What If I Tell You

It must have been raining that day, too. Or maybe I just remember it that way, the blur of headlights, the smell of wet earth mixing with coffee, the way sound softens when the world is soaked through.

Nisha was already inside when I arrived. Through the glass, I saw her scrolling through her phone, and for a moment, I just stood there in the rain, watching her exist without me. Three years in Mumbai, and I still measured time by how long it had been since I’d seen her smile begin at the corner of her mouth before spreading.

“Your coffee’s getting cold,” she said when I finally sat down. Not hello. I missed you. Just the quiet cruelty of how easily we’d learned to pretend.

“Black, no sugar?”

“Haan. You and your refined taste.” She said it like she was remembering something else entirely.

The café smelled of cardamom and old wood. Outside, an autorickshaw splashed through a puddle, and somewhere a Hindi song played, muffled and distant, Tum paas aaye, yun muskuraaye...

“Mumbai’s fine,” I said, though she hadn’t asked yet. “Same. You know.”

She did know. That was the problem. She knew about the promotion I didn’t celebrate, the apartment with too many quiet rooms, the way I still left her side of every restaurant booth empty even when she wasn’t there.

“I’m working on this old haveli in Shivajinagar,” she said, tracing circles on her cup. Eighteenth century, carved pillars, arches. You’d like it. The light comes through differently in the afternoon.”

I wanted to tell her I’d like anything she wanted to show me. I wanted to tell her I’d been carrying that night on the hostel terrace for eight years, the way she’d fallen asleep mid-sentence, her head against my shoulder, and how I’d stayed frozen for hours because moving meant it would end.

But I said, “Sounds beautiful.”

The rain grew heavier. Someone opened the door, and the sound rushed in, the wet breathing of Pune in July.

“I need to tell you something.” The words came out too sharply.

She looked up. “Okay.”

“There’s this woman. At work.” I watched my hands around the cup. “Priya. My parents think we should.”

“Get married?” Her voice had gone careful.

“Haan.”

Silence. In it, all the things we’d never said, three a.m. calls that ended just before meaning, birthday texts at 12:01, the way she cried on my shoulder about everyone except me.

“That’s… good, Manish. Really.” The smile didn’t reach her eyes. “You should be happy.”

“Should I?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Why didn’t we?” I asked quietly. “You and me. Why didn’t we ever?”

“Manish.”

“I’m not asking for anything,” I said. “I just need to know if it was only me. If I made it all up.”

“Don’t.”

“Please, Nisha. Did you ever… almost?”

She was quiet for a long time. Outside, the rain kept falling; that song still played; someone was frying pakoras in the kitchen, the smell of hot oil and possibility.

“Do you remember that night?” she said finally. “Second year. We were on the terrace until sunrise. You were talking about that Ladakh trip, and I was thinking.” She paused. “Take me with you. Take me everywhere. I was thinking about things I shouldn’t think about my best friend.”

Something in me loosened.

“But you never said anything,” she went on. “So I thought maybe I was wrong. Maybe you just needed a friend. So I dated other people, called you every Sunday, took this job in Pune even though Delhi paid more because.” She looked at me. “Because you were here.”

“Nisha.”

“Why tell me this now? When there’s someone else?”

The lie sat between us, sharp and small. I could leave it there. Walk away clean.

“There’s no Priya.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I made her up. I needed to know. I couldn’t keep wondering. I couldn’t marry someone someday without knowing if you…” I stopped. “I’m sorry. It was wrong.”

“You lied to me.”

“Yes.”

“To make me feel what? Jealous?”

“To make you feel something.” My voice broke. “Anything other than this careful, friendly nothing.”

She was crying. Not the cinematic kind, just quiet tears running down her face while she sat very still.

“I hate you,” she said.

“I know.”

“I hate that you made me think.” Her breath hitched. “I hate that I tried to be happy for you when all I wanted was to tell you to stay. To tell you that I’ve loved you since that awful movie where I pretended to sleep just so you wouldn’t move your arm. That every guy after was me trying to forget how you make my chest hurt. That I’m tired, Manish. Tired of pretending you’re just my friend.”

