’t say out loud:

I searched for you in every face,
A ghost I could never touch.
I watered my wounds with hope,
But you never bloomed.

Still, I kept loving —
Not to find you,
But to find myself.

But this story isn’t just about absence. It’s about discovery. About the love I thought I didn’t deserve, and the man who showed me that even the most shattered hearts can learn to beat again.

This is the story of how I lost myself, how I pieced myself back together, and how love finally found me — not as a replacement, but as a reminder that I was whole all along

Bruised but Still Loving

I don't remember when I decided that love was something I had to earn.

Maybe it was the day I realized my father never tried to come back. Or the day Aarav walked past me in the hallway like we were strangers. Maybe it was every unanswered text, every promise broken, every time a man chose someone else over me.

At some point, I stopped hoping to be loved for who I was.

Instead, I became obsessed with being worthy.

If I was the smartest in the room, people would admire me. If I was the hardest worker, bosses would rely on me. If I was funny and chill, guys would want to be around me.

I thought if I built myself into something extraordinary, someone might finally decide I was enough to stay for.

By the time I hit 25, I was a machine.

I clocked into work early and left late, drowning myself in endless tasks and tight deadlines. My inbox was always full, my calendar always packed, my body always running on caffeine and the brittle adrenaline of not wanting to be alone with my thoughts.

My coworkers called me a "powerhouse." My boss said I had "unstoppable drive."

But no one saw me crying in the office bathroom after getting ghosted by another guy I thought might care about me. No one saw me clutching my chest in the middle of the night, convinced I was having a heart attack, when it was just anxiety clawing its way through my ribs.

I was achieving so much. And yet, I felt like nothing.

One evening, after a particularly brutal day, I collapsed onto my bed without even changing out of my work clothes. The city buzzed outside my window — cars honking, people living, the world moving on.

I stared at the ceiling, the emptiness pressing down on me like a weight I couldn't lift. And without meaning to, I started writing on my phone's notes app:

I am a house built of absence.A room full of shadows, echoing with voices that never stay.I collect accomplishments like bricks, stacking them higher and higher —As if success can fill the spaces where love should live.

I am tired of building.I want someone to knock the walls down.I want someone to see me in the wreckage and stay anyway.

I read the words back to myself, and something cracked open inside me.

I realized I didn't just hate my father for leaving.I hated that he taught me love was conditional.

And I hated that I still believed it.

"You can't live like this forever, Aria," Kiaan said, watching me with those steady, patient eyes. We were sitting in his car, the rain tapping against the windshield like a heartbeat.

"Like what?" I asked, knowing the answer but daring him to say it.

"Like love is a reward for suffering," he said. "Like you have to prove yourself just to be cared for."

I looked away, my throat tightening. "That's easy for you to say. You grew up with a family who loved you."

Kiaan didn't flinch. "That doesn't mean I don't know what it's like to feel unlovable."

The vulnerability in his voice disarmed me. I wanted to ask what he meant, to peel back the layers of him the way he kept peeling back mine. But I was terrified.

Because if I let him in any further, I wouldn't survive if he left.

Not given because you're flawless — but because you're human.

And what if the person you've been waiting to choose you —

And maybe, for the first time, wanting was enough.

Chapter 3: The Overachiever’s Curse