Ria Malhotra
Part 1: Monsoon Mornings
The rain had arrived early in Mumbai this year. Not the aggressive, stormy kind, but a soft drizzle that hung like a veil between the living and the past. The street outside “Chapter & Chai” glistened under the dull gold of the morning light, and the faint aroma of wet earth seeped through the bookstore’s open windows.
Ananya adjusted the handwritten sign near the entrance:
Today’s Brew: Masala Chai & Murakami
Underneath it, she scribbled in smaller letters: Umbrellas welcome. So are old friends.
It wasn’t just marketing—it was habit. Ever since her daughter, Tara, left for boarding school two years ago, Ananya had turned the bookstore into a haven of quiet routines. Books, tea, music. Repeat. It helped keep the ache away—the ache of a life that had not gone exactly as planned.
She returned behind the counter, wiping her damp hands on her kurta, when the doorbell chimed—a familiar tinkle, like a memory brushing against her skin.
He stepped in, shaking droplets from his black umbrella. His hair was flecked with grey at the temples, though his face remained boyish in an unhurried, aging kind of way. He wore a dark blue shirt, sleeves rolled up, and held a camera slung across his shoulder like a soldier with an old weapon.
Ananya looked up.
And froze.
“Hi,” he said, softly, almost uncertainly. “You’re still here.”
The silence between them stretched, as if the books themselves were listening.
“Rishi?” Her voice was almost a whisper, as if saying his name out loud might break something fragile in the air.
He gave a small nod, eyes scanning her face like he couldn’t quite believe she was real. “I was walking by and… I didn’t know if you still ran this place.”
Ananya blinked, searching his face. Twenty years. He looked older, of course, more grounded somehow. The reckless charm had settled into something steadier, but the eyes—they were still the same. Brown, restless, observant.
“I do,” she said finally, her voice finding its footing. “Six days a week. Closed Sundays.”
He smiled faintly, the way he used to when he teased her in college. “Still allergic to Sundays, huh?”
She laughed, short and sharp. “Still presumptuous, I see.”
He raised his hands in surrender. “Guilty.”
For a moment, the rain filled the silence again. Ananya’s heart beat a little too loudly. Her fingers curled around the edge of the counter.
“Tea?” she asked, already reaching for the kettle. “Or are you still a terrible coffee snob?”
“I’ve changed,” he said, stepping closer. “Chai sounds perfect.”
She brewed the tea with practised ease, placing two chipped cups—one pale yellow, one sea green—on the old wooden table near the poetry shelf. He followed her, scanning the rows of books with something between admiration and nostalgia.
“This place hasn’t changed much,” he said. “Still smells like rain and paper.”
Ananya sat down opposite him. “And you? Changed a lot, I suppose. You’re a photographer now.”
“Mostly travel. Magazines, online features. Some exhibitions. I just came back from Iceland last month.”
She stirred her tea slowly. “Still running, then.”
His smile faltered. “Maybe. Or searching.”
“For what?”
He didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he picked up the sea green cup and took a careful sip. “I didn’t expect to see you. I wasn’t even sure you were in Mumbai.”
“I never left,” she said. “Not really.”
He looked around again, then at her. “It’s beautiful. The shop. You. Everything.”
She looked away, eyes landing on a half-open copy of The God of Small Things on the nearby shelf.
“Don’t,” she said, gently.
“I mean it,” he replied, equally soft.
Ananya sighed. “Why are you here, Rishi?”
He paused. “I had a few assignments in India. My mother’s in Pune now. I was visiting her… and then I wandered into this lane this morning. I saw the signboard and…”
“And decided to walk into the past?”
He smiled wryly. “Something like that.”
She looked at him fully now. The quiet intensity, the well-worn camera, the slow speech. He had always spoken like he was choosing his words from a different world. And twenty years ago, she had fallen in love with that world.
But that was before he left. No note. No explanation. Just a sudden goodbye on a winter afternoon and a silence that stretched into years.
“I used to think I imagined you,” she said suddenly, surprising herself. “You disappeared so completely.”
His eyes dropped. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s not enough.”
“I know.”
Outside, the rain had thickened slightly, blurring the windows with its persistent rhythm. Inside, time felt suspended. Ananya’s fingers brushed the rim of her cup.
“Do you have a family?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “Never married.”
“Why not?”
He hesitated. “Maybe I was waiting to understand what I left behind.”
She gave a bitter laugh. “That’s poetic. Almost as poetic as the way you vanished.”
“I was young. I thought leaving was the kindest thing I could do.”
She stared at him, stunned. “Kindest?”
“I thought I’d hold you back. I thought you’d be better off without me and my wanderlust. I didn’t think I could be the kind of man you needed.”
Ananya stood up, suddenly needing space. “You decided that for me?”
“Yes,” he said, quietly. “And I regret it every day.”
She turned away, her hands trembling slightly. Behind her, a slow song hummed from the old speaker near the window—something about waiting too long and coming home too late.