The café had gone quiet, or maybe I’d stopped hearing anything but her.

“Then don’t,” I said. “Pretend.”

She didn’t move for a long moment. Then she stood up. For a second, I thought she’d leave. Instead, she came around the table, close enough that I could see the tears caught in her lashes.

“This doesn’t fix it,” she said. “You're lying.”

“I know.”

“I’m still angry.”

“Okay.”

“But if you ever.” Her voice cracked. “If you ever make me go through that again.”

I stood, took her face in my hands. “Never.”

When we kissed, it tasted of salt and coffee and eight years of wrong timing finding its way home. Outside, the rain kept falling. Inside, the song had changed to an old ghazal, something about waiting and love that arrives late but still arrives.

We broke apart. She was half-laughing, half-crying.

“My mother will say she told me so.”

“Mine’s probably already planned the engagement.”

“They knew?”

“Everyone knew, Nisha. The hostel, our friends, the chai-wala outside college.”

She leaned her forehead against mine. “Then we were the last to know.”

“Better late.”

“Don’t,” she whispered, pressing a finger to my lips. “Don’t make it tidy.”

So I didn’t. We just stood there while the rain blurred the city outside, and I didn’t promise forever or perfection. I only held her hand and thought of all the nights we’d lost, and the ones still ahead, unfinished, uncertain, ours.

When we finally stepped out, we shared her umbrella, walking slowly through streets that smelled of petrichor and frying samosas. She didn’t ask where we were going. I didn’t know.

Maybe that was the point.

A rickshaw passed, splashing water that somehow missed us. The driver sang softly to his radio, an old love song about rain and time that moves too slowly until suddenly it doesn’t.

“Manish?”

“Haan?”

“This doesn’t mean I forgive you completely.”

“I know.”

But her fingers tightened around mine, and in the orange glow of streetlights reflected off wet pavement, she smiled, the real one, the one I’d been carrying for eight years.

We walked on through the rain, two people who’d loved each other in silence so long that speaking it aloud still felt fragile, something that needed darkness and falling water to survive.

Tomorrow, there would be questions, complications, the slow work of turning friendship into something more.

But tonight, there was just the rain, her hand in mine, and the quiet relief of finally, finally not pretending.

Tonight was enough.

A day, A night

The room smelled faintly of burnt incense and stale coffee. A single bulb hummed above, its light unsteady, like it too was tired of waiting. I sat by the window, phone in hand, the screen dimmed but not dark, her last message still open…"Sleep soon?"

It was 2:47 a.m. here. 10:17 p.m. there. The space between those numbers had begun to feel like a third person in our relationship; quiet, patient, and always present.

Most mornings began the same way. A hot Americano, honey stirred in slow circles, two vanilla shots, the only kind of consistency I'd managed to maintain in life. The barista at the café stopped asking for my order months ago; now he just gives me a small nod, like a silent acknowledgement of a ritual we both can't escape.

I always sit at the same table, the corner one by the window. The light there falls just right, soft enough to make my coffee look more poetic than it deserves to be. That corner has become mine, unofficially, of course, though I'm fairly certain the barista will name it after me one of these days. My loyalty deserves at least a plaque. Or maybe they could preserve my chair like an exhibit, the sacred seat of the man who singlehandedly kept their vanilla syrup stock moving.

Sometimes, I imagine the corner waiting for me each morning, like an old friend or an ex who never really moved on. My ass print, I like to believe, has claimed sovereignty over that cushion.

The café is small, a few plants pretending to be green, a playlist that refuses to change, and a bell at the door that rings a little too dramatically for such an ordinary place. I order powdered blueberry pancakes with this coffee every single time. It started because she once said they reminded her of winter. She was more of a chocolate fan, but we settled on neutral ground. Pancakes for her and blueberries for me. Powdered? That was common.

