The poem lingered in Aanya's mind like a song stuck between verses. She had read it only once, but the lines echoed every time she closed her eyes. Meera. The name felt like a shadow in the room whenever Vihaan spoke.
They met again at Cubbon Park, beneath the gulmohar trees that had just begun to bloom. The air smelled of wet earth and nostalgia.
Vihaan brought coffee in paper cups. "I wasn't sure you'd come."
"I wasn't sure either," Aanya replied, taking the cup but not the warmth it offered.
They walked in silence, the kind that wasn't peaceful but necessary. Aanya finally spoke.
"Do you still write to her?"
Vihaan nodded. "Not as often. But sometimes, when the rain feels familiar."
Aanya stopped walking. "And what am I, Vihaan? A new poem? Or just a pause between stanzas?"
He looked at her, eyes heavy. "You're not a pause. You're the first line I didn't write for her."
She wanted to believe him. But the truth was layered—like the city itself, where old temples stood beside glass towers, and memories refused to be bulldozed.
"I don't want to compete with a ghost," she said softly.
"You're not. But I need to be honest about the fact that she shaped me. Her absence is part of my presence."
They sat on a bench, watching children chase kites in the drizzle. Aanya thought about her own past—about Rishi, the boy who had promised forever and left without a goodbye. She had buried that heartbreak beneath work, books, and late-night walks. But Vihaan's openness made her realize how much she had avoided feeling.
"Maybe we're both haunted," she said.
"Maybe," Vihaan replied. "But maybe that's why we found each other."
Aanya smiled, just barely. "You know what's strange? I came to Blossom Book House that day because I was looking for something to feel again. I didn't expect it to be you."
Vihaan reached into his bag and pulled out a notebook. "Then maybe it's time I let you read something."
He handed her a page. It wasn't about Meera. It was about a girl with rain in her hair and poetry in her eyes.
> "She didn't arrive like a storm.
> She arrived like the silence after one—
> the kind that makes you believe
> the world might be beautiful again."
Aanya read it twice. Then once more.
And for the first time since they met, she felt like the rain wasn't just washing away the past—it was making room for something new.