It was raining when he came.
Not the romantic kind—the poetic, silver-threaded drizzle that makes poets reach for pens and lovers reach for each other.
This was a violent rain, the kind that soaks your bones and makes the sky feel angry.
Meera opened the door to a stranger.
He was in his late 40s, with tired eyes and a messenger bag strapped across his chest like armor. Water dripped from his leather jacket onto her doormat. His fingers clutched something—a plastic folder—like it was more fragile than paper.
"You don't know me," he said. "But I knew Aarav."
Meera tensed.
"You're about five years too late," she replied.
"I was his counselor. End-of-life planning team. I'm… Dr. Sarthak."
She blinked.
Aarav never mentioned a Dr. Sarthak.
"I helped him prepare. With things people don't like to talk about."
"Like dying?"
"Like finishing unfinished things," he said, and held out the folder. "This is for you. He asked me to wait a year before delivering it. Today is one year since your last chemo journal entry."
Her breath caught.
"I never told anyone about that journal."
"He did."
Dr. Sarthak stepped back.
"He said you'd be angry. But that you'd read it anyway."
And with that, he left her alone in the doorway.
With rain dripping from her sleeves. And the weight of a man she buried in her chest now pressing into her palms.
The folder was light.
Inside it: A single, yellowing envelope. Her name, in Aarav's handwriting.
Meera. Only open when you're ready to be angry and still love me.
She stared at it.
A thousand thoughts rushed through her mind like a storm.
He had already said goodbye. Through voice notes. Through diary entries. Through the shape of his silence.
What else was left?
She almost put it away.
Almost.
But curiosity, as always, was her weakness. And Aarav—her gravity.
She opened it.
Inside, two pages. Written in pen. Crossed out lines. Unfinished thoughts.
A letter he never had the courage to say out loud.
Meera,
If you're reading this, it means you survived me. And if you're still angry at me—good. It means you're still alive.
There's something I never told you.
I lied about my last test results.
She stopped reading.
Her heart hammered in her chest.
"What?" she whispered.
Her hands trembled. The paper blurred.
She blinked and continued.
I knew a month before the trip to the mountains that my cancer had spread to my liver and lungs. The doctor said I had weeks. Not months.
I didn't tell you. Because I didn't want our love to be about dying. I wanted to leave as a man in love—not a patient with a countdown.
That's why I made you promise to take that trip.
Because I knew it would be the last.
She dropped the letter on the table like it burned her.
Her legs carried her blindly to the kitchen.
She opened the fridge. Closed it. Opened it again.
Nothing made sense.
He had lied. He had robbed her of the truth. Of time. Of choice.
And yet— He had done it for love?
She returned to the letter.
I also left something for you. I couldn't give it to you then. I was too weak. Too scared of what it would mean.
Go to the apartment. Our first one. The one with the yellow wall. I kept the keys in the back pocket of the photo frame on your bookshelf. Bottom shelf. Third from the left.
There's a drawer I never opened after you left. The third one in the old brown desk. Inside it is everything I couldn't tell you.
If you read this and still love me, go.
Meera didn't hesitate.
She found the frame—an old picture of a dog in a raincoat Aarav had once insisted they adopt "someday."
She pulled it open from the back.
Sure enough, there was a tiny, cold key taped to the inner cardboard.
Her fingers curled around it like a compass.
The apartment was still there.
Vacant, but not empty.
Dust floated like ghosts in the sunbeam slicing through the living room.
She walked to the old desk.
The third drawer.
Pulled it open.
Inside: a red notebook and a sealed envelope.
Nothing else.
She picked up the notebook first.
The title read: "The Days I Didn't Tell Her."
Each page was a short entry.
Day 1: I woke up to her humming in the kitchen. I knew then that I would never tell her about the metastasis.
Day 4: She asked if I was tired. I said no. Truth? I couldn't even feel my legs. But her eyes were so full of light, I didn't want to dim them.
Day 8: I recorded the voice note. Not the one I gave her. A second one. The real one. I hid it in the drawer under my Rubik's cube. Maybe she'll find it. Maybe not.
Day 11: I watched her sleep. She talks in her sleep. Said my name like a prayer. I cried silently into the pillow. I've never been loved like this.
Day 14: I felt a seizure coming. I told her I was fine. I wasn't. But her touch calmed me. Her touch—my medicine.
She flipped through the pages, one by one.
Until she reached the last.
Day 22: Today is my last day of strength. Tomorrow, I will not be able to walk without help. I know it. My body knows it. But I will spend today holding her. Breathing her. Because that's all I ever wanted—to leave this world with her name in my mouth.
Meera's face was soaked with silent tears.
She hadn't even realized she was crying.
She took the sealed envelope.
Opened it.
Inside, a USB.
On it: a sticker.
Play when you're alone and brave.
She returned home.
Plugged it into her laptop.
It was a video file.
Aarav. Bald. Thin. Eyes tired, but smiling.
"Hey, Meer. If you're seeing this, then you found the drawer. You always were the nosy one."
"I couldn't say this to your face. Because you would've stopped me. Or forgiven me too soon."
"I lied. I'm sorry. But I needed to protect something."
"Not you. Me."
He paused.
"I didn't want to be a burden. I didn't want you to love me out of obligation. So I created a version of me that wasn't dying yet."
"But I also knew, someday, you'd need the real truth."
"So here it is: I was dying, Meera. But every second with you made it feel like I wasn't."
He looked away. Then back at the camera.
"When you remember me, don't remember the chemo. Or the hospital. Remember the pancakes. The dancing in the rain. The yellow wall."
"Remember that love didn't save me. But it gave me something better."
"It gave me a life worth losing."
The video ended.
The screen faded to black.
But Meera sat there for a long time, staring at her own reflection.
And for the first time in a year, she smiled through the tears.
Because she finally understood.
Aarav hadn't robbed her of time.
He'd given her the version of him she'd fallen in love with—until the very end.
To be continued…