Now it's just a habit, but a good one. There's something quietly comforting about the repetition, the way the syrup slides down the same way every morning, the way I check my phone before the first bite, like she might've texted in the last thirty seconds.

Some people find joy in change. I've found a strange kind of happiness in the familiar. Maybe that's why the distance doesn't hurt as much anymore; it's become part of the routine, too. Like the coffee, the corner, the silence after her last goodnight.

The truth is, I'm okay. Mostly. I laugh when she laughs on screen, I tease her about the bad lighting, and I tell her she still looks sleepy at noon. Sometimes she sends those sleepy voice messages. I can't understand them completely till now, but they are the highlight of my day. A forever smile.

The distance is there, sure, but so am I. Maybe that's enough for now.

By 9:15, I'm at my desk. The office is the kind of place that tries too hard to look modern, exposed brick that was never meant to be exposed, motivational quotes on walls that nobody reads, and plants that are definitely plastic but placed strategically enough to make you question it. My cubicle is in the middle row, fourth from the left. Not by the window, not near the coffee machine. Just... middle. Average. Fitting, really.

The computer takes its time waking up, like it also needs coffee before functioning. I don't blame it. While it loads, I scroll through our chat again. There's a photo she sent last night, her in an oversized hoodie, hair tied up messily, holding a cup of something warm. The timestamp says 9:43 p.m. her time. I was probably getting ready for bed. She was probably getting ready to wind down after work.

"You look cozy," I'd replied.

"Tired," she wrote back. "Long day. You?"

"Same. But less cozy."

"You should get a hoodie like this."

"I should get a lot of things."

She sent a laughing emoji. That was it. That was the whole conversation. And yet, I've read it four times this morning already.

My manager, Rajesh, walks by with a cup of tea that's more milk than tea. He's the kind of person who says "let's circle back" unironically and ends every email with "Best." Just that. Not "Best regards" or "Best wishes." Just "Best." As if he's too busy to finish the thought.

"Morning," he says, not really looking at me.

"Morning," I reply, not really looking at him.

This is the extent of our relationship. We've worked together for three years.

The morning drags in that particular way office mornings do, emails that could've been texts, texts that should've been emails, a meeting scheduled to discuss another meeting. I sit through a presentation on quarterly targets, nodding at appropriate intervals, my pen moving across the notepad in a way that suggests I'm taking notes when really I'm just writing her name in different fonts.

Childish? Maybe. But it keeps me awake.

At 11:30, I step out for a cigarette. I don't smoke regularly, just when I need an excuse to leave my desk without explaining why. The smoking area is behind the building, a small patch of concrete with a metal bench and an ashtray that's always overflowing. There's a guy from accounting there, always there, like he's part of the architecture. We exchange the universal nod of people who share a space but not a conversation.

I light the cigarette, but don't really smoke it. Just hold it, watch it burn, let the minutes pass. My phone buzzes. A notification. Not her. Just a news app telling me something I don't care about. I swipe it away and open our chat instead, rereading the last few days. It's become a habit, this scrolling backwards through time, like I'm looking for something I missed.

There's a message from two days ago: "Do you ever feel like we're living in different worlds?"

I'd replied, "Sometimes. But I like your world."

"You've never even been here."

"I know. But I like it because you're in it."

She sent a heart emoji. I'd stared at it for longer than I'd like to admit.

The cigarette burns down to the filter. I drop it in the ashtray and head back inside.

Lunch is the same as always, rajma chawal from the dhaba across the street. The place has no name, just a hand-painted sign that says "FOOD" in slightly uneven letters. The owner, an older man with kind eyes and hands that move faster than his mouth, knows me by face if not by name. I order, he nods, I wait. The system works.

I eat at a small table near the back, away from the crowd of office workers who come in laughing too loudly, complaining about bosses, making plans for the weekend like weekends are something to look forward to. I used to be like that. Maybe I still am on the inside, just quieter about it now.

Halfway through the meal, my phone rings. Her name lights up the screen. I answer before the second ring.

