It happened on a Tuesday.
Not the kind that demands attention. Just a plain, faded-blue kind of day where the city moved without urgency and the air smelled faintly of last night's rain.
Aarav had been quiet all morning. Not moody. Just... internal. The kind of quiet that doesn't push people away, but draws them in like a question with no answer.
Anaya watched him from the doorway as he sat at the dining table, scribbling in a half-filled notebook, a cup of untouched tea beside him. His brows furrowed, lips occasionally moving as if whispering his own sentences back to himself.
She didn't interrupt. But something about the curve of his back, the way his fingers hovered between thoughts, made her want to memorize him.
"Lost in your own story again?" she asked softly.
He glanced up, startled. Then smiled.
"Just trying to get a sentence right."
She walked over. "Want help?"
He turned the notebook toward her. The page was full of edits and crossed-out lines. In the center, half-written:
> "Some people don't speak in full sentences. They speak in bruises. In glances. In…"
She read it aloud, then looked at him. "In silences?"
He nodded.
"That's good," she said.
"You think so?"
"I live there," she replied, sitting down beside him.
That afternoon, they visited the small library near the market.
It was Aarav's idea. Anaya hadn't stepped into a library since college. The smell of paper made her heart ache.
They split up without needing to say anything. Aarav wandered toward poetry. Anaya found herself in front of the graphic novels — her fingers grazing spines she didn't recognize.
She pulled one out — Fragments of Her — and flipped through pages of a woman learning to find herself again after losing her voice to grief.
She stood frozen on a page where the character whispered to a mirror: "I am here. That is enough."
Something tightened in her chest.
Aarav appeared behind her, holding a thin poetry chapbook. "You okay?"
She nodded, blinking fast. "Yeah."
But she wasn't.
And he knew it.
They sat outside the library steps, reading in silence. The sun cast long shadows behind them.
Anaya leaned against him — not on his shoulder, but just enough so that their arms touched.
He didn't move away.
That evening, while she cooked, he read one of his poems aloud.
Not to her — just aloud. But she was there, chopping onions, her hands busy and her heart still.
> "I wanted to say I love you, but the words felt like sand in my mouth. So instead, I made you tea. I held your silence. I folded your sweaters. I stayed."
She stopped chopping.
Turned to him.
"That's about me."
He looked at her. "Is it?"
She smiled, but her eyes looked terrified. "Do you… mean it?"
"I don't say anything I don't mean."
"But you didn't say it."
He was quiet.
Then said, "Because I'm scared you'll disappear if I do."
She turned away.
"I won't," she said.
And walked to her room.
The next morning, he found a note tucked between the pages of his notebook.
> I almost said it last night. But I'm scared too. So here's what I can give: I'll stay — even if it's hard. I'll stay — even if we don't say the word yet. I'll stay — until staying means something more than fear.
It wasn't signed.
But he knew.
One week later, she got a message from a small local art group. They'd seen her sketches on an online platform where Aarav had anonymously uploaded them with just the title: "Found in the Rain."
They wanted to feature her in a local exhibition.
Anaya stared at the message for a long time.
Then said, "Why didn't you ask me?"
He shrugged. "I didn't think you'd agree."
"That's not your decision."
"You're right," he said.
She was silent.
Then whispered, "Thank you."
She accepted.
Her drawings were raw — people curled up on sidewalks, a child hiding behind curtains, a tea glass cracked down the middle. But in each one, there was a light. A window. A thread.
People stared at her work longer than she expected.
She stayed in the back of the room the whole night.
But Aarav stood beside her.
Always.
That night, they walked home through streets still slick with rain.
She took his hand.
No words.
No declarations.
Just fingers interlaced — not tightly, not nervously, but like they had always been meant to find each other.
Later, in bed, her back against his chest, she whispered, "I think I'm ready to say it."
He didn't ask what.
She turned to face him in the dark.
And in the quietest voice, said, "I love you."
He was still for a moment.
Then replied, "You don't have to be ready. I already knew."
But she smiled anyway.
Because finally — finally — it was out there.
No more sand in their mouths.
Only soft, warm breath and skin, and two people learning how to live inside a love they didn't have to apologize for.