Rishi's text arrived in the group chat at 7 AM:
"Mandatory friendship activity today. Wear something comfortable. No suits. No excuses. Pick up at 3 PM."
Aryan stared at the message. Meera replied with a laughing emoji. Rohan: "Should I be worried?" Anaya: "Knowing Rishi… yes."
At 3 PM, a desert safari 4x4 Jeep pulled up outside Aryan's building. Rishi was in the front seat, wearing aviators and a grin. "Get in. We're going on a field trip."
"Where?"
"To the middle of nowhere.It's therapeutic."
The Jeep collected Meera and Rohan next, then Anaya. The initial minutes were stiff, polite like actors in a play they hadn't rehearsed. Anaya sat beside Aryan in the back row, their elbows occasionally brushing as the Jeep bounced over Dubai's outskirts toward the open desert.
Rishi turned up Arabic music on the stereo. "Today, no talk of business, weddings, or past dramas. Today is just… today."
THE DESERT
The desert didn't care about their secrets. It stretched out in waves of gold and ochre, endless and indifferent. The Jeep stopped at a high dune. They climbed out, shoes sinking into warm sand.
"Look," Meera whispered.
The sun was beginning its descent, painting the sky in shades of rose and amber. For a moment, no one spoke. The beauty was too vast for small words.
Rishi spread a blanket. They sat in a loose circle Meera leaning against Rohan, Anaya cross legged beside Aryan, Rishi playing unofficial host, passing around dates and bottled water.
"Truth time," Rishi announced. "Not heavy truth. Light truth. I'll start: I failed my first driving test three times."
Laughter broke the remaining ice.
Meera shared how she once accidentally set a microwave on fire in the hostel kitchen. Rohan confessed he'd pretended to like classical music for months to impress his first girlfriend. Anaya admitted she still had the first friendship bracelet Meera ever made her, tucked in her jewelry box.
Aryan's turn. He paused. "I still have the economics notes from the library that night," he said quietly. "The ones I was studying when…" He didn't finish. He didn't need to.
Anaya's eyes softened. Meera reached over and squeezed his hand briefly. No words. Just understanding.
AROUND THE FIRE
As the sky deepened to violet, their guide built a small fire. The stars emerged countless, sharp, closer somehow in the desert air.
They ate traditional Emirati food shawarma, hummus, bread still warm from the fire. The conversation flowed easier now, touched with nostalgia but free of pain.
"Remember the college talent show?" Rishi said, grinning. "When Aryan and I attempted a magic act and accidentally made the principal's wig disappear?"
Meera laughed, her head on Rohan's shoulder. "And Anaya sang that Bollywood song so off key the music teacher almost quit."
Anaya threw a date at her playfully. "You're one to talk! You tried to do a contemporary dance and tripped over your own dupatta."
Rohan watched them all, a quiet smile on his face. "I wish I'd known you all then," he said. "You seem like… quite a team."
"We were," Aryan said, and for the first time, he said it without sorrow.
THE PHOTO
As the fire burned low, their guide offered to take a group photo. "For memory," he said in broken English.
They arranged themselves awkwardly at first, then naturally: Rohan and Meera in the middle, Anaya beside Meera, Rishi with an arm around Aryan's shoulder, Aryan standing at the edge beside Anaya.
"Smile!" the guide called.
The flash went off, blinding for a second.
In the after-silence, under the infinite desert stars, Aryan's eyes met Anaya's.
And in his mind, his heart whispered in a language only it remembered:
"Tum mere dil mein kahin kho gayi thi…
Aaj tum wapas mil gayi ho,
Par ab hum dono alag zindagiyon mein khade hain.
Maine dua maangi thi tumhe paane ki…
Par khuda ne mujhe tumse door rehna sikhaya.
Aaj tum khush ho, aur main…
Tumhare bina jeena seekh raha hoon."
(You were lost somewhere in my heart…
Today I found you again,
But now we stand in separate lives.
I prayed to have you…
But God taught me to live apart from you.
Today you are happy, and I…
Am learning to live without you.)
Anaya held his gaze for a heartbeat longer, her eyes shimmering with unsaid understanding. Then she smiled small, soft, real and looked up at the stars.
The moment passed.
THE DRIVE BACK
The Jeep ride back to the city was different. Quiet, but peaceful. Shoulders touching, heads leaning against windows, a shared warmth in the cool desert night.
Meera and Rohan held hands.
Rishi hummed along to the radio.
Anaya fell asleep, her head tilting toward Aryan's shoulder. He didn't move away.
Dubai's skyline appeared in the distance towers of light against the dark, a world of glass and ambition waiting for them.
But for tonight, they were just five people who had loved and lost and found each other again, under stars that had seen it all before.
The desert gave them stillness. The stars gave them perspective. And the drive back gave them the quiet understanding that sometimes moving forward doesn't mean leaving everything behind it means carrying it gently.