"Hey," she says, and just like that, the noise of the dhaba fades.

"Hey. Isn't it like... really early there?"

"Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd call."

Her voice sounds tired, softer than usual. I can picture her, probably still in bed, phone pressed to her ear, eyes half-closed.

"Bad night?" I ask.

"Not bad. Just... long. I don't know. Sometimes my brain won't shut up."

"What's it saying?"

She laughs quietly and short. "Nothing useful."

We talked for twenty minutes. About nothing, really. She tells me about a dream she half-remembers, something about being late to a train that didn't exist. I tell her about the meeting that felt like it lasted three days. She asks if I had coffee this morning. I tell her about the pancakes. She says she misses them, even though she's never had them from that café, only heard me describe them a hundred times.

"You make them sound better than they probably are," she says.

"They are better. Because I'm eating them."

"You're ridiculous."

"You called me."

She laughs again, and I close my eyes just to hold the sound a little longer.

"I should let you eat," she says after a pause.

"I'm done. It's fine."

"No, you're not. I can hear you chewing."

I swallow quickly. "Okay, fine. But I can chew and talk."

"I know. But I should try to sleep anyway."

"Okay."

"Okay."

Neither of us hangs up.

"Hey," she says, quieter now.

"Yeah?"

"I miss you."

It's not the first time she's said it, but it lands the same way every time, soft, heavy, somewhere in the centre of my chest.

"I miss you too," I say, and I mean it in a way I don't know how to explain.

"Sleep soon?" I add, echoing her words from last night.

"Yeah. You too, later."

"Yeah."

She hangs up first. I sit there for a moment, phone still in my hand, the screen fading to black. The dhaba noise comes back slowly, plates clattering, someone laughing, the hiss of something frying. I finish my food, pay, and walk back to the office.

The afternoon is slow. A crawl, really. I answer emails with the enthusiasm of someone doing laundry. At some point, I get pulled into a discussion about a project I barely remember being part of. I contribute just enough not to seem useless, then retreat into my screen.

At 4:00, my desk phone rings. Internal call. I pick up.

"Can you send me the report from last week?" It's someone from another floor. I don't recognise the voice.

"Which report?"

"The one you sent. Last week."

"I sent a lot of things last week."

A pause. "Never mind, I'll find it."

They hang up. I go back to staring at my screen.

The clock on my computer says 4:47. It feels like it's been 4:47 for the last three hours.

I think about texting her, but she's probably asleep by now. I check the time zone difference again just to be sure. Yeah, asleep. Or at least trying to be. I open our chat anyway, scroll up to a photo she sent last month, her smiling at the camera, sunlight in her hair, eyes bright in that way they get when she's genuinely happy. I'd saved it immediately. Set it as my wallpaper for a week before changing it back to something generic, worried someone at work might see and ask questions I didn't feel like answering.

I don't know when it happened, really. The shift from "remember her from school?" to "can't imagine a day without hearing her voice." It wasn't a single moment. More like a series of small ones, accumulated over time, like dust gathering on a windowsill. One day, you look and realise it's been there all along.

We were kids back then. Fifteen, maybe sixteen. She sat three rows ahead, always had her hair in a braid, and always had the right answer when the teacher asked. I never talked to her much. Just looked, sometimes. The way you look at something beautiful without expecting it to look back.

Then life happened. School ended. We went in different directions. Different cities, different lives. I didn't think about her for years. Then one day, a friend request. A message. "Hey, remember me?"

Of course I did.

We started talking. Casually at first. Then daily. Then constantly. And somewhere in all those messages, those calls, those voice notes sent at odd hours, we became this. Whatever this is.

Long distance, sure. But it doesn't feel distant. Not really. Just... stretched. Like we're holding the same thread from opposite ends.

At 6:15, I pack up. The office is still half-full, people pretending to work while actually planning their escape. I don't say goodbye to anyone. Just grab my bag and leave.

The commute home is the usual chaos, too many people, too little space, everyone in a hurry to get somewhere they don't actually want to be. I stand near the door of the metro, headphones in, her favourite song playing. She'd sent me the link weeks ago with a message: "This. On repeat."

