The Moon Between Us

Rishiraj Dubey

1

It began on a train.

The Mumbai local was packed, as always—bodies pressed close, the smell of iron and monsoon sweat thick in the air. Somewhere, a vendor shouted about samosas. A mother hushed her crying child. I had wedged myself into a corner seat near the window, one earbud in, the other dangling, as the city buzzed around me, uncaring and loud.

And then, at Dadar, she boarded.

White kurta, blue scarf, a jhola bag slung over one shoulder. Her hair was still damp from a rushed morning bath. She moved through the crowd like someone who belonged to another world—a slower, more graceful one. I didn’t mean to notice her. But she stood still, not scrolling on her phone like everyone else. Instead, she gazed out the window like it was a painting, her lips parted ever so slightly, as though she was mid-thought and mid-smile.

When the train jerked, she lost her balance and caught the metal railing just above my shoulder. Her bangles chimed softly. Her elbow brushed against mine.

“Sorry,” she mouthed, eyes wide.

I nodded. Said nothing. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the way her voice had formed in silence. It was like something had been whispered directly into my chest.

“Do you take this train every day?” she asked suddenly, eyes still scanning the blur outside.

I pulled out my earbud. “Most days. You?”

She glanced at me, amused. “Just started. Work near Churchgate. Architecture.”

“I get off at Marine Lines,” I said, even though she hadn’t asked.

She tilted her head. “Close enough.”

That was it. The train screeched. I got off. She stayed. I turned just once before stepping onto the platform. She was still there, looking straight ahead—but this time, she was smiling.

The next morning, she was back. Same window. Same scarf. A notebook in one hand, a steel flask in the other. When our eyes met, there was a flicker of recognition—like we had shared more than 27 minutes the day before.

“Morning,” she said.

“Morning,” I replied.

By Friday, I knew her name was Meera. That she hated pigeons but loved feeding them anyway. That she had grown up in Pune, missed her grandmother’s neem tree, and once cried at a movie about a dog. I told her about my job editing manuscripts at a small publishing house, my dreams of writing a novel, my fear that I had nothing original to say. She didn’t try to reassure me. She just said, “Write anyway.”

The train became ours. The city outside continued rushing by, but inside, we carved a space out of time—held together by the sound of announcements, the shuffle of commuters, the occasional thunderclap of passing trains. She’d sometimes doodle on the corner of her notebook and hand me pages folded like secrets.

One day, it rained.

Not the polite, whispering kind. A full, drenching, unapologetic monsoon. Trains delayed, platforms crowded, the sky a thick grey sheet. We stood under a narrow shelter near the ladies’ compartment. Her hair was soaked. Mascara smudged. She looked up at the storm like it was an old friend.

“I hate this weather,” she muttered.

“But you’re smiling.”

She laughed, surprised. “How do you notice that?”

I shrugged. “Maybe because I was looking.”

That silence after—where neither of us knew what to say but didn’t want to leave—was the beginning of something else. Not friendship. Not quite love. Something warmer, weightier, and waiting to bloom.

After that, we started walking together from Churchgate. She’d take the long route just so we could talk more. Past vendors, street musicians, office buildings that looked like fading postcards. One day, she stopped mid-step and turned to me.

“Do you believe in parallel lives?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like… maybe there’s another version of us. In another city. Meeting in a café. Or in school. Or maybe never at all.”

I wanted to say, This one is enough for me. But I just smiled.

Then one morning—no Meera.

I waited at the compartment door, scanning each face. Dadar came. No Meera. Mahalaxmi. Nothing. My stomach sank. It was just a train ride, I told myself. A routine. Not a promise.

But the next morning, she returned. Her wrist was bandaged. Her eyes were tired. Still, she smiled when she saw me.

“Fell down the stairs. Nothing dramatic,” she said. “But I missed this.”

“This?”

“This… in-between world. The time between stations.”

That evening, we didn’t get off. We just sat and let the train circle the city again.

At Marine Lines, we finally stepped onto the platform. The sea breeze hit us, strong and salty. We stood at the edge of the promenade, the city glittering behind us.

“You know,” she said, “I never thought I’d meet someone on a train.”

“Neither did I.”

She looked up at the moon, half-lit, pale in the fading sky. “But I’m glad I did.”

And for a moment, there was no city. No crowd. No rush. Just her fingers brushing mine. Just the scent of rain still clinging to her scarf. Just the moon between us—silent, steady, and impossibly close.

2

The days began to take on a rhythm I didn’t know I’d grown addicted to. Wake up. Catch the 8:14 train. Find Meera near the second coach. Share a glance, a smile, a sentence about the weather or an oddly shaped cloud. And then sink into conversations that lasted only until Churchgate but stayed with me through the entire day.

She had this way of speaking that made ordinary things feel lyrical—how she described a crumbling sea-facing bungalow as “a house still remembering its laughter,” or the time she said the city was “a woman with too many secrets tucked into her sari pleats.” I started keeping a small notebook in my bag, jotting down fragments of our mornings. I didn’t know what I was writing—memories, maybe. A beginning of something.

One morning, she didn’t speak. Just stood beside me, arms folded, her eyes distant. Her scarf was darker that day, navy with hints of grey, and I remember thinking how it mirrored her mood.