Rishi stood too. “I won’t stay if you don’t want me to.”
Ananya didn’t answer immediately. She walked to the front door, watching the city blur through the sheets of rain.
Finally, she said, “Come tomorrow. If you’re not just passing through.”
He smiled, that same half-smile that had once broken her heart. “I’m not. Not anymore.”
She nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”
And just like that, the door chimed again as he walked out—leaving the scent of chai and a ghost of the past behind.
Part 2: Photographs and Flashbacks
Rishi arrived ten minutes early the next day.
The rain had lightened, misting the streets with a gentle sheen. “Chapter & Chai” was still closed, the shutters halfway down. He leaned against the opposite building, watching the doorway like it might vanish again. The alley smelled of damp books, fried vada pav from a nearby stall, and something achingly familiar he couldn’t quite name.
At 10:00 sharp, Ananya rolled up the shutter. She didn’t flinch when she saw him waiting.
“You’re early,” she said, unlocking the door.
“I wasn’t sure if I’d be welcome.”
“I said ‘come tomorrow’, didn’t I?” she replied, stepping aside.
He followed her in. The warmth of the bookstore wrapped around him like an old sweater. Familiar. Worn. Comforting.
“Same chai as yesterday?” she asked, hanging her umbrella.
“Unless you’ve added something magical to the menu.”
She allowed herself a smile, fleeting but genuine. “Not since college.”
He wandered through the shelves as she brewed the tea. The shop had grown since he last saw it—newer sections for graphic novels and translations, handwritten recommendations pinned under certain titles. He stopped at a small framed photo near the poetry section.
It was Ananya, maybe fifteen years younger, holding a baby in her arms. Her eyes were tired but joyful.
He didn’t ask. Not yet.
She brought over the tea and caught his gaze lingering on the photo.
“Tara,” she said simply, sitting down. “She’s sixteen now. At boarding school in Panchgani.”
Rishi sat opposite her, his cup steaming. “She looks like you.”
“God help her,” Ananya muttered with a smirk.
There was a pause.
“I didn’t know you had a daughter,” he said carefully.
“You didn’t know anything,” she said, but not cruelly. Just the truth.
He took a sip, unsure how to unpack the years between them. But it unspooled anyway—faster than he thought possible.
“Do you remember that last night?” he asked.
She set her cup down, her jaw tightening. “Vividly.”
“The rooftop of your old building. That old iron swing.”
“And the way you didn’t say goodbye?”
He winced. “I’ve regretted that for so long.”
Ananya looked out the window. “You just disappeared, Rishi. I thought something had happened to you.”
“I couldn’t stay,” he said. “I didn’t know how to explain it to you then, but… I felt trapped. Not by you, never by you. Just—by the life I was supposed to live. I wasn’t ready.”
“You were scared,” she said quietly.
“Yes. Terrified.”
“And I was collateral damage.”
He looked down. “You deserved better.”
“I did,” she said softly. “But I also loved you. So much that it took me years to unlearn the shape of you.”
The silence between them was thick, but not sharp this time. It had softened, like rain on stone.
Rishi reached into his bag and pulled out a small leather album. “Can I show you something?”
She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were all digital now.”
“Some things still deserve to be printed.”
He opened the album. Inside were photos—landscapes, faces, strange corners of the world. And then, without warning, her.
Not the Ananya of today. But the one he had known.
A photo of her reading by a college window, hair pulled back, eyebrows furrowed. Another—her sleeping in a library corner, head on a stack of books, lit by the late afternoon sun.
Ananya stared, silent.
“I carried these through every country,” he said. “Took them before we ever dated. Back when I thought you’d never notice me.”
“Why did you keep them?” she asked, barely audible.
“Because I never really left you,” he said.
She closed the album, fingers trembling just slightly. “That’s very romantic, Rishi. But you did leave. And I had to rebuild myself without you.”
“I know.”
“And now you’re here, after all this time, thinking what?”
He hesitated. “I don’t know. That I wanted to see you again. That maybe, somehow, something could still exist between us.”
Ananya leaned back. “You walked out of a story midway, and now you want to rewrite the ending.”
“No,” he said. “I want to ask if you’d let me turn the page.”
Her breath caught at that. She stood, restless now, walking toward the poetry shelf. “You still speak in metaphors.”
“It’s the only way I know how.”
She pulled out a book—Agha Shahid Ali’s poems—and held it without opening. “You know what hurt the most?”
He waited.
“You didn’t trust me. You made that choice alone. You left alone. And I was left with questions no one could answer.”
“I didn’t think I was worthy of you,” he said.
“That wasn’t your decision to make.”
He nodded, absorbing it.
Outside, the city bustled under grey skies, but inside the store, time slowed again—just enough to let old wounds breathe.
She finally turned to face him. “I don’t know what this is, Rishi. I don’t know if I’m angry or relieved. But you’re here. And that… counts for something.”
