No matter how steady the bloom, weather changes. Arjun's restlessness was a pulse that never quite slowed. Work called—an opportunity to photograph an archaeological dig in Morocco, a documentary in Patagonia. Each project was a window into something he couldn't refuse. That kind of life required leaving. It also required faith from the person who stayed.
When he mentioned Morocco, casually, over dinner, the words tasted like a challenge. "Three months," he said, smiling, as if that number didn't rearrange the furniture.
Maya forced a smile that evening too. She said the right things—supportive, encouraging. She knew what his work meant to him and she loved that part of him. But when the taxi drove him away with a camera bag heavy at his shoulder, the apartment felt too loud. The air held a space where his laughter used to be.
At first they managed distance with late-night calls and grainy photos sent from airports. But long gaps develop shapes of their own. He returned different each time: softer sometimes, other times closed off and reluctant to talk about what he'd seen. Maya, who had carved a life of predictability, found herself learning what absence felt like. It was not a single wound but a series of small sores—forgotten messages, canceled dinners, a presence that existed more in pixels than in flesh.
Arguments followed predictable arcs: one saying that he left too much, the other saying she asked him to stop living his life. In the middle of one such fight, Maya realized that love could feel less like a shelter and more like a negotiation table where dreams sat across from one another and no one knew how to compromise without losing something essential.