Ayaan and Meher were childhood best friends, bound by laughter, secrets, and unspoken love. But life took them on different paths—Ayaan, a passionate traveler who chased the horizon, and Meher, a quiet dreamer who built a life in the same small town. Years later, fate brings them back together, but time has built walls between them. Will love be enough to bridge the distance, or will their hearts remain two parallel lines never meant to meet?
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Meher sat by the window of her bookstore, her fingers tracing the rim of her coffee cup. The streets of Shimla were alive with the scent of fresh pine and the distant hum of tourists, but her world remained silent. It had been seven years. Seven years since Ayaan left.
She should have moved on, found someone new, learned to live without the boy who once made pinky promises under the starlit sky. But love wasn’t something she could erase like ink from a notebook.
The bells on the shop’s door jingled.
Meher didn’t look up, assuming it was just another customer. But then—
“Meher?”
Her fingers froze around the cup. That voice. She would recognize it anywhere, even after a lifetime.
Slowly, she turned.
And there he was.
Ayaan stood at the door, his tall frame shadowed against the golden light of dusk. His hair was a little longer, his skin tanned from the sun, but his eyes—the same deep brown that once held the entire universe—hadn’t changed.
Meher felt the breath knock out of her lungs.
“You… You’re back?”
Ayaan smiled, the kind of smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “For now.”
She didn’t know what to say. She had dreamt of this moment for years, but now that it was here, her heart was too tangled in past pain to embrace it.
“How have you been?” he asked.
“Fine,” she lied. “And you?”
He hesitated. “Wandering. Searching.”
Meher let out a quiet laugh. “Still chasing sunsets, Ayaan?”
He exhaled, rubbing the back of his neck. “Maybe. But this time… I think I just want to stay in one place.”
A silence stretched between them, heavy with words left unsaid.
Finally, he spoke again. “Can we go for a walk?”
Meher didn’t know why she agreed. Maybe she wanted closure. Maybe she just wanted to see if her heart still belonged to him.
The streets were quieter now, the chill of the evening settling in. They walked side by side, but the space between them was more than just physical.
“I thought you’d never come back,” Meher whispered.
Ayaan let out a sigh. “I thought so too.”
She glanced at him. “Why?”
His footsteps slowed. “Because I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
“Of seeing you happy without me.”
Her heart clenched.
“I was angry when you left, you know?” she admitted, wrapping her arms around herself. “You just disappeared one night. No goodbye. No explanation.”
Ayaan stopped walking. He turned to face her, guilt written all over his face.
“I know. And I hate myself for it.”
Meher looked up at the sky, blinking away the sting in her eyes. “Did you ever miss me?”
Ayaan’s jaw tightened. “Every damn day.”
The wind rustled around them, carrying memories of a past they never got to live.
“I never stopped loving you, Meher.” His voice was barely above a whisper.
Her breath hitched.
“Ayaan…”
“I was a fool to leave. I thought I needed the world to feel alive, but I didn’t realize… you were my world.”
Tears welled in her eyes. “Then why didn’t you come back sooner?”
“Because I was scared you’d moved on.”
Meher laughed softly, shaking her head. “And if I had?”
Ayaan swallowed. “Then I would’ve let you go. No matter how much it killed me.”
She studied his face—the man she had loved since she was sixteen. He had changed, but in all the ways that mattered, he was still the boy who held her hand when she cried, who stole books from her shelf only to return them with little notes inside, who once promised her forever.
“I waited for you,” she admitted. “I told myself I wouldn’t… but I did.”
Ayaan took a step closer. “And now?”
Meher looked up into his eyes. “I don’t know.”
The honesty hurt, but it was real.
Ayaan exhaled. “Then let me prove it to you. Let me stay. Let me make up for every lost second.”
She hesitated, fear and hope warring inside her.
And then—
Ayaan reached out, his fingers brushing against hers.
A silent question.
Meher closed her eyes. And when she opened them, she tightened her grip around his hand.
A silent answer.
Maybe love wasn’t about picking up where they left off.
Maybe it was about finding their way back, step by step, until the stars faded and the sun rose again.
Together.
~By P¿ndaWriter