“Everything okay?” I finally asked.

She nodded, too quickly. “Just… life.”

That was the first time I felt the invisible walls around her—gaps in her stories, a phone call she always cut short, a sadness she didn’t name.

Later that week, she told me her father had called. He wanted her to come back to Pune. A family friend had proposed a match—”He’s an MBA. Tall. Has a car.” She mimicked the tone her mother used and rolled her eyes.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“I told them I’ll think about it. Which means no. But they don’t hear ‘no’ anymore.”

“And what do you want?”

She smiled, almost tired. “To design homes where no one cries. And to keep meeting you until we run out of stories.”

I wanted to take her hand then. To tell her that she didn’t have to go, that she could stay in this strange in-between life we were making together. But I didn’t. Because we still hadn’t spoken of the thing that hung between us like a curtain half-drawn.

Instead, we talked about a stray cat that followed us one morning, and how she once dreamed of living in a lighthouse, alone with her books and a cupboard full of tea.

A few days later, we missed our usual train. For the first time, we were late together.

We stood on the edge of the platform, waiting for the next one, and the world around us slowed. No announcements. Just the hush of early morning, the sky pale with promise. She turned to me, the morning sun catching in her earrings.

“Do you think we’re running from something?” she asked.

“Maybe. Or maybe we’re just running toward something we haven’t figured out yet.”

She looked at me for a long moment, then quietly leaned her head on my shoulder. My heart did a quiet somersault.

That night, she sent me a text—just one line: Do you think the train will take us somewhere we’re not meant to come back from?

I didn’t reply right away. I stared at the message like it had a deeper meaning I hadn’t learned to read yet. When I finally typed out my response, it was simple.

If you’re on it, I’ll stay until the last station.

The next morning, she was glowing. Something had shifted. She wore a light green kurta, the color of a fresh leaf after rain. When I complimented it, she laughed and said, “I wore it for you. Figured you’d notice.”

And I did. I noticed everything.

That day, we didn’t talk about families or cities or Pune or marriage. We talked about where we’d go if the city disappeared. She said Pondicherry. I said McLeod Ganj. She said we’d need two notebooks, one for sketches and one for poems. I said we’d need three—one just to record the moon.

At Churchgate, she hesitated before stepping off.

“You ever wonder what we’d be if this wasn’t a train?”

I blinked. “What do you mean?”

“If this were a park. Or a library. Or some party neither of us wanted to be at. Would we still find each other?”

“I think,” I said, “we’d invent a reason.”

That evening, I waited outside her office. It wasn’t planned. I’d finished early, wandered down Marine Drive, and found myself standing beneath her building, watching the windows glow on and off like fireflies. She stepped out fifteen minutes later, surprised, but not annoyed.

“You waiting for me?”

“I wanted to walk you home.”

“You don’t even know where I live.”

“Then let’s start walking.”

We didn’t reach her home. We walked for hours—through gullies lit with old bulbs, past shuttered bookstores and sleeping dogs. At one point, we stopped at a tea stall, and I bought her a cutting chai and a Parle-G. She dunked the biscuit just long enough before it crumbled.

It was almost midnight when she finally said, “My place is five minutes from here.”

I nodded.

“But I don’t want to say goodnight yet.”

Neither did I.

So we stood beneath a broken streetlamp, the moon again hanging like a slow exhale above us.

And finally, without asking, I took her hand.

She didn’t let go.

3

That night stayed with me like a song you hum without realizing. The feel of her hand in mine—not tentative, not dramatic, just certain. No declarations, no cinematic music swelling in the background. Just two people standing beneath a broken streetlight, the sound of a city sighing around them, and a moon too full to ignore.

The next morning on the train, we didn’t speak much. We didn’t have to. She stood close, her shoulder occasionally brushing mine with the rhythm of the tracks. Our hands didn’t touch, but it felt like they were still holding something invisible. Some new understanding. I saw it in the way she looked at me now—not like a fellow passenger, not even like a friend. But like someone who had let me in through a door most people didn’t know existed.

At Churchgate, she whispered, “Want to skip work?”

I blinked. “Seriously?”

She nodded. “Call in sick. Just today.”

It was the first time either of us broke the rhythm we’d been holding onto for weeks.

We spent the day in Colaba. Ate kathi rolls from a stall she claimed was the best in Mumbai. Browsed through dusty corners of the Strand Bookstore, where she found an old illustrated copy of The Little Prince and gasped like she’d found buried treasure. We walked into the gallery near Regal where she explained how lines in architecture could tell emotional stories. She spoke of arches like they were poems. I pretended to understand, though I was mostly watching her hands move through air as if shaping something unseen.

Later, we sat at a cafe tucked behind a closed art supply shop. She drank iced tea, I had coffee, and we shared a slice of lemon cake. She pulled out her sketchbook, flipped past pages filled with buildings and balconies, and stopped at a half-finished sketch of a man sitting by a train window.

“It’s you,” she said.

“I look… thoughtful.”

“You are,” she replied, then added, “but also scared.”

That made me pause. “Scared of what?”

She looked out the window. “Of wanting too much.”

I didn’t answer right away. The truth was, I was. I was scared of how easily she had become a part of my days. Scared of how my evenings were starting to echo with her laugh. Scared of the way I had memorized the shade of green in her eyes. But mostly, I was scared of what would happen when the train stopped being ours.