He stood slowly. “I’ll be here tomorrow too. If you want.”
Ananya looked at him for a long time. Then she said, “We don’t have to rush. Let’s see what the rain brings.”
Rishi smiled. “I’ve got time now.”
Part 3: Past Perfect, Present Tense
On Friday morning, the rain paused.
For the first time in a week, sunlight poured through the old bookstore’s front windows, catching motes of dust in its golden net. Ananya was rearranging the classics shelf—Austen, Dostoevsky, Tagore—when the doorbell chimed, and Rishi entered with two paper cups in hand.
“No chai today?” she asked, amused.
He grinned. “Thought I’d make the peace offering today. Filter coffee from Matunga. Still your weakness?”
She smirked. “I’ll allow it.”
They sat at the reading table again, side by side this time. The silence was easier today, less heavy. Rishi looked around, running his fingers along the edge of the wooden table.
“Did you ever think,” he began slowly, “that we would meet again like this?”
“No,” Ananya said. “And definitely not with you holding overpriced coffee like a peace treaty.”
He laughed. It was a warm, genuine sound—the kind she hadn’t heard in a long time. Something about it tugged at an old version of herself. The girl in her twenties who had fallen in love with a boy who quoted Neruda and always smelled faintly of rain and cologne.
“So,” he said after a moment. “Tell me. What happened after I left?”
Ananya leaned back, crossing her arms. “You mean, besides the world collapsing?”
He winced. “I deserve that.”
She softened. “I was wrecked for a while, Rishi. I kept thinking you’d call, write, show up outside my window like in those ridiculous films.”
“I wanted to.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t trust myself. I thought I was doing the right thing.”
“Funny how people always call it ‘the right thing’ when they break your heart.”
He looked down, ashamed.
Ananya stared into her cup. “I didn’t know I was pregnant until two weeks after you left.”
His head snapped up. “What?”
She nodded. “Tara. She’s yours.”
Rishi blinked, stunned.
“I was twenty-five. Confused. Alone. My parents were supportive, thank God, but they were heartbroken too. They liked you. They believed in us.”
He was speechless, his breath shallow.
“She doesn’t know,” Ananya said, quietly. “She thinks her father was someone I loved but lost early. I couldn’t… I didn’t want her to grow up thinking she wasn’t wanted.”
“I never would have left if I knew,” Rishi said, his voice breaking.
“But you didn’t ask,” she replied, gently. “You left without giving me a chance to tell you anything.”
He covered his face with his hands, overcome.
Ananya reached out, resting her fingers lightly on his wrist. “I’m not telling you to punish you. I made my peace with it. I built a life. A good one. Tara’s wonderful. Kind, curious, stubborn—just like you.”
He managed a broken smile. “I have a daughter.”
“You do.”
They sat in silence for a long while. Then, Rishi pulled out his camera and placed it on the table.
“May I?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“To take my picture?” she asked.
“No,” he said. “To take our picture.”
She hesitated, then gave the smallest nod.
He adjusted the lens, positioned it on the shelf opposite them, and set the timer.
When the shutter clicked, they didn’t smile. They didn’t pose. They just looked at each other, present and raw. Two people who had broken and bent and somehow found themselves here—on the same page again.
Later, he showed her the photo.
They both looked older, tired—but also quietly luminous, as though the years had been necessary to make this exact moment real.
“This could have been us all along,” Rishi whispered.
Ananya shook her head gently. “No. We weren’t ready. Not then.”
He nodded. “But maybe now?”
She gave him a long look. “I don’t know yet. I’m not the girl you left behind, Rishi.”
“I wouldn’t want her,” he said. “I want you. The woman you became.”
She stared out the window at the busy street. The sky was bright again, just briefly. A thin slice of blue had broken through the grey.
“We’ll see,” she said softly. “One chapter at a time.”
Part 4: Shelves and Silences
The following days slipped into a rhythm that felt oddly natural—dangerously natural.
Rishi came by every morning around ten, sometimes with chai, sometimes with flowers, once even with a vinyl of old Kishore Kumar songs. Ananya didn’t ask him to stay, but she didn’t ask him to leave either.
He helped with small things—dusting shelves, fixing the old fan that had rattled for months, reorganizing the forgotten corner of Indian poetry that only two customers ever browsed. And sometimes, when the shop was empty, they talked.
Not always about the past. Sometimes about books. Or cities they loved. Or Tara. But often, they sat in comfortable quiet, the kind that comes only when two people have nothing left to prove.
It was a Tuesday when he asked her to lunch.
“I know a place you’ll love,” he said. “Tiny, no signage, best khichdi in Mumbai.”
Ananya raised an eyebrow. “You’re trying to seduce me with khichdi?”
“It worked once,” he teased.
She gave a reluctant smile. “That was lemon khichdi in Delhi during our final exams. You bribed me for my notes.”
