Arav
-- 3.5 Years Ago. --

I wasn't planning to stay for the whole sketching class. I just thought I'd drop her off, help her carry the bag — the one stuffed with sketchpads, broken crayons, pencils, all that. That's it. Drop her, and leave.

We didn't talk much on the way. She was busy on her phone, then just stared out of the rickshaw. Her hands were already stained with charcoal. Her kurti had marks on the side too. I saw it, but didn't say anything. When we reached the classroom, she walked in like she'd done it a hundred times before. No hesitation. Just smiled at the kids, joked with one of them about their drawing — "Is this a crocodile or a cucumber with teeth?" — and they all started laughing.

She dropped her bag in the corner, kicked off her sandals, and sat on the floor next to a little girl with pigtails and no front teeth. She helped her with a drawing, talking like it was the most normal thing in the world.

And I just stood there near the door, not sure what I was supposed to do.

 I didn't plan to stay. But the way she was with the kids — calm, kind, like she actually cared about what they were drawing — made me stay. It was simple, but nice to watch. She made them feel like they were doing something good.

For a second, I even thought about sitting down too. Pretending I didn't know how to draw, just so she'd come help me.

She looked up, saw me still standing there, and mouthed, "You can leave, you know."

But I didn't.

Because I didn't want to.

Instead, I sat on one of those tiny blue plastic chairs clearly made for kids — knees up, back sore, wondering how she managed this every weekend without going crazy.

She didn't seem to mind any of it. She was in full teacher mode, moving from kid to kid, fixing the way they held their pencils, asking questions like, "Why does this sun have legs?" with a straight face. Somehow, by the end of the class, she had a group of noisy little kids actually concentrating, shading things, blending colors. It was weirdly impressive.

One boy kept looking at me like I was part of the still life section or something. Half an hour later, he walked over and handed me a drawing.

It was a badly shaped oval with thick black lines for eyebrows. On top, in uneven capital letters, he'd written: "UNCLE WITH EYEBROWS."

I stared at it. "Seriously?"

She looked over and burst out laughing. "That's honestly pretty accurate."

"That's what you're teaching them? How to insult guests?"

She grinned. "He's not wrong though. You do have very... expressive eyebrows."

That drawing ended up on our fridge door. Every time I looked at it, I wasn't sure whether to be flattered or offended.

After class, we walked to the main road. She spotted a fruit vendor and made a beeline for the guavas.

"Guava?" I asked. "Really? There's a whole samosa stall right here."

She didn't even look up. "Samosas don't cleanse the palate."

I stared at her. "Cleanse the—what? Who are you? Are you on a food show I don't know about?"

She ignored me, picked the greenest guava, asked the guy to slice it and add extra red masala. The moment she got it, she bit into it like she hadn't eaten in a week. Loudest crunch I'd ever heard. Half the masala ended up on her kurti.

I raised an eyebrow. "Wow. So elegant."

She chewed, totally unfazed. "Real flavor doesn't need elegance."

"Is that a quote from your imaginary food blog?"

She held out a slice. "Try it, Uncle Eyebrows."

I took it. Just to shut her up. It wasn't bad. Tangy, salty, spicy — made my face twitch a little. She was watching me the whole time like it was a test.

"It's fine," I said.

She smirked. "You love it."

"I don't hate it," I admitted. "But I'd still take a samosa any day."

"Boring," she said, popping another piece into her mouth.

And somehow, standing there on the footpath next to a pile of guava peels and a traffic jam, I felt... okay. Like the day didn't have to be perfect to be good. She had that effect — made small things feel like they were worth showing up for.

That evening, we cooked together for the first time. And by "cooked," I mean she bossed me around while I tried not to cut my fingers off chopping onions. She called it her "five-minute tadka rice." It took forty minutes, three burner switches, and somehow involved every single utensil we owned — including the one random sieve we never use.

"You're crying," she said, smirking at me over her shoulder.

"It's the onions," I said, blinking like mad. "Not everything is about emotions."

She shook her head. "Sure. Total breakup montage energy."

"You're literally tearing up too."

She turned back to the stove. "Nope. Just aggressive blinking. Completely different."

The rice turned out way too spicy. She said it was perfect.

I drank two full glasses of water. "My tongue is on fire."

"Weak," she said, casually going for a second helping like her mouth was made of steel.

After dinner, we both stared at the messy table like it had personally betrayed us.

"Too far," she said. "I'm not clearing that."

So we didn't. We just dropped to the kitchen floor with our plates and ate there like two tired students during exam week.

When we finished, she leaned back against the fridge, holding her glass, and said, "I don't want to do the dishes."

"Me neither," I said.

"Okay, cool. So we live like this now."

"Fine by me."

We sat there doing nothing for a while. Just the sound of the fan and the clink of her glass every time she shifted. Then the kitchen light flickered. We both looked up at it.

"I swear if that goes out—" she started.

