The clouds haven’t even poured yet

It had rained that morning, barely. The kind of rain that doesn’t soak but leaves the sky restless. The ground clung to its dampness like a secret, and the air carried that sharp, grey quiet only cities know how to breathe.

I hadn’t planned to step out, let alone run into her. Days that begin with hesitation often end in strange reunions.

I wandered into the gallery by chance. An old friend had sent a pass, and I didn’t even check the exhibit’s name. I went because the quiet in my flat had grown too familiar, heavy with half-formed thoughts I’d scribble into poetry on sleepless nights.

And there she was.

Not framed by spotlight or coincidence. Just standing, reading the label beneath a painting of monsoon fields, two children running barefoot. Her hair was shorter, but the way she leaned into her reading, head tilted slightly, fingers curled, holding nothing but air, was still hers.

She noticed me before I could step back.

“Hey,” she said, like five years hadn’t passed.

I nodded. “Hi.”

She took half a step closer, not enough to change anything. “You still hate abstract art?”

“I pretend better now.”

Her smile folded her cheeks, faint but familiar, the way it used to when she teased me.

“I didn’t know you’d be here,” she said, her eyes flickering like she was weighing whether to say more.

“I didn’t know you were in the city.”

“I moved back. Two months ago.”

“Didn’t tell anyone?”

She shook her head. “Didn’t feel like explaining.”

We turned to the painting. The kids chased clouds across green fields.

“You still take sugar in your coffee?” I asked, surprising myself.

She looked at me, almost laughing. “Half a spoon. You used to call it ‘commitment issues in a cup.’”

“Did I?”

“You did.”

“Sounds like me.”

We walked out together. No invitation, no question. The quiet between us wasn’t heavy. It was just there, like a third person who knew not to speak.

Outside, the city exhaled its traffic. A man argued over rickshaw fare behind us. A dog darted across the road, a packet in its mouth.

“It’s still the same,” she said. “This street.”

“Almost. That chaiwala’s gone.”

“The one who always burnt the toast?”

“Yeah. You ate it anyway.”

“Only when you paid.”

I laughed. “Classic.”

We passed the bookstore that once had two shelves for poetry. Now it glowed with a neon sign: *Coffee + Verse*.

“You still write?” she asked.

“When I can’t sleep.”

“Same.”

I looked at her. “Really?”

She nodded. “You think you were the only one carrying things?”

We stopped at the junction by the old post office. The red signal blinked above. A couple on a bike leaned close, their soft argument the kind only lovers can afford.

She faced the road but spoke to me. “Remember that stupid word we made up? For being angry and missing someone?”

“‘Angriss’? Or was it ‘madsad’?”

“‘Angriss.’ God, that was terrible.”

“You’d text it in caps.”

“And you’d reply with full stops.”

We smiled.

She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Do you ever think it could’ve ended differently?”

I didn’t answer right away.

“I thought about it a lot,” I said finally. “Every version ended with me loving you, and you not knowing what to do with it.”

Her eyes held steady, not pleading, just searching. “I tried, you know.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You didn’t. You were just honest.”

She looked at the sky. “I never said I loved you.”

“You didn’t have to. I said it for both of us.”

A pause.

“I re-read your texts,” she said. “The long ones. Even the angry ones.”

I chuckled softly. “I thought you didn’t care enough to reply.”

“I didn’t know what to say without making it worse.”

The sky folded into itself, layer by layer, heavy with the kind of evening where everything feels like memory.

She asked, “Why did you stay so long?”

I stared ahead. “I didn’t know how to leave without making it a goodbye.”

She turned to me fully, her gaze steady. “And now?”

I smiled. “Now I know some goodbyes don’t need words.”

We reached the turn where our roads split, same as before. Neither of us moved.

The signal changed.

She stayed still.

So did I.

Then, a crack, not thunder, not a word, but something in me loosening, just for a second, before tightening again.

My throat caught.

I muttered, barely under my breath, “Abhi toh ye badal barsa bhi nahi...” The clouds haven’t poured yet,

I thought, holding back the storm in my chest.

I turned slightly, as if checking traffic.

“Tham jaa ae ashq... mai tujhe chhupayunga kaha...” Hold back, O tear... where would I even hide you?

She glanced back. “You said something?”

I shook my head. “No.”

A longer quiet now.

She checked her watch. “I should go.”

“Yeah.”

She didn’t move.

“I’m glad we talked.”

“Me too.”