“I bribed you for your company.”
They ended up at a hole-in-the-wall cafe near Girgaon, where the staff still used handwritten menus and the walls were lined with framed newspaper articles from the ’70s.
Over rice and papad, they fell into a familiar cadence. She spoke about Tara’s drawings and her obsession with astronomy. He told her about shooting in Havana during a hurricane and how he’d once gotten lost in Kyoto with no phone signal and only a map sketched by a kind tea seller.
But eventually, the laughter faded into a gentle hush.
“I still can’t believe I have a daughter,” he said, stirring the buttermilk with a straw.
“She doesn’t know you,” Ananya reminded him.
“I’d like to, though. Slowly. If you’ll let me.”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Rishi,” she said finally, “this thing between us—it’s not simple. There’s too much history. Too many pauses in our sentence.”
“I know,” he said. “I’m not asking for a fairytale. I’m asking for space. For time. For the chance to know the life I left behind.”
She nodded. “It’ll take me a while to trust you again.”
“You don’t have to trust me yet,” he said. “Just don’t shut the door.”
She looked at him closely. He wasn’t the boy who’d left. There was weariness in his eyes now, yes—but also steadiness. And something else. Regret, maybe. Or hope. Maybe both.
“Alright,” she said. “One door slightly ajar.”
Back at the store that evening, they returned to the shelves. She handed him a stack of books to reshelve.
“Contemporary fiction. Alphabetical, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He moved carefully through the aisles, reading the spines aloud. “Roy. Seth. Singh. Tharoor. Wait—who shelves Jhumpa Lahiri under non-fiction?”
“That was Tara,” Ananya called from behind the desk. “She insists The Namesake is about her.”
Rishi chuckled.
As he shelved a battered copy of Interpreter of Maladies, his fingers brushed an old Post-it note peeking out from inside. Faded ink, barely legible.
“For A.
In case you forget—
The world is large, but love can still find you.”
— R.
He paused.
It was his handwriting.
He showed it to her. She stared at the note for a moment, then gave a small, wistful laugh. “You used to leave those everywhere. Between books, on receipts, in my coat pockets.”
“I didn’t think any of them survived.”
“I didn’t think you would.”
He stood there, holding that tiny square of yellowed memory, and said, “I think I left pieces of myself here, hoping I could come back and find them one day.”
Ananya took the note and tucked it back into the book.
“Then maybe,” she said, “it’s time we start gathering the pieces. Slowly.”
He looked at her then, not with apology, but with something steadier—gratitude.
The rain hadn’t returned that day, but something else had: the gentle creak of shelves holding more than just books, the stillness of silences that weren’t empty, and the beginnings of a story neither of them expected to rewrite.
Part 5: The Boy Who Left
The monsoon returned with fury the next day. By noon, the city had slowed to a wet crawl. Water pooled at every corner, umbrellas bloomed like dark flowers, and the gutters sang their usual July lament. Inside Chapter & Chai, the sound of rain drummed steadily against the windows like a second heartbeat.
Ananya was restocking the memoir section when Rishi walked in, drenched from head to toe. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his shirt clung to him, and he looked—for the first time since he’d returned—uncertain.
“You look like a rejected Bollywood hero,” she said, trying not to smile.
“Taxi got stuck. I walked the last stretch.”
She handed him a towel from behind the counter, one of the old ones she kept for rainy-day regulars.
He dried his hair and looked around. “It’s empty today.”
“Most people don’t venture out when the streets are underwater.”
“Then maybe it’s time.”
“For what?”
He exhaled. “To tell you everything I couldn’t, all those years ago.”
Ananya didn’t respond. She simply gestured to the old couch in the back corner, near the travel books. He followed her, sat down slowly, and held the warm cup of chai she handed him.
And then, without preamble, he began.
“My father was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s six months before I left.”
Ananya froze.
“He didn’t want anyone to know. He was proud. Secretive. Even my mother didn’t believe it at first. But I saw it—he started forgetting simple words, losing track of time, calling me by my uncle’s name.”
“Rishi…”
“I tried to stay. I really did. But it consumed everything. I was twenty-three, confused, angry. He grew worse, and I didn’t know how to be there for him or for myself. And you—you were this bright, beautiful future. I didn’t want to drag you into the darkness.”
“But you never told me,” she said, hurt curling into her voice. “You just… left.”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
She stared at him. “You were robbing me. Of the truth. Of the choice to stand by you.”
“I know,” he said, quietly. “I know that now.”
He took a sip of chai. The rain grew louder, as if listening.
“He died two years later. I was there. And I remember sitting at his bedside thinking—this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. I had left everything behind and still lost.”
Ananya’s eyes softened. She leaned forward slightly.
“And after that?”
“I wandered,” he said. “I didn’t have roots left in Mumbai. My mother moved to Pune. I got a job assisting a documentary filmmaker. That’s how the travel started. Then photography. Then years blurred together.”
