Love rarely arrived with fireworks. For Ashaas, it was slipping into her life like sunlight through an open window, quiet and unassuming, until one day she realized the room was bathed in warmth.
With Arjun, things unfolded with an ease that startled her. Their conversations didn't have to try; they flowed, weaving between serious confessions and playful banter. When he was with her, the world seemed softer, less frantic.
One evening, after an especially long wedding event, Arjun insisted on driving her home. The city lights blurred outside the car window, and for the first time in years, Ashaas leaned her head against someone's shoulder without the weight of doubt pressing down on her.
"You never let anyone take care of you, do you?" Arjun asked quietly.
She smiled faintly. "I'm used to being the one who handles everything. It's hard to imagine someone else doing it for me."
"Then maybe it's time to imagine it," he said, his voice gentle, but steady.
Something in his tone left her chest aching — not with sadness, but with a tenderness she had almost forgotten existed.
---
Across the city, Neel's life looked perfect on the surface. His café was thriving, Sophia was kind and devoted, and from the outside, it seemed he had everything he once dreamed of. But beneath the surface, there were cracks he couldn't ignore.
It wasn't Sophia's fault. She was warm, affectionate, and patient. Yet, Neel often caught himself staring at the door of his café, half-expecting Ashaas to walk in. Sometimes, he even replayed their conversations in his head, remembering her sharp wit, her ability to challenge him, her way of seeing beauty where he saw only problems.
Late at night, lying beside Sophia, Neel would find his thoughts wandering back to Ashaas's laughter — not the polite kind, but the unrestrained, belly-deep one he used to draw out of her. It haunted him, a sound both familiar and unreachable.
And it was during these quiet hours that the truth began to gnaw at him: he had made a mistake. He had let go of the one person who truly understood him, not because she wasn't enough, but because he hadn't been ready to be enough for her.
---
Meanwhile, Ashaas and Arjun's connection deepened. They began to share small rituals — evening walks, trading favorite books, lingering over cups of tea long after they had gone cold. Arjun loved capturing her in candid moments: her brows furrowed as she arranged flowers, her burst of laughter when a child at an event tugged at her dress, the serene stillness when she gazed out at the horizon.
One night, as they sat on the rooftop of his apartment, the city sprawled beneath them, Arjun lowered his camera after snapping yet another picture of her.
"What do you see in that lens?" she teased.
"Someone who doesn't realize how beautiful she is," he replied, his voice quiet but certain.
For a moment, Ashaas forgot how to breathe. No one had looked at her that way in years — not as a memory, not as a past love, but as something present, alive, and worthy of being cherished.
It was then she realized she wasn't afraid anymore. With Arjun, she wasn't defined by what she had lost. She was seen for who she was now.
---
Neel, however, could no longer ignore the ache in his chest. He began noticing things he had overlooked before — how Ashaas's energy filled a room, how her presence had once been his anchor. Sophia, with all her kindness, didn't spark that same fire in him. And though he tried to bury the thought, the truth rose with every passing day: he hadn't just lost a lover when he let Ashaas go. He had lost the woman who had been his mirror, his challenge, his companion in a way no one else could be.
Watching from afar as Ashaas's life seemed to blossom with Arjun only sharpened the ache. He congratulated her, smiled when they met, but behind every polite word was a storm of regret.
For the first time, Neel understood what it meant to miss someone not because they were gone, but because they had become someone else's happiness.
And as Ashaas leaned closer to Arjun on that rooftop, laughter carried by the night air, Neel realized the bitter truth: he had let her slip away, and the mistake was his alone to carry.