She stepped forward, then turned back. “Take care, okay?”

“You too.”

She crossed.

No hug.

No look back.

Just the slow fade of footsteps and a past that had spoken its piece.

I stood there till the first drop hit my shoulder. My chest tightened, but I didn’t wipe my face.

Let the sky take the blame.

As I walked, I carried her with me, one last time, but lighter now.

Will You Buy?

She opened the door the way people do when they’ve lived through too many endings slowly, without ceremony. Hair in a loose knot, her face bare of performance. Behind her, the house hummed with old sounds: the whir of the fan, the clink of steel against ceramic, the faint splash of water from the sink.

I stood there for a second longer than I should have.

And then I said it.

“I have come to sell tears. Will you buy?”

It wasn’t a metaphor when I thought of it. It was just a feeling. A sentence that sat in my mouth all morning like an unswallowed pill. I had imagined saying it with a smile, maybe even a laugh. But when the moment came, it dropped from my mouth like glass.

She didn’t ask what I meant.

She never did. That was her. She always waited till I was ready to explain myself, or not.

She just moved aside, silently. The invitation to enter wasn’t warm, but it wasn’t cold either. It was familiar—a kind of silent truce.

I walked in.

Same living room. Same cushions. The same faded green curtains that we once laughed about buying from the wrong shop.

Except everything felt a few inches further away.

I sat down on the floor instead of the sofa this time.

She brought water. Placed it between us.

And then finally, she spoke. “You don’t have to do this.”

I looked up at her. And said, “I know.”

We were friends once, not in the diluted, social media way, but in the kind of way that feels stitched into your day. I had her name saved in my phone without a last name. Just her. We could talk about anything: books, childhood, bad music, things we were ashamed of, things we hadn’t told anyone else. We built something together. Quietly. Without realising how much.

Until one day, I realised I had fallen in love with her.

Not in a planned way. Not in a sudden, dramatic moment either. It just... deepened. Like when a shadow grows longer, and you only notice when it reaches your feet.

I told her. Not to force anything. Just to be honest.

She was quiet. Thoughtful. Gentle in her refusal.

“I love you,” she had said. “But not like that.”

We kept talking after that. At first, it was okay. There was awkwardness, sure, but the friendship held. We said we’d move past it. That love didn’t have to end anything.

But time is sneaky.

Somewhere in the middle of casual conversations and shared playlists, my hope grew teeth.

I waited for signs. Interpreted silences. Held on to memories like they were promises.

And she… she started pulling away. Not because she was cruel. But because she was honest.

She stopped texting first. Then stopped replying fast. Then one day said, “Maybe let’s not talk for a bit.”

That was months ago.

And now, I was here. Not to win her back. Not to confess again.

But to return something.

“I wrote things,” I said, pulling a folded sheet from my bag. “Not poems. Just... what I couldn’t tell you without making it heavier for both of us.”

She looked at the paper, but didn’t take it.

“You don’t have to carry this either,” I added. “I just didn’t know where else to put it.”

She exhaled slowly, like someone who has already cried in private.

“Why now?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe because it finally feels like it won’t be a betrayal to let go.”

She leaned back, her shoulder brushing the edge of the wall.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she said.

“I know that,” I replied.

“I was always honest.”

“You were.”

“I just never felt what you felt. And I hated myself for it sometimes.”

I paused. Then told her what I’d never said out loud.

“I didn’t need you to feel it. I just needed the space to feel it myself, without losing you.”

We sat with that sentence for a long time. It didn’t demand a response.

“This thread,” I said, finally, “this friendship... it was love for me. And maybe that was my mistake in letting it become more silent. I kept tying knots where you saw loose ends. And now, even if we try to tie it again, there will be creases. Maybe we won’t talk again after today. Maybe this is it. But I wanted to say it so that it wouldn’t rot inside me.”

She looked at the page again. This time, she reached out. Took it.

Didn’t open it. Just held it between her fingers like something delicate.

“You’re not wrong,” she said.

And then, softer, “Neither am I.”

I stood up.

She didn’t say goodbye.

I didn’t ask for one.

As I turned to leave, I said it again, without drama, without hope, without bitterness.

“I have come to sell tears, will you buy?”

She didn’t answer.

But she didn’t return the letter either.

And that was enough.