“But you still never wrote to me,” she said.
“I wanted to. A thousand times. But every time I saw your name in my drafts, I felt like I didn’t deserve the right to intrude.”
“You were always braver with a lens than with people,” she said.
He smiled faintly. “You said that to me once in Delhi, remember? When I refused to confess I liked you, and you caught me taking photos of you laughing with your friends.”
“And then you mailed me one of the photos. Black and white. Scribbled ‘Can I stay in this frame?’ on the back.”
“I meant it,” he said.
They sat there, the memories fluttering like old bookmarks, tucked into pages that had never been turned.
After a long pause, Ananya spoke. “You should meet her. Tara.”
His eyes widened. “Really?”
“Not as her father. Not yet. As a friend. A man from her mother’s past. No pressure. No promises. Just… start with a conversation.”
He nodded, almost reverently. “Thank you.”
She looked at him for a long time. “I’m not doing this for you, Rishi. I’m doing this for her. Every girl deserves to know the truth—even if it arrives late, soaked in rain and regret.”
He swallowed hard.
“And if she asks questions I can’t answer,” he said, “will you help me?”
“Yes,” she said. “But only if you stop disappearing.”
“I won’t,” he said. “Not this time.”
The rain outside eased into a whisper, the kind that comes when a storm is tired but not yet done.
Inside, two people sat across from each other—older, wiser, stitched back together with the threads of memory and things left unsaid.
Sometimes, second chances don’t come with fireworks. Sometimes, they arrive in quiet, wet afternoons. In truth told late. In forgiveness offered without a guarantee.
And in the boy who once left, finally learning how to stay.
Part 6: Ananya’s Version
The rain stayed away the next day, as if the sky itself was catching its breath.
The city shimmered with that rare post-monsoon clarity—buildings freshly washed, streets steaming gently in the sunlight, and a scent in the air like something beginning again.
Rishi arrived late for the first time since he’d come back into Ananya’s life. She didn’t mind. She was rearranging the display table near the entrance when the door opened and he walked in, holding a single marigold tucked behind his ear like a misplaced thought.
She laughed. “Planning to start a trend?”
“It’s from a street kid near Marine Drive,” he said, removing it and handing it to her. “Said it would bring peace to whoever wore it.”
She took it, placed it in an old brass cup on the counter. “Maybe I’ll finally have a day without fixing a leaking pipe.”
They sat across from each other again, books between them like neutral territory. This time, Rishi didn’t speak first.
Ananya did.
“You told me your version of the past,” she said. “It’s only fair I tell you mine.”
He nodded, serious now.
“I wasn’t brave after you left,” she said. “People assume I was. Pregnant, alone, twenty-five—they called me strong. But I wasn’t.”
Rishi opened his mouth to protest, but she held up a hand.
“No, listen. I was angry. At you. At myself. At life. I kept thinking—what did I miss? Did I love too much? Not enough? Was I too safe, too ordinary for a man who dreamed of disappearing?”
“You were never ordinary,” Rishi said quietly.
She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I built this place because I needed something to hold me together. A place where things stayed where I left them. Books don’t walk away.”
He listened, still as a photograph.
“Those early years with Tara were hard,” she continued. “I used to read aloud to her while working the register. She grew up thinking books spoke back.”
“She’s lucky to have you.”
“She shouldn’t have had to grow up with half a story,” Ananya said, her voice firmer now. “And that’s on both of us.”
Rishi nodded. “I want to help fix that. Even if I don’t deserve to.”
She studied him. “You know what the worst part was?”
He waited.
“It wasn’t the loneliness. Or the gossip. Or even raising a child alone. It was the not knowing. You vanished like a dropped pin in a map—and I kept staring at the blank space where you used to be.”
He lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, Ananya. I keep saying it, but I know it’s not enough.”
“No,” she said. “It’s not. But I need you to know… I’m not that girl anymore. I don’t wait. I don’t hope. I build. I survive. I parent. I protect.”
“I see that,” he said. “And I admire it. All of it.”
There was a pause.
She looked at the marigold on the counter. “Tara comes home next weekend.”
His eyes lit up. “Will I—?”
“You’ll meet her. As a friend, like we said. I want her to like you. But I don’t want you to try too hard. Be honest. Let her discover you.”
“I can do that.”
“She’s clever,” Ananya added. “Too clever sometimes. Reads people like books. So don’t lie.”
“I won’t.”
“And don’t run.”
“I’m here,” he said simply. “I’m staying.”
Ananya stood and walked to the poetry shelf—her habit when emotions ran too high. She pulled out a slim volume by Nissim Ezekiel and flipped through it absentmindedly.
“You once told me,” she said, “that love doesn’t need to be loud to be real.”
He remembered. It was a conversation under a banyan tree in college, between classes. She’d spilled tea on his notes, and he’d smiled like it was a love letter.
“I was right,” he said. “About that, at least.”