And then it did. I sighed, got up, grabbed my slipper, and slapped the switchboard. Twice. The light came back on.

She laughed so hard she almost dropped her glass. "You're ridiculous."

I sat back down next to her. "You're welcome."

We didn't do the dishes that night. And somehow, it still felt like one of the best dinners I've ever had.

About a week later, Tara ran into Ma again — completely by accident. I was near Ma's building to pick up some old documents she had kept from when I switched jobs. She doesn't trust couriers or scanning apps. "Original copy is original," she says. So I told her I'd come get them.

Tara had texted earlier that morning — she found a file I'd left in her bag after a client meeting. She said, "I'll be in your area anyway, I can drop it off."

We agreed to meet outside Ma's building, just for a quick handover. Tara showed up in this oversized white shirt, sleeves rolled up, hair tied in a messy bun, flats that looked like they'd been through a few years of Mumbai rains. Socks didn't match. She didn't care. She never really dressed for show. We were just talking near the gate when Ma came out of the building, carrying a cloth bag of vegetables and an empty milk packet.

She spotted us immediately. "Tara?"

Tara smiled. "Hi, Aunty! How are you doing?"

Ma looked at her. "I am fit and fine, beta" then she ask me "She came to see you?"

I nodded. "Just dropping off a file."

Ma gave her a proper once-over, then said, "Toh upar nahi aayi? I'm making chai."

Tara glanced at me — a quick silent check. I shrugged. "We've got ten minutes."

We followed her upstairs. Same flat as always. Small, neat, comfortable. The old fridge hummed, the curtains were slightly uneven, the TV was on mute. I grew up there, but I haven't lived with my parents for a while now. After college, I moved out — partly because of work, mostly because I like space. Nothing dramatic. I visit often, but having my own place keeps everyone sane. Ma calls it my "freedom flat."

In the kitchen, Ma started boiling tea. Tara sat on the edge of the sofa, taking everything in — the framed family photo near the switchboard, the pile of newspapers under the side table, and a small radio that's probably older than both of us.

She pointed toward the kitchen. "Aunty, is that karela?"

Ma smiled. "Haan. You young people run from it."

"I actually like karela," Tara said. "Just not the way my mom makes it."

Ma looked up from the stove. "You cook?"

"Basic stuff. Enough to not starve."

"You should learn properly," Ma said. "Boys these days can't even boil water."

Tara grinned. "Arav cries while chopping onions."

"Arey wah," Ma laughed. "Already exposing him!"

I rolled my eyes. "This is a conspiracy."

"Beta," Ma said, turning to Tara, "you're welcome here anytime."

Ten minutes turned into thirty. They chatted about prices of vegetables, Tara's art classes, some distant cousin's wedding. Tara didn't try to impress her. She didn't need to. She just asked questions, listened, made jokes when she felt like it.

As we were leaving, Ma handed Tara a small container.

"Homemade mango pickle," she said. "Take it."

Tara looked surprised. "But I didn't even do anything."

"You came. That's enough," Ma replied.

Outside, as we walked toward the main road, Tara said, "I really like her."

I nodded. "She likes you too."

"She didn't act like I was a guest."

"She doesn't do that with people she actually likes."

Tara smiled, holding the container. "She's sharp."

"You should've seen her during exam result days."

"Now I'm scared."

I shrugged. "Don't worry. You passed."

This was maybe two months after we started seeing each other more regularly. Nothing official, no labels, but we were in a rhythm — late-night calls, weekend sketching classes, splitting food without asking.

Then one weekend, Tara invited me to meet her friends.

"Nothing big," she said. "Just a few people at Meenal's place. Chill plan."

Her version of "chill" meant five people, loud music, way too many chips, and everyone talking at once.

Tara's friends were... a lot. Meenal, the closest one, stared at me like she was trying to figure out how I got through security. Not rude — just intense.

Vikram, the loud, funny one, started interrogating me about my coffee habits within minutes.

"Do you judge people who use milk powder?"
"Be honest — have you ever called chai 'tea' in public?"
"What's your caffeine-to-crisis ratio?"

Tara just sat there, sipping wine and letting it happen. She smiled every time I looked at her like: You're not helping. She knew they were testing me. And she absolutely enjoying it.

There was also Anuja — quiet but sharp. She didn't say much at first, just raised her eyebrows at some of my answers and texted something to Meenal that clearly made them both smirk. And Ashwin, who seemed chill until he cornered me in the kitchen and casually asked, "So what exactly are your intentions here, bro?"

I said, "I don't know. Eat chips, survive the night?"

He laughed. "Fair."

"You're too serious," Meenal said eventually, looking at me over her glass. "You seem like the kind of guy who corrects grammar in memes."

Before I could respond, Tara jumped in. "He does. And he once said 'LOL is not punctuation.'"

I shrugged. "It's not."

Vikram clapped. "Oh, he's fun. You just have to dig through three layers of existential dread."