A conversation

We’d been seeing each other for over a year, always near the apartment lift. Mornings, mostly. Sometimes evenings. She lived on the fifth floor. I lived on the sixth. There were days when we stepped into the lift together, stood side by side, pressed our buttons, and waited out the silence. A nod if our eyes met. Occasionally, a polite half-smile. No words. Just the quiet rhythm of shared space, passed like background noise.

That morning, the lift wasn’t working. I’d already walked down two flights of stairs when I heard someone behind me. Turning around, I saw her climbing up, probably had forgotten something. She was slightly out of breath, carrying a tiffin bag and some papers that kept slipping from her grip. We both paused at the fourth-floor landing.

“The lift’s out again,” I said, not expecting a real reply.

She wiped her forehead with her sleeve. “Yeah. Third time this week.”

I waited. She didn’t go back up. Instead, she nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s go down, then. At least there’s company.”

We continued walking. Neither of us spoke for the first few steps. The stairwell was warm, the kind that always smelled faintly of cleaning liquid and damp concrete. At one point, she shifted the file under her arm and asked, “Where do you work?”

“Malviya Nagar. Finance firm. You?”

“Pitampura. I handle paperwork, mostly documentation for people. Applications, renewals, corrections. Government stuff.”

I smiled faintly. “So... lots of lines, frustrated clients, and people who forgot to bring something important?”

She laughed, a quiet, delayed sound. “Every day. And half the time, they blame me for things that went wrong before I even met them. But it’s okay. I like helping people who listen.”

We were now near the second floor. She paused to fix the strap of her bag, and her papers almost fell again. I instinctively reached out, but she steadied them before I had to.

“You live on the fifth floor, right?” I asked, casually.

She looked at me for a moment before replying. “Yeah. You remembered?”

I shrugged. “I’ve seen you press the button enough times.”

There was a pause. Not awkward, just full. Then she asked, “And you? Sixth?”

I nodded. “Just above you. Literally.”

She smiled. “We’ve been in the same lift this long, and this is the first real conversation.”

“Maybe the lift had to stop working for that to happen,” I said.

She didn’t respond directly. Just walked a little slower after that. When we reached the ground floor, she didn’t rush out. We stood near the gate, waiting for our rides. She checked her phone, then looked at me.

“So... what do you do when you’re not working?” she asked.

“Mostly nothing. I waste time, scroll mindlessly, and read sometimes. You?”

She tilted her head. “I write a bit. Nothing serious. Just thoughts, observations. You know, random stuff people never say out loud.”

I was about to ask more, but her cab pulled up.

She stepped forward, opened the door, and then paused. “This felt... strange, in a good way.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It did.”

As she got in, she looked back and said, “What kind of conversation was that, anyway?”

I smiled. “A needed one.”

That evening, when I returned home and stepped into the now-functional lift, I pressed the sixth floor. For a second, my finger hovered over the fifth. I didn’t press it. But I noticed I smiled when the lift crossed that floor.

We didn’t talk every day after that. But when we did, it never felt like the first time again.

Day Twenty-Second

You know, they say it takes twenty-one days to break a habit?

I didn’t believe it either. But I held onto that number. Like a stupid superstition. Like something I could measure my grief against. Day one, I wasn’t doing anything heroic. I just woke up... and you weren’t here. That’s it. No message. No voice note. No half-slept smile asking for two more minutes. I brushed my teeth without looking at the mirror. Made tea but didn’t drink it. Just held the cup like it might answer something I hadn’t asked yet.

I told myself, twenty-one days. That’s all it’ll take. To stop checking my phone. To stop thinking of you every time I opened the fridge or closed the cupboard or touched that blue bedsheet you insisted on. But the flat, this place, was echoing with you. Every corner had your voice stuck to it. You're humming while slicing onions. That habit of closing drawers with your foot. The way you used to write grocery lists but never follow them.

By day five, I was doing things just to fill the hours. Taking long showers that lasted through entire playlists. Walking without music just to hear the world prove it was still moving. But everything reminded me of you. Everything. The whistle of the pressure cooker. The smell of rain on the stairs. Even silence. Especially silence. It wasn’t empty. It was full of things left unsaid. And somehow, that felt heavier than anything we ever did say.

There’s this lane behind the bookstore, remember? We had once walked there in the rain. You told me, “Bheeg jaane do. Yaad rahega.” And I had laughed. Not because it was funny. Because I didn’t know what else to do with how much I was feeling. I didn’t know how much I’d remember. Turns out, everything. The sound of your wet slippers. The way your hand reached for mine was like it belonged there. The way it belonged.