I listened to it once and never stopped.

By the time I get home, it's almost 7:30. The room is exactly how I left it, dim, slightly messy, the smell of incense still faint in the air. I drop my bag by the door, kick off my shoes, and collapse onto the bed.

My phone buzzes. A text from her.

"Just woke up. Dreamt about pancakes."

I smile. "See? They're famous even in your dreams."

"Or maybe you just talk about them too much."

"Impossible. There's no such thing as too much pancake talk."

"You're ridiculous."

"You texted me."

"Fair."

I can picture her smiling as she types. That small, lopsided smile she does when she's trying not to laugh.

"What are you doing tonight?" she asks.

"Same as always. Nothing. You?"

"Work in an hour. But I have time."

"Call?"

"Yeah. Give me ten."

I get up, make myself some tea, and change into something comfortable. By the time she calls, I'm back in bed, propped up against the wall, the lamp on, the world outside my window dark and quiet.

Her face fills the screen. Hair down, glasses on, that same oversized hoodie from last night.

"Hi," she says.

"Hi."

And just like that, the distance doesn't matter.

We talked for an hour. About everything, about nothing. She tells me about a coworker who keeps stealing her lunch. I tell her about the guy at work who only says "Best." She laughs. I laugh. We exist in this strange little pocket of time that belongs only to us.

"I wish you were here," she says at one point, quietly, almost like she didn't mean to say it out loud.

"Me too."

"One day?"

"One day."

She smiles, soft and sad. "Okay."

"Okay."

Eventually, she has to go. Work calls. Life calls. The time zones pull us back into their separate rhythms.

"Sleep soon?" she asks, and I almost laugh at how this has become our thing.

"Yeah. You work safely."

"I'll try."

"Love you," I say, and it still feels surreal every time.

"Love you too."

The screen goes dark. The room is quiet again. I lie there for a while, staring at the ceiling, feeling the weight of the day settle in my bones. The distance is still there. The time zones, the miles, the space between us.

But so is this. So are we.

And maybe, just maybe, that's enough.

For now.

Unravelled

I was coming undone, quietly, in my Matunga apartment, the October heat pressing like a heavy palm. Mumbai simmered outside, its air thick with roasted corn and rickshaw fumes. On a worn stool, I faced a wall where plaster flaked, revealing ghosts of old posters. My name is Pj, and I found solace in the slow fracture of my mind, like the comfort of chai’s steam against my face.

The steel glass sat warm in my hand, cardamom sharp in the stillness. My phone lay blank on the table, untouched by messages. Seven months had passed since Pooja faded, not with a goodbye but a silence that settled like dust. Yet she lingered, her presence in the fan’s steady drone, its rhythm like her soft laughter. I closed my eyes, past and present blurring.

It began a year ago at Kurla station, evening rush packing the platform with office workers and students. I was a data clerk in BKC, my days lost to screens, fingers cramped by night. The loudspeaker cut through: “CST train, platform two.” Amid the crowd, Pooja stood by a pillar, her green saree simple, hair loosely tied, eyes calm but piercing.

The train’s jolt pushed us close. “Careful,” she said, clutching her bag.

“No room to fall,” I replied, gripping the rail.

A faint smile. “I’m Pooja.”

“Pj.” Words drowned in the clatter, but at Matunga, she said, “Stay safe till tomorrow.” Her figure vanished into the station’s flow, a tug starting within me.

Now, I rose and crossed to the window, tiles warm underfoot. The street pulsed below, vendors stacking guavas, scooters honking. Was Pooja there among them? Or was my mind weaving her into the crowd? I let the thought settle, no fear rising.

A week later, I saw her again at Kurla, sipping chai from a paper cup. I approached. “Pooja, from the train.”

She turned, eyes bright. “Pj. This city keeps us near.”

