It had been a week since that night at the café.The sky still felt a little too gray, the air a little too heavy, but Dhruve was breathing easier now. The ache hadn't disappeared — it had just settled, becoming part of him, like an old scar you stop noticing until someone points it out.
He'd been writing again.Not much, not every day — but enough. The words came rough, unpolished, raw. Some nights they poured out of him like blood; other nights, he just stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the keys, waiting for something that never arrived. But it didn't matter. He was showing up. And that counted for something.
The story he was working on was about a man who'd lost everything — cliché, he knew — but it was different this time. He wasn't writing for an audience, not for closure, not even for healing. He was writing because the silence needed company.
His phone buzzed one morning while he was typing. Unknown number again. He ignored it at first, thinking it was spam. But then it buzzed again, and this time, a message flashed on the screen:
"Hey, are you still alive? — Anya."
He snorted. "Yeah, still breathing," he murmured to himself, typing back a simple "Barely."
A few seconds later, her reply came:
"Then that's good enough. Coffee later?"
He hesitated. Anya wasn't his girlfriend, wasn't even a close friend — just someone who'd appeared at the wrong time in his life and somehow decided to stay. She was blunt, sarcastic, and never asked questions she didn't need answers to. Maybe that's why he tolerated her.
He typed back, "Sure. 5 p.m.?"
Her reply came instantly: "Make it 4. I hate waiting."
He smiled faintly. "Of course you do," he muttered, closing the laptop.
The café wasn't the same one where he'd seen Priya. He'd never go back there again. This one was newer, brighter — filled with the smell of fresh pastries and soft jazz. Anya was already there when he arrived, sipping something green and looking unimpressed, as usual.
"You look like shit," she said, without looking up.
Dhruve chuckled. "Thanks. You look… environmentally conscious."
She smirked. "You mean this?" She pointed to her drink. "It's matcha. You should try it. Might help your dead soul."
He sat across from her. "I'll stick to coffee. Less grass, more caffeine."
They didn't talk much at first — just the usual small talk that two people use to fill the quiet. But even in that silence, Dhruve felt something shift. He didn't feel judged, or pitied. Just… seen.
"So," she said finally, resting her chin on her palm. "How's the writing going? Still bleeding onto the page?"
He shrugged. "Yeah. It's messy. But I think it's getting somewhere."
"That's how it works," she said, stirring her drink. "You make a mess, then call it art."
He smiled. "You're wiser than you look."
"I'm wiser than most people, period," she said, smirking. "But don't change the subject. You've been quiet lately. That's dangerous."
He looked at her, then away. "Just been thinking. A lot."
"About her?"
"About everything," he admitted.
Anya nodded, not pressing further. She had this way of knowing when not to talk, and somehow that made her presence more comforting than anyone's advice.
They sat there for a while — two broken people pretending to be fine, sipping caffeine and trading half-hearted jokes. But somewhere between the laughter and silence, something small, almost invisible, began to grow.
Not attraction. Not yet. Just connection — the kind that reminds you you're still human.
When they parted, Anya said, "Don't overthink it, Dhruve. Sometimes, healing is just… breathing without breaking."
He nodded, smiling softly. "Yeah. I think I'm learning that."
That night, Dhruve wrote again.Not about betrayal. Not about pain. But about two strangers who shared silence and found something unspoken in it.
He didn't know what it was yet — friendship, redemption, or something fragile in between. But for the first time, his words didn't come from a wound. They came from somewhere quieter.
Before sleeping, he looked at his phone one last time.A message from Anya blinked on the screen:
"Don't disappear again. I'll find you and drag you out."
He chuckled. "Good luck with that," he said aloud, tossing the phone aside.
For the first time in months, the dark didn't feel suffocating.It felt like a place he could finally rest in.
And maybe — just maybe — wake up to something better.