She looked at him, long and hard. “We don’t need to go back. But if we’re writing something new, I need to be sure the words won’t smudge again.”
“They won’t,” he said. “Not this time.”
Outside, the sun dipped gently toward the horizon, casting long shadows across the city. Inside, among books and tea and second chances, two people sat in the quiet hum of healing.
Not everything needed fixing. Some things only needed to be heard.
Part 7: A Rainy Day Confession
The weekend arrived with thunder.
By late afternoon, the skies had cracked open again, sending sheets of rain hammering against the bookstore’s windows. Ananya stood behind the counter, watching puddles grow outside the door like small, determined lakes. The city was underwater again. Buses stalled, delivery boys waded knee-deep, and the tea vendor down the street was doing brisk business under a tarpaulin roof.
Inside Chapter & Chai, it was warm and dim, lit by a string of fairy lights Ananya had draped around the poetry shelf the night before. She liked the softness it added. Today, the shop was empty. Only her and Rishi, once again.
He was in the back room, rummaging through a carton labeled Old Bookmarks & Forgotten Things.
“Do you ever throw anything away?” he called out.
“Not when it has handwriting,” she answered, sipping her tea.
He emerged a few minutes later, holding up a yellowed note card. “You made a list of ‘10 things I will never do again.’”
She groaned. “Let me guess. Number one—‘Fall for a boy with a camera.’”
He grinned. “Number three, actually. Number one was ‘Trust monsoon promises.’”
She raised an eyebrow. “I was dramatic. Still am.”
“No, you were poetic,” he said, quietly.
There was a pause. The storm outside intensified. A gust of wind made the windows rattle, and the lights flickered once.
Rishi sat down across from her. “I have something to tell you.”
Ananya watched him carefully. “This sounds ominous.”
“I think I’m falling for you again.”
Silence.
Not the heavy kind. The slow-breathing kind. The kind that comes just before the air shifts.
“You think?” she said, softly.
“I’m not sure if it ever stopped, honestly. But I feel it now, more than I’ve allowed myself to in years.”
She looked at her hands. Then at the window. Then at him.
“I told you, Rishi. I’m not the girl you left.”
“I know.”
“I’m not sure I know how to be in love anymore.”
“I’m not asking you to be.”
She looked at him sharply.
“I’m just saying it,” he said. “Not to pressure you. Not to complicate things. Just because it’s true. And because I’d regret it—again—if I didn’t say it.”
The rain roared outside.
Ananya stood up and walked toward the poetry shelf—again. But this time, he followed her.
“I don’t need answers today,” he said, standing beside her. “But I needed to say it.”
She pulled a book from the shelf. Neruda. Of course.
“You always say things like this in the rain,” she murmured, flipping pages absently. “Like the water gives you courage.”
“Maybe it does.”
She turned to face him, eyes steady. “You hurt me. You changed my life.”
“I know.”
“And part of me is terrified that I’ll start needing you again.”
“I’m terrified too.”
“But…”
He held his breath.
She placed the book between them like a shield. “There’s still a place in me,” she whispered, “that remembers how you used to read poetry aloud when you thought I was asleep.”
He smiled gently. “You always pretended to be.”
“Maybe I wanted you to think I was softer than I was.”
“You were strong. You still are.”
She met his eyes. “Don’t fall in love with your memory of me, Rishi.”
“I’m not,” he said. “I’m falling for the woman who built this store, raised a daughter, and still finds comfort in dog-eared pages.”
She closed the book slowly.
The lights flickered again.
Then, quietly, she reached for his hand.
He didn’t speak.
Neither did she.
They just stood there, side by side, fingers barely entwined, while the storm outside wept and the books around them stood witness.
Some confessions don’t require answers. Only presence. Only honesty.
Only the willingness to stand still in the middle of the rain.
Part 8: The Photo Exhibit
The rain finally relented by Thursday.
The skies cleared just in time for Rishi’s photography exhibit—his first one in Mumbai in over a decade. It was being held at a restored old bungalow in Bandra, now a boutique gallery. The space was white-walled, high-ceilinged, and filled with soft jazz and the scent of eucalyptus and wood polish.
Ananya arrived at 6:15 p.m., fifteen minutes late, deliberately.
She hated openings. Too many voices. Too many eyes. But something in her chest—equal parts curiosity and something she wouldn’t call hope—had brought her here.
She wore a plain indigo cotton sari, her hair loose, no lipstick. The gallery was full of faces—young critics, old professors, strangers with artful glasses and lingering glances. But Rishi saw her the moment she walked in.
He didn’t smile right away. Just looked at her, like she was a photograph he was still trying to frame.
“You came,” he said, walking over.
“I said I would.”
“You look…”
“Don’t,” she said, half-smiling. “Not here. Not yet.”
He nodded, then gently took her hand—not to hold it, just to guide her. “Let me show you something.”
