The drizzle had begun again. Soft, rhythmic, and utterly familiar, like the universe had decided to cue the playback of a memory I'd buried years ago.
Rain always brought nostalgia. It always brought him.
I sat by the window of my room, still wrapped in the strange, residual tension of last night's party. My head hurt, maybe from the glass of champagne I had impulsively decided to try, or maybe from the whirlwind of emotions I refused to name. The night had been a blur of shimmering lights, loud music, and a suffocating, almost aggressive tension. I had smiled too much. Laughed too loud. I had absolutely pretended too well.
Zeyansh hadn't come home last night.
At first, I told myself he might have just gone for a long drive to cool his head after what he'd witnessed. But as the hours dragged on, as the clock struck past midnight and the city began its deep, muffled sleep, something cold and solid began to settle in my chest.
He had seen us.
Aditya and I.
Dancing.
The thought alone made my skin prickle with a confusing mix of fear and wicked satisfaction. I tried to dismiss it, to tell myself it was just a dance, that it meant nothing. But deep down, I knew that wasn't entirely true. I couldn't stop thinking about the way Aditya's hand had rested on the small of my back, light yet protective, shielding me from a world I didn't even see coming.
My phone screen remained black. No messages from Zeyansh. No apology, no explanation. Just silence, the usual pattern reasserting itself.
Somewhere below, the city carried on, horns blaring, the world alive and uncaring. But in the quiet gloom of our bedroom, it felt like time had folded in on itself, trapping me between the past and the painful present.
Then I heard it.
The faint, sweet hum of an old Tamil song drifting from someone's phone in the next apartment. Pudhu Vellai Mazhai...
The sound was hauntingly sweet, carried on the damp air, a melody I hadn't heard in years, not since those long school afternoons when we used to sit on the last bench, sharing earphones and pretending not to notice how close we were sitting.
And just like that, the drizzle outside blurred, dissolving the present into a distant, rain-soaked memory.
We were fifteen, and the world was small enough to fit inside the familiar, chipped walls of our school
I remembered the faint scent of chalk dust on my palms, the annoying thak-thak sound the ceiling fans made, and how Aditya would always sit by the window, gazing out at the chaotic peace of the world, not even pretending to pay attention to the lecture.
He wasn't the loud one. Never was. He was quiet to a fault, the kind of boy you didn't notice until you did, and then you couldn't stop noticing. Or perhaps, it was only I who couldn't stop noticing.
He wasn't the class topper, nor the football team's star, nor the teachers' favorite. But with me, he was different. He smiled more. He argued. He teased.
I was everything he wasn't: impulsive, dramatic, restless, and talkative.
He said I talked too much; I said he thought too much.
Somewhere in between those petty arguments and the late evening tuition classes, something fragile bloomed. It was unspoken, unnamed, yet unmistakably there, a strange comfort and peace that we labeled as friendship but felt like more.
There was one evening I'll never forget.
The monsoon had hit early that year. Our last class, Math, was dismissed early since the teacher was on leave.
YOU ARE READING
His Burden, His Blessing
Romantizm"You don't turn me on enough for us to roleplay." My husband of 2 years said to me. It took me some time to process what he said. "What?! What the fuck is that supposed to mean? Is this some kind of a joke?" I asked him incredulously. "Do I look lik...