Back on the street, the sun dipped low and the sky turned a burnt orange. We wandered without direction, her scarf fluttering behind her like a ribbon of sky. Then she stopped in the middle of the footpath and said, “Come with me.”

She led me through narrow lanes until we reached an old stone building with ivy creeping over the gate. A tiny library. One room. No air conditioning. Smelled of old wood and older stories.

“My secret place,” she said.

There was no one else inside. Just a sleepy librarian and rows of books bound in cloth. She walked straight to the back shelf, pulled out a copy of Neruda’s Twenty Love Poems, and handed it to me.

“Read something,” she whispered.

I opened to a random page and began to read aloud. My voice felt too loud, too fragile in that quiet place. She sat cross-legged on the floor, watching me—not the way people watch performers, but like someone witnessing something sacred.

When I finished, she didn’t speak for a moment. Then she said, “That’s how you should write. Like that. With a little ache in every line.”

We stayed there until the librarian politely reminded us it was closing time. As we stepped back into the night, she asked, “Do you think magic exists?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Where?”

“In that moment. Just now. In the quiet. In how you didn’t laugh when I said ‘come with me’ like a movie heroine.”

She smiled. “You make everything sound like a love letter.”

“I think it already is,” I said.

We didn’t go back to our homes immediately. We sat on the steps outside the library, knees touching. She leaned her head on my shoulder again, and this time I rested mine against hers.

“I don’t want this to be temporary,” I said softly.

“Neither do I,” she replied.

“But we still haven’t even gone on a real date.”

She laughed. “What’s real? This? This is the most real thing I’ve ever felt.”

In that moment, it didn’t matter that we hadn’t said the word “love.” It didn’t matter that our stories hadn’t aligned neatly yet. We were writing something—imperfect, spontaneous, full of little cracks that let the light in. And maybe that was enough.

When we finally stood up, it was almost midnight again.

She looked at me, serious for once. “Promise me one thing.”

“Anything.”

“Don’t disappear.”

“I promise,” I said.

We didn’t kiss that night. There was no need. Some moments are too full to be sealed with anything as obvious as a kiss.

We simply turned and walked in opposite directions—her shadow trailing east, mine to the west.

But I knew this wasn’t the end of anything.

It was only the beginning.

4

The Monday after our day together felt different. Not because anything had changed between us in words—but because everything had changed in silence. She wasn’t just the girl I met on a train anymore. She was the reason the compartment felt lighter, why the morning air held meaning. When she stepped in at Dadar that morning, the way she smiled at me was slower, softer, like we were carrying something invisible between us now. Not a secret, not quite yet a promise—but a fragile, beautiful thing made of shared time.

She had brought me coffee. In a paper cup, lid a little crooked, warm enough to sting my fingers. “No sugar,” she said, “like you like it.”

I held it close. “You remembered.”

“I remember everything,” she said.

I wanted to say so do I. That I remembered her first smile. The time she sneezed and the entire compartment blessed her in unison. The tiny scar near her eyebrow. The way her voice dipped when she was tired. But I didn’t. Some truths don’t need to be spoken to be felt.

That day, we didn’t talk much. We just stood in our corner, the city unraveling outside, the train carrying us like a shared heartbeat. At Churchgate, as she stepped down, she looked back.

“Dinner?” she asked.

I blinked. “Tonight?”

“No, next Holi,” she smirked. “Yes, tonight.”

And just like that, we had a date.

If you can call walking the length of Marine Drive, sharing a vada pav, and talking about everything except the word “us” a date. I didn’t know if I should hold her hand again. I didn’t know if it was too much, too soon, or too little, too late.

But midway through her story about a client who wanted a house designed like a peacock, she slipped her fingers into mine like it was the most natural thing in the world.

“Can I ask you something?” she said as we sat near the sea, waves biting at the rocks.

“Of course.”

“If we met in another time… do you think we’d find each other again?”

I looked at her. Really looked. The wind was tangling her hair, her eyes glassy from the salt and the light. There was something in her voice—a tremor, a knowing. A fear.

“I think,” I said carefully, “we wouldn’t even need to. We’d already be together.”

She didn’t smile. Just nodded. “I needed to hear that.”

It was only when I reached home that night that I realized she had left her scarf behind in my bag. Blue, soft, and smelling faintly of rose and rain. I folded it gently and placed it near my desk lamp. A part of her in my room now, watching me while I worked on a short story I had abandoned weeks ago.

That night, I wrote. Pages poured out. Not about her exactly. But about a woman who takes the same train every day, and the man who waits for her without knowing why. I didn’t write an ending. I couldn’t. It didn’t feel right yet.

Days passed. And then a week. Our rhythm held. Mornings on the train, brief touches, laughter. Late-night walks on weekends. But she grew quieter. Something about her shifted, subtly but unmistakably.

One morning, she didn’t meet my eyes.

“Everything okay?” I asked.

She nodded too fast. “Just a lot at work.”

But I knew better. She had stopped doodling in her sketchbook. Stopped singing under her breath. Her phone buzzed more often, and once I caught a glimpse of the screen—“Ma calling (3 missed).”

Still, I didn’t ask. I waited.

