The next year was a blur of video calls and handwritten letters. Jannat sent him dried flowers pressed between pages of poetry; Leo sent her sketches of buildings he saw, always hiding her name somewhere in the intricate linework of the facades.
The distance was hard, but it clarified everything. It taught Leo that love wasn't about physical proximity; it was about the space someone occupied in your mind. Jannat was his north star. Every design he created, every bridge he conceptualized, was an unconscious attempt to span the gap between them.
On the day he finally returned, he didn't call her. He went straight to the library.
He walked past the stacks of history and philosophy, his heart hammering a rhythm of anticipation. He turned the corner to the third window nook.
There she was.
She was older, her hair a bit longer, her leather journal even more worn. She was staring out the window at the rain, looking exactly like the dream he'd been chasing for a year.
He didn't say a word. He simply sat down across from her and pushed a small, velvet box across the table.
Jannat looked at the box, then at him, her eyes wide. "Leo?"
"I built a secret room," he whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "But it's not in a museum. It's a house. And I need you to help me pick the colors for the walls."
She opened the box to find a ring, but it wasn't a standard diamond. It was a custom-designed band of gold, etched with the pattern of the willow trees where they had shared their first real moment of honesty.
"Is there a library in this house?" she asked, a tear finally escaping and rolling down her cheek.
"The biggest one I can design," Leo promised.
The wedding was small, held in the very garden where they had once talked about dreams. Jannat wore a dress the color of cream and gold, looking every bit the "Paradise" her name suggested.
As they stood at the altar, Leo realized that his life's work wasn't going to be the skyscrapers or the monuments he would eventually build. His masterpiece was this—the life he was constructing with the girl who taught him that perfection is found in the imperfections of another.
Years later, people would ask Leo what inspired his most famous designs. He would always point to a small framed sketch in his office—a drawing of a girl in a library window.
"I didn't build those buildings," he would say with a smile. "I just followed the light that she left on for me."
For Leo, Jannat wasn't just a dream girl. She was the reality that made dreaming worth it.