Everyone laughed. Even I did. Tara looked at me across the room, smiling like: See? You passed. And somehow... I didn't hate it. I actually liked them. Loud, nosy, brutally honest — but very clearly her people. They cared about her in that way good friends do — by messing with anyone who gets close. And I think part of me wanted to be one of them too.

~~~~~~~

Later that week, we ended up on her building's rooftop.

It wasn't planned or anything. She just texted me, "Come up. Bring nothing. I've already stolen snacks."

When I got there, she was sitting cross-legged on the floor, two cutting chais next to her and a half-open packet of Bourbon biscuits. She held it up and said, "These may or may not have belonged to my landlady's grocery stash."

I sat down beside her. The rooftop was rough cement, warm from the afternoon sun. Someone in the next building was playing an old Kishore Kumar song through a speaker that kept crackling every few seconds. We didn't talk much at first. Just sipped tea and stared at the sky, which was doing that grey-pink thing Mumbai skies do when it's pretending not to rain.

The city below sounded softer from up here. Cars honking, someone yelling "Arrey bhaiyaa side mein!", a pressure cooker whistle in the distance — all of it felt a little less annoying.

Then out of nowhere, she said, "If you could live anywhere — like just pick up and move — where would you go?"

I thought about it. "Somewhere quieter. Maybe Budapest. Or Kochi."

She turned to me, surprised. "Budapest? Since when are you international?"

"I saw a YouTube vlog once. The trams looked clean. People didn't yell."

She laughed. "You want to move to a place because the trams are quiet?"

"I mean, have you taken a train from Dadar at 6 PM?"

"Fair."

She leaned back on her elbows, stretched her legs out. "I'd go somewhere rainy. Constantly overcast. The kind of place where you can wear shawls in July and nobody looks at you funny."

"So... Shillong?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Or some hill town where the shops all smell like wet books and cinnamon."

I looked at her. "That's very specific."

"Shut up," she said, smiling. "Let me have my aesthetic dreams."

She took another biscuit from the packet, broke it in half, and handed me a piece.

Then she looked at me — not dramatically or anything, just casually — and said, "You're not bad, you know."

I took the biscuit. "That your version of 'I love you'?"

She sipped her chai and said, completely deadpan, "Don't push it."

I didn't.
But I smiled.

Because it kind of was.

A few months later, she showed up at my place with this plastic folder. The kind you use for bills or school stuff.

She handed it to me and said, "Don't judge the cover."

I opened it. Inside was a full trip plan — printed itinerary, maps, hotel info. Color-coded tabs. Notes in different colors.

"Is this... Sri Lanka?" I asked.

She nodded. "Yeah. May is a good time to go. The flights are cheap, and the hotels let you cancel up to 48 hours before. So no pressure." Then she added, like she couldn't help herself, "I also added space for snack breaks."

I kept flipping through it. One section was labeled:

Scenery cries

Samosa breaks

Aarav's usual mid-trip existential spiral

I looked at her. "Did you also plan what to do if I have a meltdown?"

She grinned. "I made a list."

She was proud of it — not just the schedule, but the fact that she planned something for us. It wasn't about beaches or tourist spots. It was her way of saying: I want to travel with you. I want more days like this.

I leaned in and kissed her. Nothing big or dramatic. Just a small, soft kiss. The kind you give when someone does something thoughtful and you don't know how else to say thanks.

That same night, she stayed over. She made parathas — badly. Burnt the first one, undercooked the second. She was wearing one of my old shirts and had flour on her face. She laughed through most of it.

Later, she went to brush her teeth. I was checking my email on the sofa when it came in.

A job offer.

From a media company in Delhi. A role I had applied to months ago, before any of this with her even started. Better pay. More stability. A clean start.

I just stared at the screen.

I didn't tell her.

Not because I wanted to lie, but because everything felt... settled. Quiet. Like if I said something right then, it would ruin the moment.

She came out of the bathroom, still half-covered in foam, and said, "Do we have toothpaste that doesn't taste like minty regret?"

I smiled. "I think there's a clove one."

She laughed and went back to the kitchen.

She had no idea what I was thinking.

That night, she fell asleep quickly. Her head on my arm, breathing slow. Comfortable. Like she belonged there.

I just stared at the ceiling fan.

And kept thinking:

How do you hold onto something good...
...without breaking it?

**********

Hey, thanks for reading this chapter. This one was about the small, normal days. The kind that feel nice... but something feels off in the background. Aarav didn't tell Tara about the job. Not because he wanted to lie — he just didn't want to ruin a good moment.

Sometimes we do that, right? We hold back something because we're scared it might change everything.

So here's my question for you:

💭 Have you ever not said something important just to keep the peace? Did it help? Or did it make things worse later?

Tell me if you feel like sharing — I'm reading all your replies.

Don't forget to vote.

See you in next chapter. Take care. 🌿