For a long moment, I didn't move.
I just stared at the screen, the voice messages still sitting there like they might disappear if I looked away. My phone felt heavier in my hand than it ever had before.
Lyra.
After all this time.
After months of silence, of convincing myself it was over—she was suddenly here again. Not in memories. Not in old texts. But right there. Real.
I replayed the first voice message.
Then the second.
Her voice hadn't changed. Still warm. Still familiar. Still carrying that same energy that used to make conversations feel lighter without trying.
I swallowed and typed slowly.
Lyra…
I thought I lost you.
The reply came almost instantly.
Another voice message.
"Eshan!!! Don't say that... I was scared you'd changed your number or something. I kept thinking—what if I never find him again?"
My chest tightened.
So she had been thinking too.
I leaned back on my bed, staring at the ceiling, letting out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding for a year.
We started talking.
Not about big things. Not about what happened right away. Just small, familiar pieces—how things had been, how strange the last year felt, how everything suddenly stopped because of the pandemic.
She told me how frustrating it was to be disconnected. No phone. No way to reach people. How helpless it felt losing contacts one by one.
I told her about my days. About games. About how time passed without meaning to.
There were pauses between messages.
But they didn't feel awkward.
They felt… careful. Like both of us were stepping onto something fragile, afraid of breaking it.
At one point, she sent another voice message—softer this time.
"I really missed talking to you, you know."
That single sentence did something to me.
It wasn't dramatic.
It wasn't emotional.
But it was honest.
I smiled without meaning to.
I realized then how much I had carried her absence quietly. How many times I'd told myself I was fine when I wasn't. How many nights I'd convinced myself this chapter of my life was already closed.
And yet—here she was.
We talked late into the night. Not like before. Not carefree. But genuine. Grounded. Like two people picking up a conversation that time had interrupted, not erased.
Before she went offline, she sent one last message.
"I'm really glad I found you, Eshan."
I stared at that line for a long time.
When the screen finally went dark, the room felt different. Lighter. Not healed—but no longer empty.
For the first time in months, I didn't feel like something was missing.
I didn't know where this would lead.
I didn't know what we were now.
But I knew one thing.
Some stories don't end when you think they do.
Sometimes, they just wait—
Until both people are ready to turn the page again.
As our Days slowly found their rhythm again.
Lyra said she was studying in Kohima.
I was studying in Dimapur.
Two different districts. Two different paths. We no longer saw each other—not even by chance. No familiar roads, no shared places. Just distance stretching quietly between us.
It made me sad in a familiar way.
Sometimes I caught myself thinking—
If only I had been more approachable.
If only I knew how to speak when it mattered. Maybe things wouldn't always feel like they were slipping just beyond reach.
As the pandemic dragged on, schools remained closed. Classes moved online. Screens replaced classrooms, and voices came through speakers instead of seats beside you.
Online classes went on for months.
And somehow, so did we.
Our conversations flowed as if we had never stopped talking. As if the silence, the distance, the lost time hadn't existed at all. We talked about small things again—about our days, about how boring online classes were, about thoughts that didn't need a reason to be shared.
It felt natural.
Comforting.
Like nothing had really ended.
But time never stays still.
Slowly, the pandemic began to ease. News came in bits and pieces—schools were preparing to reopen, life was starting to move forward again.
That's when reality returned.
My parents were worried again.
They didn't always say it directly, but I could see it. I had been pampered all my life. Sheltered. They wondered if I could really manage on my own—study outside, live away from them, face the world without their constant presence.
I understood their fear.
Even if I couldn't express it well, I cared deeply about my family.
My dad was strict. Quiet. He rarely spoke much, and we weren't close in the way people usually describe. But I still cared about him.
My mom loved me endlessly—worried, pampered, protective in every way she knew how to be.
And my big sister—
We fought often, over the smallest things. But beneath all that, I loved her too. In ways I never knew how to say out loud.
The last thing I wanted was to worry them.
So I acted like I was fine.
Like I was ready.
Like I wasn't nervous.
Like this was just another step forward.
Even when my chest felt tight, I smiled and nodded.
Eventually, the day came.
I said goodbye to my mom first.
She hugged me longer than usual, her hands resting on my shoulders as if she didn't want to let go. She reminded me to eat properly, to take care of myself, to call whenever I could.
I nodded, not trusting my voice to answer.
Then I got into the car.
My dad was with me—to drop me in Dimapur.
We left at around 6 a.m.
The road stretched endlessly ahead, quiet and empty. Morning slowly replaced the darkness as hours passed. Towns blurred into one another. We spoke very little.
By the time we reached Dimapur, it was around 8 p.m.
The journey was over.
And just like that, I had arrived.