It was Sunday.No office. No deadlines. Just a sleepy Noida morning stretching its arms lazily into the afternoon. I sat in the corner of a half-empty café, tapping my foot and refreshing my inbox like some desperate intern. Nothing. No text. No reply.
I checked our WhatsApp thread for the fifth time in an hour.
Me (10:03 AM):"Let's catch up today. I want to hear a story face-to-face for once. ☕"
Me (10:18 AM):"Ayan?"
Me (10:31 AM):"Don't leave me on read like a ghosted Tinder match."
I even threw in some totally unnecessary voice notes. Cringe? Maybe.But I was serious. I didn't want to wait till tomorrow's meeting. I wanted to see him today.
Because… somewhere between editing his words and living inside his memories, I had started looking forward to just being around him and I wasn't going to let another Sunday pass with me binge-watching reruns and overthinking emojis.
He finally replied.After 14 missed calls and 9 messages.
Ayan:"I don't go out much."
I rolled my eyes so hard I swear I saw my brain.This boy.
Me:"It's not a party, it's coffee."
Ayan:"I'll feel awkward."
Me:"That's cute. I'm already here. Either you come, or I'll start reading your next story out loud to random people."
That did it.
Thirty-two minutes later, he walked in.Hoodie up, cap low, earbuds still dangling from his neck like he hadn't fully decided if he was staying.
"I can't believe you dragged me here," he muttered, sliding into the seat across from me.
"Technically, I manipulated you. Big difference."
He smirked, and for a second, it felt like we were just two old friends catching up, not an author and editor with emotional baggage between pages.
We sat there sipping overpriced coffee and talking about... nothing.Until I asked him the one thing I hadn't dared to before:
"Do you ever tell stories that aren't sad?"
He looked out the window for a moment. Then back at me.
"You want one today?"
I nodded and just like that, he opened the vault again.
"There was this guy once," he began."Let's call him… Yuvi."
"Yuvi?" I repeated, stirring my cappuccino.
"Yeah. MBBS student. Smart, hardworking. From a small background. He fell in love with a girl in college—Anushka. Rich. Classy. The kind who had a driver drop her to campus."
I leaned in, already hooked.
"And she loved him back?" I asked.
"She did," he said. "So much that she married him."
"Happy ending?"
Ayan gave a short laugh."No. Not yet."
He told me how Yuvi had taken her to his village post-marriage, to a world without ACs, with dust, heat, simplicity — a different reality than Anushka's Instagram-worthy life.
"She couldn't adjust," he said quietly. "She tried. But love isn't always enough."
Eventually, they divorced.
"Because love may be blind… but reality isn't."
By the time he finished, we'd long stopped caring about the half-melted froth in our cups.Something heavy hung between us — not sadness, but honesty.
I looked at him, and I saw someone who had lived too many stories.And I couldn't help but wonder how many of them were really his own.
"Was that real?" I asked softly.
He nodded.
"They all are."
We didn't say much afterward.Just walked side by side outside the café until our paths split at the metro gate.
Before I left, I turned back one last time.
"You know," I said, "I didn't drag you here just to hear a story."
He raised an eyebrow. "No?"
"I just wanted to see the person behind the words."
For the first time, he looked like he didn't have a witty reply.
He just smiled — a small, real one.And somehow, it stayed with me the rest of the way home.
Maybe I was becoming part of his story.Or maybe... he was becoming part of mine.