By day ten, I was folding and refolding clothes like some kind of ritual. Like if I rearranged the drawers enough times, I’d find a version of myself that hadn’t met you. But even the bloody cupboard smelled like you. Your scarf? Still there. That clip with the missing teeth? Still behind the mirror. I didn’t throw anything out. I just moved them. Somewhere less visible. Somewhere, not less painful.

People say time heals. But they don’t tell you time also mocks. It repeats things just when you think you’re done with them. Like your voice showing up in a dream. Like your name popping up in a playlist I swear I didn’t make. Like your favourite coffee stall changing hands but still keeping the smell.

By day seventeen, I thought I was doing better. I walked past someone wearing your perfume. And I froze. My body turned before my mind could stop it. Just to check. It wasn’t you. But for a second... I wanted it to be. I hated that I wanted it to be.

And then came day twenty-one. I didn’t even realise it at first. It was just a normal morning. Tea boiling. Sunlight cuts across the bed. I looked at myself and didn’t flinch. And that’s when it hit me. I had survived twenty-one days. Without messaging you. Without calling. Without collapsing. I had gone to work, folded clothes, stood in grocery lines, crossed roads, attended calls, ignored festivals... without you.

And I thought maybe, just maybe, that line was true. Maybe it does take twenty-one days to forget a habit. But then, you were never a habit. You were the whole season.

So I’ll ask this once. I won’t repeat it.

Did it take you twenty-one days, too?

Because for me...

It’s been twenty-two.

And I’m still counting.

Just Mohabbat

The rain had been falling for over an hour, not in a rush, not in anger, just steadily. Like it knew what it was doing. I was walking with soaked shoes, not caring where the water was collecting or how much of my shirt was sticking to my skin. She was ahead of me, stepping into puddles on purpose.

We weren’t talking much. That kind of rain didn’t need words. The umbrella was in her hand, tilted completely to her side. I hadn’t asked for space under it. Maybe I liked getting wet more than I had admitted.

Her hair was dripping in slow intervals. Every few steps, she would turn slightly, not enough to face me, but just enough to know I was still there. I could see her adjusting the umbrella again and again, failing to keep it steady. I knew she wanted me under it. But she wasn’t going to ask.

At one turn, near the temple wall where the plaster always peeled in long strips, she suddenly stopped. I was looking at the water pooling near my feet and didn’t notice in time. I bumped into her, not hard, just enough for her shoulder to rest briefly against my chest.

She didn’t flinch.

She stayed there for a second, and then turned around, slowly.

She was looking right at me now. Not smiling. Not serious either. Just full. Like something had been swelling in her all evening and couldn’t wait anymore.

I was about to ask what happened, maybe tease her about stopping like that, but she didn’t let me.

She raised her hand like she was making a call, with her thumb and pinky out, and said in a voice louder than the rain,

“Hello? Main Delhi bol rahi hoon... vo ladki, vo barish mei nahane wali... Maddy se baat karni hai.”

I stared at her.

For a second, the rain felt quieter.

She wasn’t imitating the line. She was living it. Her eyes were steady. Her voice was clear. She wasn’t acting. She was announcing.

I knew this moment meant something to her. Not because it was dramatic, but because it wasn’t. She was drenched. The umbrella was half-slipping from her grip. Her lips were trembling slightly, not from cold, but from the weight of what she was about to say.

She stepped closer, the edge of the umbrella brushing against my cheek, and added,

“Maddy, sun rahe ho? Main tumse pyaar karti hoon. Aur mujhe bas itna kehna tha ki… tumhare bina bhi sab thik tha, lekin tumhare saath sab poora lagta hai.”

I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t. The words were already somewhere inside me, but hers had taken up all the space.

Her dupatta was stuck to her arm. Her shoes were squeaking with every small movement. Her kajal had smudged a little, and still, she had never looked more certain.

She held out the umbrella then, offering it to me. Not to share, but to hold. Her hands were full with whatever she had just said, and whatever I hadn’t said yet.

I took it.

And then, before the umbrella even reached above us, I stepped forward and kissed her.

Not like in stories. No cinematic pause. No dramatic thunder.

Just one soft second of truth, forehead to forehead, breath to breath, skin warmed by rain.

The space between us was non-existent.

And the rain kept falling, not louder, not softer.

Just like it was blessing us, without making a show of it.

