The next few days passed like unfinished sentences. Aanya didn't call. Vihaan didn't write. The silence between them was no longer comforting—it was loud, echoing with everything they hadn't said.
Aanya wandered through the city alone, retracing the places they'd shared—Blossom Book House, Matteo's, Cubbon Park. Each one felt different now, like a photograph faded at the edges.
She wasn't angry. Not exactly. But she was uncertain. And uncertainty, she'd learned, was more dangerous than heartbreak.
Vihaan, meanwhile, sat at his desk, staring at blank pages. For the first time in years, the words wouldn't come. Not for Meera. Not for Aanya. Not even for himself.
He finally texted her.
> I'm sorry. For the letters. For not knowing how to let go. For making you feel like a footnote.
She didn't reply.
That evening, the rain returned—heavy, relentless, as if the sky itself had something to mourn.
Aanya stood beneath the awning of Blossom Book House again, just like the day they met. But this time, she was alone.
Vihaan arrived minutes later, drenched, breathless.
"I didn't know where else to go," he said.
She looked at him, eyes unreadable. "You always come back to the rain."
"Because it's the only thing that doesn't judge me."
Aanya stepped forward. "I'm not asking you to forget Meera. I'm asking you to choose me. Fully. Without apology."
Vihaan hesitated. "I want to. But I don't know how."
She nodded, tears mixing with the rain. "Then maybe we're not ready."
He reached for her hand. She let him. But this time, it didn't feel like a beginning. It felt like a pause. A necessary one.
They stood there, beneath the same awning, beneath the same sky. But everything had changed.
And sometimes, love needs distance to find its shape.