The days began to find their rhythm—hers filled with study sessions, volleyball practice, and whispered goodnights to a glowing screen; his with classes, family chatter, and stolen moments to message her between the hum of Indian afternoons.
It was strange, how easily they fit into each other's worlds despite being oceans apart. There were no shared streets or sunsets, only fragments: her laughter echoing through voice notes, his sleepy "good mornings" typed with one eye still closed. But somehow, those fragments were enough to build something real.
Lili had started taking pictures of the sky for him—clouds shaped like hearts, streaks of gold, and the rare evenings when the sunset dyed her window pink. In return, Dewdrop sent her tiny poems.
If the moon could write, it would spell your name on the tides.
Sometimes she would read his messages before bed, the words looping through her mind like lullabies. There was something different about the way he saw her. To him, she wasn't just a girl studying for entrance exams or hiding her phone from her parents. She was light, hope, the reason time zones felt worth waiting through.
That night, as she sat in her room with her Bible open and textbooks spread like a small fortress around her, a message appeared.
What's your favorite verse?
She smiled. Dewdrop always asked questions that dug deeper than small talk.
Probably 1 Corinthians 13:7, she typed.Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
That's beautiful, he replied. I don't know much about faith, but that sounds like something you'd live by.
Her heart softened. He wasn't Christian, and yet—he understood. She thought of how he listened without judgment when she spoke about church, about her doubts, about trying to balance love and belief.
Do you ever pray? she asked.
Not really, he wrote. But sometimes, when I think of you, it feels close to it.
Her chest tightened, a tender ache. There it was again—that invisible thread. Not woven by faith or fate alone, but by care. By the gentle persistence of two souls trying to meet halfway.
Outside, rain began to fall, tapping gently against her window. She closed her eyes and imagined him walking beneath the same rain, halfway across the world. The thought made her feel less alone.
Later, when her parents knocked on her door to check if she was asleep, she quickly hid her phone beneath her blanket and whispered a small prayer—not asking for forgiveness, but for time. Time to grow. Time to prove that love could endure even oceans and disapproval.
Before she drifted to sleep, another message came.
Lili, promise me something.Even if the world pulls us apart, don't cut the thread. Just hold it. I'll hold it from my side too.
She smiled in the dark, tears pricking her eyes.
I promise.
And somewhere between two continents, that promise glowed faintly—like a silver thread drawn across the night sky, unbroken, unseen, but strong enough to hold two hearts.