The next morning, Aanya wore armor.
Not metal, not leather—hers was stitched from carefully chosen silence, a plain black kurta, and eyes that didn’t linger. She walked into the office with her head high, every step saying: I’m not here for him.
She passed Kabir’s cabin without glancing.
But he noticed.
Of course he noticed.
He stood by the coffee machine as she walked past, and his eyes followed her for just a second too long. Aanya felt it. Like a pull in the air. Like gravity shifting ever so slightly.
She didn’t look back.
Not once.
The morning went by in a blur of client calls and feedback notes. She was grateful for the work—it gave her something to focus on. Something other than the note still tucked in her bag.
By lunchtime, the team had gathered in the break area. Riya from the copy team nudged her. “You’re sitting with us today. No desk lunch.”
Aanya hesitated. “I’ve got some revisions—”
“Nope.” Riya grinned. “You’ll get used to us. Come on.”
With a reluctant smile, Aanya followed. The small group laughed over filter coffee and office gossip. It was almost easy to forget everything for a moment.
Until he walked in.
Kabir.
He looked like he belonged, like this chaos didn’t rattle him one bit. His sleeves were rolled up, hair a little messy, and his smile easy—until his eyes found Aanya.
For the briefest second, he faltered.
Just a flicker.
Then, as if on autopilot, he walked to the table and dropped into the empty seat beside her.
Of course.
Aanya stiffened, her spoon mid-air.
“Hey, guys,” Kabir said, too casual. “What did I miss?”
“Just Riya ranting about Rohan stealing her brief,” someone replied.
“You gave it to me,” Rohan muttered.
“Keep lying to yourself, sweetie,” Riya said sweetly.
Everyone laughed—except Aanya.
She focused on her food. But Kabir’s presence was impossible to ignore. His cologne, his laugh, even the way he drummed his fingers lightly on the table like he used to do in class when he couldn’t sit still.
Then came the moment.
Small. But it shifted everything.
Riya nudged Aanya. “Kabir told us you two were childhood friends. That true?”
Before she could answer, Kabir said gently, “More than that, actually.”
Aanya froze.
Everyone turned to look.
“Really?” Riya raised an eyebrow. “Like, childhood sweethearts more-than-that?”
Aanya’s voice was quiet, but clear. “We used to know each other. That’s all.”
The table went silent.
Kabir said nothing.
But the way he looked at her in that moment—like she’d just broken something soft between them—didn’t go unnoticed.
And someone captured it.
A new intern had been recording a video for the company’s Instagram—“Meet the Team” snippets for a reel. The camera, unfortunately, caught Aanya’s cold dismissal and Kabir’s barely concealed hurt. A second. A flicker.
Enough for heartbreak to shine through.
Later, that tiny, accidental moment would end up in a muted, aesthetic reel. Soft music. Candid glances. A line on screen: “Some stories don’t need words to ache.”
And somehow, it would go viral.
Back at her desk, Aanya sat rigid.
She hadn’t meant to be cruel.
But maybe cruelty was easier than vulnerability.
Kabir didn’t try to talk to her again that day.
But as she packed up to leave, she noticed something odd.
A sticky note on her desk.
“Check the shared folder. There’s something you forgot.” —K.
She frowned, opened her laptop, and pulled up the drive.
Inside their shared project folder was a new subfolder titled:
“For Aanya. Only if you want to remember.”
Curiosity warred with caution. But eventually, she clicked.
Inside were old scanned polaroids—pictures she hadn’t seen in years.
Her. Him. Rooftop nights. Paper lanterns. A birthday card she’d made him when they were sixteen.
She stared at the screen, frozen.
And then she saw it.
A file labeled simply:
“The Letter I Never Gave You.”
She hovered over it, heart thudding.
But she didn’t open it.
Not yet.
The letter stayed unopened.
Aanya tried to focus on dinner, on the latest episode of the drama her mom had recommended, on literally anything other than that folder on her laptop. But the words sat in her chest like a weight:
The Letter I Never Gave You.
Why now?
Why was he bringing the past into the present when she’d spent so long trying to bury it?
She didn’t owe him anything.
And yet...