Until she didn’t show up again.

Two days. Then four. My mornings became hollow. The train felt colder. I stood in the same place, hands clenched, trying not to panic. Maybe she was sick. Maybe she was travelling. Maybe—

On the fifth day, I couldn’t take it. I walked all the way to her office after work. The receptionist didn’t know me but kindly told me Meera had taken leave. “Family emergency,” she added.

I left my number anyway.

That night, I got a message.

Meera: I’m sorry I disappeared. I had to go to Pune. Things got… complicated.

I replied instantly. Are you okay?

No answer for hours.

Then finally: Can we meet tomorrow evening? Same place.

I barely slept. I imagined the worst. I imagined her leaving for good. I imagined her getting engaged to someone she didn’t love. I imagined her deciding we were nothing more than a story the city had whispered for a little while.

The next day, I waited by the sea, scarf folded neatly in my lap.

She arrived late, looking tired. Her eyes held shadows I hadn’t seen before. Still, she smiled when she saw me.

“You kept it,” she said, touching the scarf gently.

“Of course.”

She sat beside me, knees drawn up, staring at the water.

“My father’s unwell,” she said quietly. “And there’s pressure. To come back. To settle down. To say yes to someone I don’t even know.”

I didn’t speak.

“And I’m scared,” she continued. “That I’ll lose this. Us.”

“You won’t,” I said.

“But what if I don’t have a choice?”

I turned to her, heart racing. “Then I’ll wait. For as long as it takes. I’ll be on that train every morning, every evening. I’ll write letters even if you never reply. I’ll wait because you’re worth it.”

She looked at me, eyes brimming. “You really mean that?”

“I do.”

And for the first time, she leaned in and kissed me—not hurried, not unsure. Just full of everything we hadn’t said yet.

The sea roared. The city blurred. And in that kiss, I found the answer to every question I had never dared to ask.

5

The kiss lingered like a soft echo long after it ended. Meera’s forehead rested gently against mine, the world narrowing to the sound of her breath and the tremble in my chest. We sat in silence, words too fragile to use. Every beat of the moment felt sacred, and I was afraid that saying too much might break the spell.

“I didn’t plan for any of this,” she whispered.

“Neither did I.”

“But it feels… inevitable.”

It did. Like the rain that comes after too many days of heat. Like waking up from a dream and realizing the dream had been trying to become real all along.

We walked along the water’s edge after that, slowly, as if time had loosened its grip on us. The city behind us blinked and bustled, unaware of the quiet shift that had taken place. Her hand found mine again, easily this time, and we walked without needing to fill the silence.

The next morning, she was back on the train. Same smile, same scarf, same seat by the window. But now, when I stepped into the compartment, she reached out instinctively and touched my wrist as if to anchor me.

Something had changed—but not in a loud, look-at-us way. It was in how we stood closer now. In how her voice lowered when she spoke only to me. In how we didn’t need to talk every minute just to be heard.

We were still us. But now we were becoming something more.

And yet, the uncertainty still hung over us like a trailing shadow.

She hadn’t said what decision she’d made. Whether she’d stay in Mumbai. Whether she’d stand up to her family. Whether I fit into the future she was being asked to imagine.

I didn’t push her. I didn’t ask. I knew Meera well enough to understand she didn’t respond well to pressure. She needed time. Space. The freedom to choose this without being made to.

Still, every morning felt a little like a countdown.

One evening, as we were sitting under our usual lamppost near the old churchyard, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small folded sheet.

“I sketched this last night,” she said, handing it to me.

It was the two of us, standing in a train compartment. Her back slightly arched as she leaned toward the window, hair flowing like it always did, and me beside her, looking not at the city but at her. In the background, tiny figures blurred into shadow, and above the window, she’d drawn a rising moon.

“You captured everything,” I said, tracing the lines with my finger.

“I tried,” she said, “but I think there’s still something missing.”

“What?”

She hesitated. “The future.”

That night, as I lay in bed, I wrote for hours. Not fiction. Not metaphors. Just everything I felt. All the things I couldn’t say out loud. I wrote about the first time I saw her. About her bangles and the way she said ‘Good morning’ like she meant it. I wrote about the pauses between our conversations, how they felt full instead of empty. About how I wanted to be the person who stood beside her even when the train stopped running.

In the morning, I folded the letter and tucked it into her sketchbook while she was looking out the window.

She didn’t notice at first.

But that evening, she messaged.

Meera: You wrote me a love letter.

I didn’t deny it.

Did you read it?

Meera: Three times. And then once more with the lights off.

Too much?

Meera: No. Just enough to scare me.

Why scare you?

She took longer to reply this time.

Meera: Because now I want to believe in forever. And I was doing just fine believing in only now.

The next few days, the skies grew heavier. Mumbai’s monsoon was returning. And with it, the kind of melancholy only long, grey days could bring.

She told me she was going back to Pune for a few days. “Just to visit. To be sure.”

“Sure of what?”

“Of where I belong.”

I nodded. I didn’t ask her to stay. I didn’t ask for anything. But when she left the train that morning, I felt like I had handed her a piece of my heart and wasn’t sure if she’d return it whole.

Her absence was loud.

