The clouds parted just enough that morning for the sun to pour through in golden streaks across Amrita's kitchen counter. She stood over a pot of chai, watching the bubbles rise and fall, her thoughts drifting like cardamom seeds in boiling milk.
Tushar had been staying with her for four days now.
After the emotional reunion at the alley, they had walked home in a silence that felt whole, not hollow. He hadn't said much since. But she didn't need him to. His presence in her apartment, his worn-out hoodie on the back of her chair, the toothbrush beside hers—each small thing stitched his return into her daily fabric.
Yet something was missing.
That morning, she found him on the balcony with his old guitar in hand, strumming half-heartedly. His fingers moved across the strings like he was tracing a memory, not playing a tune.
She walked out with two cups of chai and handed one to him. "Still broken?" she asked, referring to the guitar.
He shrugged. "Strings are fine. It's the player who's off."
"Play the song," she said gently.
Tushar blinked. "Which one?"
"The one you never finished. The one you said you'd write for me when we turned thirty."
He chuckled bitterly. "We're already thirty-one."
"So? Time doesn't kill songs. Silence does."
He looked at her, the corner of his mouth lifting in reluctant amusement. "You always talk like you're narrating a novel."
"I'm living one," she shot back. "With a moody musician as a main character."
Tushar took a deep breath and plucked a few more notes. Then he stopped.
"I want to tell you something," he said. "But I'm scared it'll make everything heavier."
Amrita sat down next to him. "Tushar, I've seen you at your worst. I'm not afraid of your truth."
He looked away, fingers tightening around the neck of the guitar. "The silence… the distance… it wasn't just the depression. It was guilt."
"Guilt?"
"I got an offer," he said. "A job. Music scoring for a documentary in Germany. I got the news the day after your father was hospitalized."
She stared at him, confused.
"I didn't go," he added quickly. "I wanted to stay. Be there for you."
Her heart softened, but confusion lingered. "Then why the guilt?"
He smiled sadly. "Because a part of me wanted to go. And I hated that part of me. How could I leave when you needed me? How could I even think of choosing ambition over you?"
Amrita took his hand. "Tushar, listen to me. Love isn't a cage. It doesn't ask us to choose between ourselves and each other. You should have told me."
"I thought you'd think less of me," he whispered.
"Never," she said. "I'd have helped you pack."
That made him laugh. A real laugh. The first in weeks.
"I didn't go," he repeated, softer this time. "But I wrote a song. For you. I never played it."
"Play it now."
He hesitated, then adjusted the strap and started strumming. The tune was familiar but unfinished—like a memory you almost remember in a dream. His voice, raspy from disuse, trembled at first but found its rhythm.
"There was a window seat on a yellow bus
Where dreams rode free and so did trust
A flame in your hair, a world in your eyes
You laughed like the rain and cried like the skies…"
Amrita felt tears build as the lyrics unfolded pieces of their history. The kulfis, the laughter, the parting at the train station, the letter under the pillow—each verse a chapter.
He paused mid-line.
"I never wrote the ending," he said.
She smiled. "Then let's write it together."
That night, as the rain returned, Amrita opened her laptop and began to type. Not her usual poetry. Not another diary entry.
A script.
The story of two childhood friends. One who lost his voice in the noise of the world. Another who held the silence until he found it again.
---
Moral of the Chapter:
Friendship doesn't demand sacrifice—it offers space. The truest bonds don't clip wings, they wait beside the runway until the heart is ready to fly.