Six Years Ago
It had been the biggest interschool event of the year. Kabir was performing—of course he was. He had this charm onstage, the kind that made everyone stop and stare.
Aanya had stood in the crowd, heart pounding, watching him.
She thought that night would change everything. That after the show, they’d finally talk about them.
She’d wear that white kurta he once said made her look like moonlight. She’d tell him how she felt.
But he never came.
No call. No message.
Only the next morning, a notification popped up on her phone—a tagged photo on social media. Kabir, at an afterparty. His arm slung around a girl in a red dress. Laughing. Holding her hand.
Aanya’s heart didn’t break all at once. It cracked slowly.
The messages she’d typed and never sent. The rooftop confessions that never came. The promises he whispered one night when they were both too sleepy to mean anything—gone.
She waited for an explanation.
It never came.
Now
The past burned through her like wildfire.
She slammed the laptop shut, breathing heavily.
Why was he doing this?
Why now?
The next morning, she walked into the office thirty minutes early, needing the quiet, needing to breathe. The team wouldn’t arrive for another hour.
She didn’t expect him to already be there.
But he was.
Leaning over his desk, coffee in hand, brows furrowed in focus.
He looked up. Met her gaze.
This time, she didn’t look away.
“Aanya,” he said, softly.
Her throat tightened.
She hadn’t meant to say anything. She meant to walk past him, to pretend again.
But instead—
“You don’t get to rewrite history just because you regret it now.”
Kabir stilled. Slowly, he set down his mug. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
“You left,” she said. “And you didn’t just leave—you chose someone else.”
His face shifted, like the words cut deeper than she intended. “It wasn’t like that.”
“Then tell me,” she said, voice barely a whisper. “Tell me what it was like.”
For a moment, he looked like he might.
But then he stepped back.
“I will,” he said. “But not like this. Not when you already hate me before I even begin.”
He picked up his bag and left without another word.
And Aanya?
She stood in the silence he left behind, angry at herself—for asking, for caring, for remembering.
But most of all, for wanting to hear his side after all this time.
That night, Aanya didn’t bother with dinner.
She sat cross-legged on her bed, the city’s glow spilling in through her window, and stared at the folder on her laptop screen.
The Letter I Never Gave You.
Her fingers hovered over the trackpad.
Don’t open it, her pride warned.
But pride had been winning for years. And somehow, she still didn’t feel victorious.
With a sharp breath, she clicked.
Aanya,
I know I don’t have the right to say anything after everything I did. But I wrote this hoping someday you’d read it—if not for me, then for the boy you once believed in.
You probably hate me. I don’t blame you. I hate myself too, for how I left things. For choosing silence when I should’ve fought for you. For being a coward when I should’ve told you the truth.
That night? The one you waited for me?
I didn’t show up because I found out my dad was in the hospital. I left the concert halfway through and went straight there. No one knew—it wasn’t public. I didn’t tell anyone because… I didn’t want pity. I didn’t know how to be vulnerable. Not even with you.
The girl in the red dress? She was my cousin’s friend. I don’t even remember the photo being taken. But I saw it later, and I knew what it must’ve looked like to you.
I wanted to explain. I had a million drafts. But the days passed. Then weeks. And the longer I waited, the more impossible it felt.
You deserved someone brave enough to love you out loud. I wasn’t him. Not then.
But I never stopped thinking about you.
Kabir.
Aanya sat in stunned silence, blinking at the screen.
Her heart didn’t shatter this time.
It... paused.
Long enough for doubt to creep in.
Was it true?
She remembered the hospital rumors, months later, when someone mentioned Kabir’s dad had been sick around the same time. She hadn’t thought much of it back then. Had brushed it off.
Now it wouldn’t stop echoing.
Still, she didn’t know what to feel. Anger? Relief? More confusion?
She didn’t want to forgive him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
But maybe—for the first time—she could start to understand.
And maybe that was worse.
Because understanding meant remembering.
And remembering meant feeling.
She clicked the file closed, but the words stayed.
You deserved someone brave enough to love you out loud.
She pressed her forehead to her knees and closed her eyes.
And for the first time in years, she let herself feel the ache she’d buried too deep for too long.
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