The train felt off-balance. My thoughts ran in circles. I kept checking my phone, even though I knew she wasn’t one for updates. I walked past her office one evening and stared up at the windows, half-hoping she might suddenly appear, waving down at me.

Four days passed. Then six. On the seventh day, a courier arrived at my apartment.

No message. Just a small package.

Inside was a sketchbook. Her sketchbook. The one she always carried.

And between the pages, a single note:

Don’t stop waiting. I’m choosing us. Just give me time to gather the courage to say it to them.

At the bottom of the note, she had drawn a train window. Outside it, two birds flew together into the dusk.

I sat with the sketchbook in my lap, the paper still warm from her hands.

And in that moment, I understood something.

This wasn’t just love.

This was a journey.

And it wasn’t over yet.

6

It rained every day after that.

Not the dramatic, cinematic kind of rain, but a quiet, persistent drizzle that soaked the streets, the umbrellas, and something deep inside me. I carried her sketchbook in my bag now, like a fragile extension of us. Each morning I boarded the train alone, but I still stood near the same window, earphones silent, letting the rhythm of the tracks fill the spaces where her voice used to be.

Meera had always filled the silence like sunlight through a stained-glass window—soft, filtered, unexpected. Without her, even the morning announcements felt hollow, like an orchestra warming up with no conductor.

But I waited. Not just on the train. I waited in everything.

I waited while heating water for tea, staring at the steam. I waited in the pauses between words I couldn’t write. I waited in conversations with friends who didn’t know I was somewhere else entirely. I waited with the quiet knowing that sometimes, love asks for space—not as distance, but as proof.

And then, on the eleventh morning, I saw her.

She boarded at Dadar, just like before.

Same blue scarf. Same quiet grace. But something was different. She looked… lighter. Like she had shed a weight that wasn’t hers to carry anymore.

She found me instantly. Walked right up to me. No hesitation. Her hand reached out, fingers curling around mine like we had never stopped.

“Hi,” she said.

I stared at her. “You came back.”

“I was always coming back,” she whispered. “I just needed to know I could do it without guilt.”

We didn’t talk much on that ride. Just stood together, holding hands, the city rushing by, the train not just carrying us but catching us.

At Churchgate, she didn’t get off.

Instead, she looked up at me and said, “Let’s go past the last stop.”

I blinked. “What?”

“Let’s not get off. Let’s ride this train to wherever it ends.”

So we stayed on. Past Churchgate. Into the yard. The compartments slowly emptied. The crowd thinned. It was just us and the hum of an engine still breathing beneath us.

She turned to me, eyes brighter than I’d ever seen them.

“I told them.”

“Told them what?”

“Everything. That I’m not ready to be married. That I’m not moving back. That I’m building something here.”

“With me?”

“With or without you. But preferably with.”

I laughed, more from relief than joy. “That’s very you.”

“I hope so.”

We sat for a while, legs dangling from the open doorway of the stationary train. Rain misted our faces. She took off her scarf and let it catch the wind like a flag.

“I thought about you every day,” she said, finally.

“Me too.”

“And I thought about what forever looks like.”

“And?”

“I don’t know yet. But it’s less scary now. Because I think it starts small. Like this.”

“Like a train ride?”

“Like two people choosing to show up. Again and again.”

Later, we walked through puddles and past sleepy chai stalls. We ended up at the same bench we’d kissed under, the streetlamp still flickering overhead like it had waited for us too.

“I want to ask you something,” she said, fingers interlaced with mine.

“Okay.”

“If I asked you to come to Pune next weekend and meet my parents—not as a stranger, but as someone I want in my life—would you come?”

My heart thudded so loudly I was sure she could hear it.

“Yes,” I said. “I’d come. Even if they hated me.”

She smiled. “They won’t. My mom’s just scared I’ll get my heart broken.”

“Tell her,” I said, “I’ll treat it like it’s made of glass.”

“No,” she replied, “treat it like it’s made of clay. It’s stronger than it looks, but it’s shaped every day.”

I nodded.

The rain began again, soft and cold.

“I never thought the train would bring me to you,” she said, almost to herself.

“And I never thought someone would make me believe in this.”

“In what?”

“In mornings that matter. In choosing someone without needing to know the end.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Let’s never take the 8:14 for granted again.”

I laughed. “Let’s write the time on our wedding invites.”

She looked up, wide-eyed. “Is that a proposal?”

“Just a suggestion. A hopeful one.”

“I’ll take hopeful,” she said. “Hopeful is enough.”

And just like that, the city blurred again. Not because it moved faster—but because we had stopped running from it. From each other.

The rain fell.

The train waited.

And in the quiet between one heartbeat and the next, I knew—

She was my everyday miracle.

Not the kind that explodes with music and grand gestures.

But the kind that walks in quietly, hands you a coffee, and chooses you.

Again.

And again.

7

She met my mother on a Sunday.

It wasn’t planned, not really. We’d stepped out for lunch in Matunga—her choice, of course. She said idli tastes better when you can smell jasmine in the air. After dosa and filter coffee, we were walking past the old bookstore near King’s Circle when my mother called.

“Come home,” she said, “I’ve made kheer. And I haven’t seen your face in two weeks.”

Before I could think, before I could reason, before I could even ask Meera if she was ready for that part of the story, I said, “I’m coming—and I’m not alone.”

