The day the storm finally broke, Faith went to the mountain. For months she had carried a quiet anger in her chest, like a stone lodged under her ribcage. Someone she loved had lied to her, betrayed a promise she thought was unbreakable. She had apologized for her own part, tried to speak with honesty and humility, tried to repair what was broken. But Raza’s answer had been sharp and final: “I’ll never forgive you. We would have never done that to you.”
Those words had stuck to her like thorns in here lungs. Faith overwhelmed with emotions, understood the cost of allowing herself to become consumed. She ran up the path of the mountain. The steep and uneven path that none enters. Roots twisted through the dirt like old wounds, rocks jutted out like unspoken words.
As Faith ran, the sky above her shifted from bright blue to a heavy gray, clouds rolling in like a memory she didn’t ask for. “Why won’t these feelings leave?” she screamed and pleaded to whoever was listening. “I said I was sorry. I owned what I did. Why is Raza chained to his version of me? Why wont he forgive me?”
The wind picked up, carrying the scent of rain and pine howling through the trees. Mother Nature, ancient and patient, listened.At the first overlook, Faith stopped to catch her breath. Below her, a river cut through the valley, wide and relentless. It had carved its way through rock over years—not by force, but by persistence.
Faith sat on a flat stone, with her eyes closed to let the wildlife surround her. As the wind picked up more she heard a voice: “Do you see that river? It flows forward, no matter what tries to hold it back.” She watched the current. Branches, leaves, and even fallen trees were being carried along. The river didn’t argue with the debris. It didn’t stop to explain itself. It simply moved.
Unforgiveness isn’t a chain around the person you are angry with. It is a weight you tie around your own ankle, while standing in aviolent current and wondering why you can’t move. Faith thought of her siblings, who refused to forgive her, even though she was wronged as well. Faith had done what she could: told the truth, taken accountability, offered repair. Raza chose to keep the image of her at her worst moment, like a photograph pinned in their mind. And for a while, she had tried to live against that picture—over-explaining, over-apologizing, punishing herself in her thoughts, as if that would finally unlock their hearts.
The wind brushed against her face, almost like mother nature cupped her face with empathy. “The river cannot make the rock soften,” the voice spoke again. “It can only stay true to its nature and keep moving.”
Faith stood up and continued in the forest. Deeper, into the Verbra Forest full of tall, ancient trees. Some had deep scars in their bark, long, pale lines where the Consumed ones or blades had cut them open. But they still reached for the sky, taller and stronger than many younger trees around them. Fallen trees lay across the path, moss and small flowers growing along the trunks. Life growing from what had already died. Running her hand over one of the scars on a tree as she walked by and the voice spoke again:“This tree can’t erase what happened. It can’t go back and un-break it’s bark. But it turned the wound into a record of survival proving it was stronger than what tried to break it.”
In that moment Faith understood something about forgiveness. Forgiveness is not the world pretending nothing happened. It’s you deciding: “I won’t keep living this same moment forever.” Faith had already taken accountability for her actions. She had faced where she was wrong without excuses. She’d tried to right what she could. That was her honor. But whether the other person chose to forgive—that was their journey now, not hers. Raza would always carry the version of her that he had frozen in his mind. Nothing she said would rewrite the story he’d chosen to hold onto. That memory would live inside his heart, coloring his world, shaping their future relationship. Pain, she realized, belonged to him.
Faith’s responsibility was different: To move in honor, to keep her word, to stand firm in healthy boundaries, to be kind, even when kindness isn’t returned. That was the lessons of the Asim family—not that they will never do wrong, but the one who refuses to forgive will stay trapped in that moment forever.
The sky finally opened as she reached edge of the forest. Rain poured down, soaking her clothes, running over her skin like a baptism. She closed her eyes and let it happen. Each drop felt like a truth washing over her: You cannot force someone to see your growth. You cannot reach into their mind and update their memories. You cannot make them release the story where you are the villain. But you can choose who you are now. You can choose to learn from what happened. You can choose to speak with integrity. You can choose to honor your word. You can choose to be kind without being a taken advantage of. You can choose boundaries that protect your peace without hardening your heart.
As the rain softens into mist, Faith took a deep breath. “I forgive myself for who I was then,” she whispered. “I accept that Razamay never forgive me. I accept that he may always live with a version of me that no longer exists. And I release myself from shame and trying to fix what lives only in someone else’s mind specially, if they don’t even want to get to know me.”
Down in the valley, the river kept flowing. In the forest, the scarred trees kept reaching for the light. On the mountain, the storm had passed, and the air was clean. Mother Nature had shown Faith a pattern: Storms do not apologize for raining; they clear the air and move on. Trees do not hide their scars; they grow around them. Rivers do not drag every fallen branch forever. They carry it for a time, then release it and keep going.
Unforgiveness is the human habit of holding onto what the river is trying to carry away. As Faith begins her descent, she did not feel “fixed” or perfect. She felt something better: aligned. She understood now that accountability was her sacred work—but so was releasing it.
From that day forward, Faith chose to walk through life like the mountain and the river: rooted in honor, flowing in truth, kind but clear, strong in her boundaries, and always willing to grow.
Sadly, some people would still only know her by her storms, even though she will spend the rest of her life becoming the weather after.