🌑
The rooftop smelled like dust and last night's rain.
Lia was sitting cross-legged near the ledge, scrolling through her phone. Aryan leaned back against the water tank, laughing at something that wasn't very funny but felt good anyway.
Zayan listened more than he spoke.
He always had.
Someone passed him a cup of chai. He took it, nodded once. The steam fogged his glasses for a second, and he didn't wipe them right away.
From here, the city looked gentle.
Lights blinking. Windows glowing. Lives folded neatly into rectangles.
Aryan said something about the wedding food being overrated.
Lia snorted. "You're just bitter you didn't get dessert."
Zayan smiled. Not wide. Just enough.
They didn't notice how carefully he did it.
Someone asked, casually, "So… did it feel weird? Being back there?"
He knew what there meant.
He took a sip before answering. Let the heat ground him.
"It felt familiar," he said.
Then, after a beat,
"Like a house you remember the layout of—but don't have a key to anymore."
They didn't push. That was why he loved them.
Silence settled. Comfortable. Earned.
He thought about the twins—not their faces exactly, just the way they had stood together, mirroring each other without knowing why. The way children always assume closeness is permanent.
He didn't resent them.
That surprised him once.
What he felt instead was distance. Like looking at photographs of a life that could have intersected with his—but didn't.
He had learned early that longing was heavier than loneliness.
Loneliness you could organize.
Routine it.
Live around it.
Longing kept reaching for things that weren't there.
So he stopped.
Below them, a car horn blared. Someone shouted. Life kept happening.
Aryan nudged him lightly with his foot. "You okay?"
Zayan nodded.
"I am," he said. And meant it.
Because he wasn't waiting anymore.
Not for apologies.
Not for explanations.
Not for a version of himself that needed them.
What he had, he had built.
Quietly.
Carefully.
With hands that learned to fix, cook, carry—because no one else would.
If they ever came to him again, he knew what he would feel.
Not anger.
Not relief.
Just choice.
And for the first time in his life, that felt like enough.