She didn’t flinch. Just looked at me, eyes steady, and said, “Should I be nervous?”

I said yes.

She still came.

On the cab ride to Sion, she was quiet. Not withdrawn, just thoughtful. She watched the city through the rain-speckled window like she was trying to memorize it, one rusted balcony at a time.

“I haven’t done this in a while,” she said.

“Done what?”

“Introduced myself as more than just someone’s friend.”

“You’re not just someone,” I said.

“I know. But sometimes, I need to hear it.”

My mother opened the door in a cloud of sandalwood and excitement. She wore her special cotton saree—the one reserved for temple visits and important guests. Her eyes flicked over Meera in a single sweep that felt like both a blessing and a checklist. But when Meera touched her feet without hesitation and said, “Namaste aunty,” my mother’s face softened like ghee on a hot pan.

We sat at the kitchen table, where the fan creaked and the turmeric-stained plastic containers watched us from their cupboard thrones. My mother poured kheer into three steel bowls and asked all the questions mothers ask when their sons bring someone home.

“What does your father do?”

“Do you like spicy food?”

“Do you pray?”

Meera answered gently, with just the right mix of respect and mischief. When she said she made her best decisions on local trains, my mother chuckled and said, “Then this one must be your masterpiece.”

Later, as we were leaving, Ma pressed a small packet into Meera’s hands—homemade laddoos wrapped in old newspaper.

“For the road,” she said. “And for your mother.”

Meera smiled. “Thank you, aunty. I’ll tell her you’re a very good judge of people.”

My mother looked at me, then at her, and said, “So am I.”

On the train back, Meera leaned into me, her head resting against my shoulder as the city rolled past.

“Your mother is lovely.”

“She likes you.”

“She sees through me.”

“That too.”

Meera sat up. “So now you’ve met my future in-laws, and I’ve met yours. What’s next?”

“Meeting your dog?” I guessed.

“I don’t have one.”

“We’ll get one, then.”

She smiled, but her eyes darted toward the floor. “You make everything sound so simple.”

“Maybe it is.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know my family. They don’t just want to meet you. They want to measure you. Dissect your job title. Ask about your rent, your salary, your caste, your cholesterol.”

“I’ll answer all of it,” I said. “Except the cholesterol.”

She laughed. “They’re going to ask why a writer, of all things.”

“Tell them I believe in words more than I believe in rupees.”

She paused, then said, “Promise me you won’t change who you are just to impress them.”

“I won’t.”

“Not even a little?”

“Okay, maybe I’ll wear a shirt that’s ironed.”

She slipped her hand into mine. “That’s enough compromise.”

The next week, we took a train to Pune.

She wore a green kurta with gold stitching. I carried a box of sweets, two nervous smiles, and my best behavior. Her father opened the door with the stern eyes of a man who had once commanded meetings and now measured men by the way they said hello.

He didn’t smile at first.

Her mother hovered behind him, wringing her hands in her saree. She looked like she hadn’t slept much but smiled when she saw Meera. Like all mothers do when their daughters come home and don’t look too thin.

Dinner was polite. Questions were sharp. The air was thick with unsaid things.

I answered everything.

I told them about my job. My hopes. My failures. My rent. My parents. My dreams. I didn’t perform. I just told the truth.

At one point, Meera’s father leaned back and said, “So what is your plan, exactly?”

I looked at him, steady. “To make her laugh every morning. And make sure she never feels small.”

He stared at me for a long moment.

Then he said, “That’s not a plan. That’s poetry.”

Meera took my hand under the table.

“It’s both,” she said.

Later, as we stood on the balcony of her childhood room, overlooking a mango tree swaying in the breeze, she whispered, “I think they’ll come around.”

“I think they already have,” I replied.

She rested her head on my chest. “You handled them better than I did.”

“I’ve had practice. I ride the Mumbai local every day.”

She laughed.

That night, we slept under different roofs, in different cities, but I felt closer to her than ever. Because now, the walls between us weren’t fear or family or future.

They were just time.

And time, I knew now, would always bring her back to me.

8

By the time Meera returned to Mumbai, the monsoon had begun to fade. The skies still threatened to weep each evening, but the downpours were fewer, more forgiving. The city smelled of wet soil and new beginnings. And our love, like the weather, had grown quieter—not diminished, just settled into something deeper. Something that didn’t need proof anymore.

We resumed our old rhythm: the 8:14 local, the familiar corner by the window, her scarf sometimes around her neck, sometimes around my wrist. But now there was something unspoken binding us—not urgency, not longing, just a shared understanding that we were building something real.

One morning, she brought a plant.

A tiny potted basil sapling, its leaves bright and eager.

“For your window,” she said.

“My apartment gets no light.”

“Then it’ll live for love,” she smiled.

That same evening, I found a space on my balcony for it. Balanced on two bricks, under an old grill. It looked absurd there, flanked by rust and concrete. But somehow, it belonged. Just like she did in my world.

Days folded into weeks. I met her roommates. She met my best friend. We began exchanging books, keys, grocery runs. Her sketches started showing up on my wall. My socks began to disappear into her laundry.

We weren’t living together. Not technically. But our lives had begun to echo. Her shampoo in my bathroom. My tea in her kitchen. Her dreams in my notebook margins. My jacket on her chair.