The photographs were arranged chronologically: dusty roads in Rajasthan, lantern-lit alleys in Japan, midnight snowfall in Iceland. Some in color, others in black and white. Each image held silence and story—Rishi’s signature style.
She paused at one of a red scarf caught on a barbed wire fence, fluttering in the wind.
“I remember this one,” she murmured. “You sketched it once on the back of my notebook.”
“Bosnia. 2012. I waited hours for the wind to lift it like that.”
She walked on.
And then, without warning, the tone shifted.
A series of black-and-white portraits filled the next wall. Intimate. Candid. Unnamed.
The girl curled up with a book by the sea. The woman asleep on a train with her palm open beside her. A hand reaching toward sunlight through blinds. A sari drying on a balcony railing, caught mid-sway.
They weren’t labeled, but Ananya knew.
Every single photo was of her.
Not in a literal sense. Not all had her face. But each carried her imprint—moments from years ago, distilled into light and shadow.
She turned slowly to look at him.
“You kept all of them?”
“I never stopped seeing you,” he said. “Even when I left, you came with me. In details. In echoes.”
Her voice caught in her throat. “You turned me into a gallery.”
“I turned my grief into a gallery,” he corrected gently. “You were the love I never got to finish.”
People moved quietly around them. Glasses clinked. Feet shuffled. But the space around them felt sealed, private.
Ananya stepped closer to one of the photographs: her reflection, distorted in a cracked mirror. She remembered that day—it had been in his old apartment, before things began unraveling.
“I look… lost.”
“You weren’t,” he said. “You were waiting for the version of me that never arrived.”
She looked at him, eyes glossy now.
“This is beautiful,” she said. “But it’s yours. Not mine.”
He nodded. “That’s why I asked you here. To see it. To decide if you want to be part of the story moving forward—not just in memory.”
“I don’t know what I want,” she said honestly.
“That’s okay.”
She looked around one last time. “Will you tell her?”
“Tara?”
“Yes.”
“Not yet,” he said. “When you’re ready.”
They walked out into the cool night, the sky unusually clear. The air smelled of rain-washed earth and bougainvillea.
At the gate, she turned to him.
“You once asked, years ago, if you could stay in my frame.”
He waited, heart caught mid-beat.
She said, “You can stand in it now. But don’t expect it to be focused right away.”
“I’ll wait,” he said. “I’ll learn the exposure.”
She almost laughed. Almost.
And then, in a gesture neither rehearsed nor dramatic, she took his hand—not carefully, not briefly, but fully this time.
Some pictures take time to develop.
So do people.
So do second chances.
Part 9: Storm Warning
The knock came just after eight on Sunday morning.
Ananya was in the kitchen, pouring hot water over Darjeeling leaves, the newspaper unopened on the dining table. She froze at the sound—three knocks, steady and familiar. Not Rishi. Not a courier.
When she opened the door, Tara was standing there, suitcase in one hand, eyebrows raised.
“You look… surprised,” she said, stepping in before Ananya could fully respond.
“You said you’d take the afternoon train.”
“Trains were running late. I got lucky. Or maybe unlucky.”
Ananya shut the door. “You’re early.”
“I can leave and knock again if that helps,” Tara offered, voice dry.
Ananya didn’t answer. She went back to the kitchen, buying herself seconds. She heard Tara unzip her suitcase in the living room.
By the time the tea had steeped and two mugs were on the table, Tara was seated, legs folded, arms crossed.
“So,” she said.
Ananya sat across from her, mirroring the crossed arms. “So?”
“I saw the gallery photos online.”
Ananya’s hand tensed on the mug. “You did?”
Tara nodded. “Someone from campus posted a story. I clicked. Recognized the bookstore. Then… I saw you.”
Ananya stayed quiet.
“I Googled him. Rishi Malhotra. Award-winning photographer. Vanishing act of the year. Now reborn in Bandra with a retrospective and a face that looks like yours when you’re annoyed.”
Ananya gave a short, involuntary laugh. “That’s… not inaccurate.”
“So,” Tara repeated, eyes now sharp, unreadable. “Want to explain how my potential father is hanging on the walls of a gallery and walking through your bookstore like nothing happened?”
Ananya took a deep breath. “I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
“Soon.”
Tara arched an eyebrow. “Classic.”
“It’s not simple,” Ananya said, quieter now.
“It never is.”
“I didn’t want to disrupt your life, Tara.”
Tara leaned forward. “Here’s the thing, Ma—my life is already made of disruptions. You just never let me see them. You turned gaps into silences, turned absence into normalcy. I asked you once why I didn’t have a father. You said, ‘Some people leave, and it’s not your fault.’ That was it. A fortune cookie answer.”
Ananya winced.
“I didn’t lie,” she said. “But I didn’t give you enough.”
Tara nodded, leaning back now. “So, what’s the story?”
Ananya told her.