By a chai stall, she spoke of her work as a librarian in Sion, helping children read. “Books open their worlds,” she said, offering a biscuit. “I grew up in Thane, raised by my grandmother after my parents died. Now I help her stitch clothes at night.”

“Why books?” I asked.

“They hold stories,” she said. “Connections.” I shared my sketches, city faces, fleeting moments. Her interest sparked. We exchanged numbers on a torn page. “Call in the evening,” she said, boarding her train.

I called that Saturday, temple bells ringing nearby. “Lunch at Chowpatty?” I asked. She agreed, and we met under banyan trees, the beach alive with kites and families. At a small eatery, we sat by an open window, pav bhaji steaming. “Your sketches,” she said. “What ties them?”

“People crossing paths,” I said.

“Paths to where?” Her gaze held mine.

“Each other.”

We walked the shore, sand shifting underfoot. She spoke of her grandmother’s push for marriage. “I choose my own way,” she said.

“I see you,” I replied. The sea caught the sinking sun, and the city’s weight lifted.

In my apartment now, the fan’s hum closed the walls in. I left, passing neighbors’ cooking smells, and reached the station. The platform swarmed, and there was Pooja, near a bench, saree neat. My pulse jumped.

“Pooja?” I stepped closer.

“Pj,” she said, her voice soft. “You look worn.”

Her hand felt real in mine. “I’ve missed this.”

“The past holds tight,” she said.

We boarded a train, standing close. “Remember our clash?” she asked over the rumble.

I did. During Navratri, we had visited her grandmother’s Thane chawl, lanes bright with lanterns. Her grandmother, sharp-eyed, served sweets. “Who’s this boy?” she asked.

“A friend,” Pooja said.

Outside, under a dim streetlight, I paced. “She judges me.”

“She’s cautious,” Pooja said. “Life taught her that.”

“It feels like a wall.”

Her hand grazed mine. “Give it time.” We sat on a bench, her touch a quiet anchor.

Now, on the train, she said, “You tried to keep me.” Buildings blurred past.

“You left without a word,” I said. “No trace.”

“Our bond was heavy,” she replied. “It changed you.”

At Matunga, we stepped off, walking to a park. Under a neem tree, we sat, a fountain glinting nearby. “Why go?” I asked.

“You built me into your world,” she said. “It trapped us both.”

“I cared,” I said.

“Care can bind too tightly.”

A memory flickered: Versova Beach, city lights on the water. We shared kulfi, its sweetness sharp. “This city’s yours,” I said.

“Yours too,” she replied. But soon, her calls stopped. The library said she had left. Her grandmother’s flat stood empty. My searches found nothing.

On the bench, her arm brushed mine. “It’s different now,” she said. “Let it shift.”

“Stay,” I said.

“I’m here,” she answered, but her voice wavered like a radio losing signal.

At dusk, I returned home, the streets lit by shop lamps. In my apartment, the quiet pressed in. I faced the mirror, my reflection worn. “She’s here,” I said, but a scarf on the table, hers, was just my own. A neighbor’s voice echoed outside, calling a name, not hers. The fracture deepened, yet I welcomed it.

One last memory surfaced: Ganesh Chaturthi, near Siddhivinayak Temple, chants of “Ganpati Bappa” rising. Pooja, a tilak on her forehead, handed me a modak. “What’s your wish?” she asked.

“You,” I said.

She paused, then said, “Choose something beyond me.” Her words, sharp and her own, caught me off guard.

At a nearby stall, we ate vada pav. “What if we left Mumbai?” I said. “A new start.”

“This city’s our root,” she said. “It shapes us.”

Days later, she was gone.

Morning broke, heat climbing. At the station, the vegetable seller nodded. “Pj, you’re steady today.”

“Just moving, kaka,” I said.

On the platform, Pooja waited. “Ready?” she asked, her outline faint against the crowd. I boarded with her, but the train felt still, passengers’ eyes sliding past her. “Tell me something,” I said.

She began, “There was a man who held what shaped him…” Her voice trailed, and I leaned into the words, unsure if the train moved at all.