And still, we hadn’t said it.

The word.

Love.

It hovered, always just outside the door. Not because we didn’t feel it—but because neither of us wanted to trap it too soon. We were both afraid, in our own way, that naming it would put it under glass.

But some feelings grow too big to be unspoken.

It happened on a Tuesday.

We were at the station, the train just pulling in, when someone pushed from behind. Meera stumbled, and I caught her elbow just in time. Nothing serious. A second of chaos. But I saw something in her eyes then—something raw, fleeting, terrified.

Later that night, as we walked back from dinner, she stopped under the old streetlamp, the same one where we’d first kissed.

“I want to say something,” she said, suddenly serious.

I nodded, heart bracing.

“I don’t need forever. Not the version people sell us. With rings and rituals and house loans. But I want you to know that I choose you. In every version of my life I can imagine, I choose you.”

I didn’t respond right away. I was too full.

Then I took both her hands and said, “I love you.”

She didn’t blink.

“I know,” she whispered. “I’ve known for a while.”

“And you?”

“I’m learning,” she said. “But it feels like the most honest thing I’ve ever felt.”

We stood there under that flickering light, the city blurring around us again. And in that quiet, messy, magical moment, we both understood that love wasn’t a grand gesture.

It was a choice. Made daily. Softly. Bravely.

After that, things didn’t suddenly become perfect. We still argued about silly things—how I never folded towels properly, how she left wet mugs on books. She got mad when I forgot to respond to her texts. I sulked when she cancelled plans last minute because of client emergencies.

But every night, we found our way back to each other.

One night, I found her asleep on my couch, her sketchbook open beside her. Inside was a new drawing—a house by the sea, two windows glowing with warm light, a little train passing in the distance. And on the rooftop, two people holding mugs, watching the stars.

She hadn’t titled it.

So I did.

The Home We’re Building.

A few days later, she got an offer—an architecture fellowship in Singapore. Six months. Prestigious. Competitive. Her dream since college.

When she told me, she looked nervous.

“You should go,” I said.

“I don’t want to leave you.”

“I’m not a place. I’ll be here.”

“You’re more than a place,” she whispered.

But she went. Of course she did.

Because loving someone doesn’t mean holding them back.

It means making sure they have everything they need to fly—even if you miss the sound of their wings.

Every morning after that, I still took the 8:14.

Same spot. Same silence.

But I carried her in the rustle of my pages, in the basil plant that had grown wild on my balcony, in the texts she sent from airport lounges and rainy mornings in Clarke Quay.

One day, she sent a voice note. Just three seconds.

The sound of a train passing.

Then her voice: “Found a new window. But it still looks like you.”

And I knew.

Distance doesn’t break love.

It tests it.

And if it survives, it returns stronger. Braver. Unshaken.

Like the tide. Like a train that always comes back to the station.

Like her.

9

She came back in December.

Not with a grand airport reunion. No dramatic run-and-hug, no teary embrace under twinkling lights. Just a soft knock on my door on a Sunday evening, as if she’d only gone downstairs to fetch milk.

When I opened it, there she was. Wind-chapped cheeks, suitcase behind her, eyes wide with something between relief and longing.

“You’re early,” I said, stunned.

She shrugged, a smile tugging at her lips. “Flights were cheap.”

I laughed. Then pulled her in.

The apartment smelled of burnt toast and unfinished laundry. She didn’t mind. She dropped her bag, kicked off her shoes, and stood in the middle of my living room like she was trying to recognize a dream.

“You didn’t change anything,” she said.

“I couldn’t.”

She walked over to the balcony where the basil plant sat—now a little wild, a little sunburnt.

“You kept it alive.”

“Barely,” I said.

She turned around. “You look the same.”

“You look… braver.”

“I feel it.”

I made us tea. She curled up on the couch in my hoodie like she’d never left. We talked until midnight—about Singapore, the weather, a street food stall she missed. She told me about a professor who hated her use of curves in blueprints. I told her about a writer I’d finally signed after two years of back-and-forth.

“I missed this,” she said quietly.

“Me too.”

She stayed over that night, like she used to. Not in the way of crashing after a long evening, but in the way of returning. She was barefoot in my kitchen the next morning, humming tunelessly while buttering toast, like no months had passed, like we’d always existed in this quiet, domestic magic.

But it wasn’t the same.

It was better.

Time apart had added layers. She was more certain now, sharper with her joy, slower with her anger. I had learned patience, how to hold space without filling it. We had grown—not away from each other, but in ways that made room for more.

Later that week, she said, “Let’s get a place.”

I nearly dropped the spoon.

“A place?”

“Together. Ours.”

“You’re serious?”

“Very.”

I nodded slowly. “Any conditions?”

“Just one. It has to have a window near the bed. So we can watch the city wake up.”

We found it in Bandra. A third-floor flat with creaky wooden floors and two stubborn pigeons who refused to leave the balcony. There were cracks in the walls, a tap that leaked when it rained, and a neighbor who played old Hindi songs at full volume every evening. But it had light. And laughter. And a window near the bed.

We moved in just before the new year.