Ache in my bones

I was rinsing her mug, the one with the chipped handle, my fingers tracing its jagged edge like a wound that wouldn’t heal. The soap suds clung to my skin, fragile as dreams dissolving in the dawn.

The flat was a graveyard of her absence. No echo of her laughter, no clatter of her spoon against the bowl she loved. She’d scrubbed the counter clean before she left, as if to erase her shadow from the walls. A hairpin lay forgotten under the windowsill, catching the light like a tear frozen in time. I couldn’t bring myself to move it.

We were never lovers, not in name. Just two souls tangled in the convenience of shared rent, a flat too small for secrets. But we’d woven a quiet rhythm; her stealing my socks, me brewing her tea bitter as her hometown tales. We’d curl up on the couch, her legs across mine, watching old films until the screen flickered and her breath softened into sleep. When did it stop being simple? When did her pillow on my side of the bed start feeling like home?

Her transfer letter came like a thief, stealing her away to a new city, a better life. She didn’t ask if I’d follow. I didn’t beg her to stay. We were experts at swallowing words, letting silence carry the weight of our unsaid truths.

That morning, her suitcase whispered from the next room, each zip a knife in my chest. I kept rinsing the mug, water running cold, my reflection trembling in the sink like a ghost caught in a monsoon’s grief. I was counting moments, not hours, afraid to look at the clock devouring her departure.

“You’ll break it,” she said, her voice soft as a half-forgotten song. She leaned against the counter, hair damp, curling like tendrils of smoke around her neck. My old sweatshirt hung loose on her, a thief wearing stolen skin.

“It’s clean,” I said, my voice a stranger’s, too frail for the room.

She didn’t reply. Just stood there, arms folded, staring at the floor as if it held the map to her heart. The air was heavy with the ghosts of our silences. I wanted to ask if she’d carry me in her thoughts, if this flat would haunt her like it haunted me. But my tongue was a stone, sinking in the river of my throat.

I set the mug down. It teetered, a heartbeat from falling. Her hand reached out, steadied it, her fingers grazing mine. A fleeting touch, but it burned like an ember under ash. My breath stumbled, loud as a prayer in a storm.

“Don’t go,” I whispered, the words escaping like sparrows from a cage.

Her eyes met mine, sharp as a blade, then softened like moonlight on a broken lake. “It’s not about staying, Amar.”

“Then what?” My voice cracked, a branch under winter’s weight.

She stepped closer, close enough for me to smell the rain in her hair, the ache of her nearness. I don’t know who moved first, but our lips found each other; slow, like a river meeting the sea, then fierce, like a fire consuming its last log. Her hands were cold on my face, her lips trembling with the weight of farewell. This wasn’t desired. It was a plea, a stitching of wounds too deep to name.

We didn’t speak. Words would’ve torn the moment apart. Her fingers traced my jaw, mine found the curve of her spine, as if I could hold her soul in my hands. She pressed her forehead to mine, eyes shut, her breath a fragile thread weaving us together. My name in her voice was a poem, a Batalvi verse of love and loss, sung once and never again.

The couch was a relic of our nights, blankets knotted from restless dreams. We sank into it, her body folding into mine, her head on my shoulder, her fingers clutching my shirt like a child afraid of the dark. The fan creaked above, a tired lullaby. Her heartbeat was a drum, steady but racing, like a bird fleeing a storm I couldn’t see.

“You’ll be okay,” she murmured, her voice muffled against my chest. It wasn’t a promise.

“Will you?” I asked, my words a pebble dropped in a well.

She didn’t answer. Her hair brushed my chin, and I felt the damp of her tears, silent as dew on a forgotten flower. I held her closer, my thumb circling her wrist, trying to etch her pulse into my skin. I wanted to say I loved her. I wanted to say I hated her for leaving. I said nothing because love and hate were the same ache in my bones.

She slept, her breath a soft tide against my chest. I stayed awake, staring at the ceiling, the fan spinning like the wheel of fate, counting the seconds until dawn. The city outside hummed, indifferent, as if it didn’t know a heart was breaking in its shadows.

She was gone by morning. No grand farewell, no tears at the door. Just a note beside the mug: Keep it. - S. The flat was a husk, her suitcase gone, the air too still, like a song cut off mid-note. I stood in the kitchen, holding the chipped mug, my thumb tracing its scar. Outside, the city stirred, horns wailing, life marching on.

I waited for the rain, for the sky to weep for me. It didn’t. The sun rose, cruel and bright, as if her leaving was just another dawn.