THE WAITING
Dubai's night sky stretched endlessly beyond Diya's window—a tapestry of stars and city lights that did nothing to quiet the restless ache in her chest.
Two days.
Two days of pretending she wasn't counting the hours since she'd last heard his voice.
Two days of glancing at her phone, willing it to light up with his name.
Her mother moved quietly around the apartment, brewing chai with extra cardamom the way Diya liked it, filling the silence with mundane questions about laundry and old friends. Never pushing. Never asking about the boy whose name hovered unspoken between them.
Diya was grateful.
But the absence of questions didn't stop her from hearing them anyway.
Are you okay?
Do you miss him?
Will you ever tell me what happened?
She curled deeper into the couch cushions, phone balanced on her knee, thumb tracing the edge of the case—
—when suddenly, the screen lit up.
Maddy.
Her breath caught.
THE CONFESSION
Maddy's bedroom was dark save for the blue glow of his laptop screen—some forgotten movie playing soundlessly in the background. He'd been staring at his phone for thirty-seven minutes, finger hovering over the call button, heart pounding loud enough to drown out the voice in his head that whispered it's too late.
But then he remembered the way she'd looked at him beneath that tree—rain-soaked and desperate, like she'd just realized something terrible.
Like she still cared.
So he pressed call.
And when she answered—her voice soft, tentative, hopeful—the words tumbled out before he could stop them.
"I've been thinking about you."
A pause. Then—
"I think about you all the time."
The honesty in her reply shattered something inside him.
What followed was a confession years in the making—of fear, of regret, of jealousy he had no right to feel but did anyway. Of how watching her walk away had felt like losing oxygen. Of how her coming back, even five minutes too late, had been enough to undo him.
"I want to be with you," he whispered, the words raw in the quiet. "Properly this time. No more running. No more mixed signals. Just… you and me. If you'll still have me."
The silence that followed stretched thin, fragile.
Then—
"Yes."
Just one word.
But it was enough.
HARSH'S POV
Harsh knew the moment it happened.
He didn't need to see the text. Didn't need to hear the call.
He just knew.
Maybe it was the way Diya's name suddenly stopped appearing in Maddy's brooding silences. Maybe it was the lightness in Maddy's voice when he finally picked up Harsh's call that night, no longer edged with bitterness.
Or maybe it was the way his own chest tightened at the realization—sharp and sudden—that the girl he'd quietly fallen for was no longer just his friend.
She was theirs.
And that changed everything.