There was no housewarming. Just us, and two cups of coffee, and a small plate of marigolds Meera placed by the door. She whispered something to the space—some soft blessing—and then kissed me like we had been waiting all year to arrive here.

That night, I read to her from a half-finished draft of my novel. She lay with her head on my chest, tracing invisible lines on my shirt while I stumbled through paragraphs.

When I finished, she looked up and said, “That part where he waits for her every morning—that’s you, isn’t it?”

I didn’t answer.

She smiled. “It’s beautiful. You wrote our love without using the word once.”

“I didn’t need to.”

She kissed me again. “I think that’s what love is. Not loud. Not performative. Just… quiet consistency.”

“Like the train.”

“Exactly.”

One morning, we missed the 8:14 again.

She was still brushing her hair, I was still searching for socks. The toast burned. The milk boiled over. And we laughed like it was the best kind of disaster.

By the time we made it to the station, the next train was packed. We squeezed in anyway, side by side, pressed against the crowd, our hands awkwardly linked between two strangers.

In the reflection of the train window, I saw us.

Not the cinematic version of us. Not filtered or framed.

Just us.

Slightly messy, slightly late, slightly tangled. But together.

We reached Churchgate late. She kissed my cheek in full public view. I blushed. She didn’t.

“I’ll meet you by the sea tonight,” she said.

“Same bench?”

“Same moon,” she said.

And then she walked off, scarf flying behind her like always.

I stood there for a second longer than necessary, watching her melt into the crowd, heart full of something that had taken months of trains, silences, kisses, texts, fears, and tiny joys to build.

This—what we had—it wasn’t perfect.

It was better.

It was ours.

10

The last chapter of a love story doesn’t always look like an ending. Sometimes, it feels like a beginning disguised in familiar skin.

We met by the sea that evening, as planned. Our bench was wet from a short drizzle, so she spread out a newspaper from her bag—Mumbai Mirror, Monday edition—and we sat on it like school kids sharing a stolen recess.

The tide was coming in slow, deliberate waves, as if even the ocean knew how to savor time.

Meera was quiet.

Not the distant kind of quiet, but the peaceful one that comes when the noise inside your chest finally sits down and breathes.

She handed me a small brown envelope.

“No occasion,” she said.

I opened it.

Inside was a boarding pass. Not real, but hand-drawn. Delicate ink lines, watercolor edges. It said: To Everywhere / With You / Window Seat Reserved.

I looked at her.

She shrugged. “Just in case you forgot that I’m staying.”

“I didn’t forget.”

“I needed to say it anyway.”

I held her hand. “What made you sure?”

She pointed to the sky.

“You. That basil plant. This bench. How we made love out of pauses. How we never needed rescue, just room.”

I kissed her knuckles.

“We’re not a grand love story,” I said.

“God, no,” she laughed. “We’re barely an Instagram caption.”

“But we’re real.”

“And we chose this.”

A silence settled.

Then she asked, “Do you ever think about what would’ve happened if we hadn’t met on that train?”

I smiled. “I think we would’ve met somewhere else. You’d have spilled tea on my manuscript in a café. Or I’d have taken the wrong auto and ended up at your firm.”

“And we would’ve argued over who gets the corner table.”

“Then written each other into stories.”

She leaned her head on my shoulder. “Fate didn’t create us. We created us.”

And I knew then that she was right.

Love hadn’t arrived at our door wrapped in fireworks or fate. It had come in small things—missed trains, shared coffees, awkward silences, broken shoes, evenings that ended too early, mornings that never wanted to begin.

It had come in the holding on when it would’ve been easier to let go.

It had come in waiting without timelines, in trusting without conditions.

That night, as we walked back to our apartment, the city glowed gently. The lamps didn’t flicker. The air smelled like wet earth and hope.

Inside, she made tea while I pulled out my notebook—the one I had started the day I first saw her.

“Are you finally finishing it?” she asked.

“I think so.”

“Does it end in a kiss?”

“No,” I said. “It ends in a window seat. And a woman with a scarf who taught a man that stories don’t need perfect endings—just honest ones.”

She smiled.

Then paused.

“Will you do something with it? Publish it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe it was never meant to be read. Maybe it was just meant to be lived.”

She looked down into her teacup, stirring gently. “Then live it with me.”

“I already am.”

Later, we sat on the floor, backs against the bed, tea in hand, our toes touching. The rain returned—soft and without warning.

And I asked her, “What now?”

She thought for a second.

“Now we wake up tomorrow. Take the train. You go write words. I draw buildings. And we come home and burn the toast again.”

I laughed. “Sounds perfect.”

“Because it is.”

And in that moment, I realized something important.

Love isn’t about the first meeting. Or the first kiss. Or the first time you say “I love you.”

It’s about what happens after.

It’s about the 94th morning when you still wait for her smile on a crowded platform. The 38th fight over nothing and the 39th apology that tastes like rain. The 14th time she picks your jacket over hers. The 67th sketch she leaves on your desk without a name.

It’s about choosing.

Again.

And again.

And always.

We didn’t get married that year.

We didn’t move cities. We didn’t announce anything online. No milestones. No montages.

But we kept showing up for each other.

Every day.

And every evening, when the train pulled in, and the doors opened with a hiss of breath and city dust, she stepped off like a promise.

And I waited.

Like love should.

Always.

 

The End