All of it. From college to heartbreak. From letters never sent to the gallery where he hung their ghost on the walls. She spoke without drama, without defense—just truth.
When she finished, Tara was silent for a long time.
Then she said, “You still love him.”
“I don’t know what I feel,” Ananya said. “But I know it’s real. Whatever it is.”
“Does he know about me?”
“He does now.”
“Has he met me?”
“No. I wanted that to be your choice.”
Tara looked at her mother for a long moment. “You know what’s strange?”
“What?”
“I’m not angry.”
Ananya blinked. “You’re not?”
“I mean, I should be,” Tara said. “But I’m… tired. And curious. And mostly just wondering what he’ll say when he sees me.”
“You don’t have to meet him.”
“I want to. But not as a daughter. Not yet. Just as me.”
Ananya nodded slowly. “Okay.”
Tara stood. “And, Ma?”
“Yes?”
“If you’re going to fall in love again… please don’t forget to tell me this time.”
Ananya smiled, a tear catching the corner of her eye. “Deal.”
Just then, her phone buzzed. A message from Rishi:
“Storm’s brewing again. Stay safe. Also—I think I just bought six old Bengali comics from your street vendor because they reminded me of you.”
She showed the message to Tara.
Tara read it. Then shrugged. “He’s weird.”
“He always was.”
“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” Tara said. “You’ve been awfully boring these last few years.”
Ananya laughed then, properly. Loud and free.
The kind of laugh you let out when a storm is coming—and you know this time, you’ll be okay.
Part 10: After the Rain
It had rained all night.
By morning, the city was glistening, washed clean like a canvas awaiting new brushstrokes. The air smelled of wet earth and something sweeter—maybe promise, maybe peace.
Ananya stood on the tiny balcony of her apartment, her tea cooling in her hands. Down below, a rickshaw sputtered past, splashing through a puddle. The sky was unusually blue for July. And inside her, something had cleared too.
Her phone buzzed.
Rishi: “I’m flying to Delhi next week for a shoot. Want to come with me?”
She stared at the message.
Then smiled.
Not because she was going. She wasn’t sure yet. But because he’d asked.
She was still holding the phone when Tara came out of her room, hair wet, still brushing her teeth.
“You’re smiling,” she mumbled, toothbrush in her mouth.
“Am I?”
Tara nodded. “It’s weird.”
Ananya laughed. “Maybe I’m turning weird too.”
“Please don’t. One of you is enough.”
They ate breakfast together—hot poha, sliced banana, and a quiet that didn’t feel like avoidance anymore. Tara scrolled through her phone while Ananya jotted notes in her journal, halfway planning the bookstore’s monsoon window display.
Then the doorbell rang.
Ananya looked up, heart pausing in the middle of a beat.
“I’ll get it,” Tara said, already on her feet.
She opened the door.
Rishi stood there, slightly breathless, holding a camera in one hand and a brown envelope in the other.
Tara crossed her arms. “You didn’t text.”
“I wanted to try something old-fashioned.”
Ananya appeared behind her. “Like what? Ambushing people at breakfast?”
He grinned sheepishly. “I brought something.”
He held out the envelope to Tara.
She took it, cautious.
Inside was a single photo: a street in Mumbai, lit by yellow streetlamps, with two figures walking—one holding an umbrella, the other holding nothing but a book. Their backs were turned. It could’ve been anyone.
But it was them.
“Is this…?”
“The night I came to the store the first time,” Rishi said. “I didn’t mean to take it. My camera was hanging, it clicked by accident.”
Tara looked at it for a long time.
Then handed it back.
“I guess you’re part of the story now,” she said simply, and walked back inside.
Rishi turned to Ananya. “That went better than expected.”
“She’s still deciding,” Ananya said. “So am I.”
“I can live with that.”
He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a folded page. Her handwriting.
Ananya blinked. “Is that from the old bookmarks box?”
He nodded. “Your list. The ten things you’d never do again.”
She flushed. “Burn it.”
“I was thinking of framing it.”
“Don’t you dare.”
They stood in the doorway, the city bright behind them.
Rishi hesitated, then said, “Whatever this is between us… I don’t want to rush it. But I also don’t want to lose it again.”
Ananya looked at him, really looked at him—the silver at his temples, the camera strap worn and familiar, the way his eyes never asked for forgiveness, only a future.
She reached forward and gently touched his cheek.
“I can’t promise anything,” she said.
“I’m not asking for a promise.”
“I can’t undo the years.”
“I’m not asking for that either.”
“I don’t even know if this will work.”
“Then let’s find out.”
She smiled, small and sure.
And for the first time in years, she stepped outside—into the light, into the unknown—with him.
They walked down the lane, not holding hands, not needing to. The city buzzed around them, alive and awake. Somewhere, a new cloud was forming. Somewhere, a new chapter had begun.
Love doesn’t always roar back.
Sometimes, it returns quietly.
Soaked to the bone.
And utterly ready to begin again.
