“You keep calling her Aarohi,” I whisper. “NotRohi.”
His brow furrows. “I do?”
Then something shifts. His jaw clenches. His eyes widen just a bit—like something clicks.
“I hadn’t noticed that,” he mutters.
I tilt my head. One brow raised. “Guess it’s your brain’s way of disconnecting thataffinitytoward her.”
He swallows hard and nods, the motion slow, like the words are dragging through him.
“It was a misplaced instinct, that whole protectiveness thing,” he says quietly. “The need to protect... it was my own shit. It had nothing to do with her—or anyone else, really. After my sister died, I think I just... internalized failure. Because if I don’t protect, they die. It was inaccurate but I started seeking out distress like it was a challenge. And then I’d try to fix it. Like that would somehow undo what happened to my sister.”
“You never did that with me, though,” I murmur, not accusing—just... trying to understand.
He gives me a faint, sad smile. “Didn’t I? I’ve been going back over everything. Trying to trace the patterns. And... baby, wemetbecause you were stranded on a dark road near my office. I pulled over and offered you a ride.”
I blink, thrown. That night had always seemed so mundane—annoying, even.
I remember it clearly now, but with a different lens. I’d just wrapped an assignment. Was following a lead and all I could think about was a long bath and getting back to Mumbai for the debrief. I was looking for solitude that night.
Instead, I gothim.
He’d pulled up and asked if I was okay. I’d instantly gone into mission-mode. Why the hell was a stranger suddenly making contact? I remember analyzing him the entire ride, making mental notes, asking innocent questions that were really just checks to rule him out as a suspect.
And still, somehow... I’d let him drop me off at my hotel.
“I always wondered how naive you were,” he says with a soft chuckle. “Getting into a car with a stranger. That made me evenmoreprotective that night.”
He glances at me, almost shyly. “Now I realize... if you’d actually thought I was... like, maybe a serial killer, you would’ve killed me on the spot.”
“I thought you were related to my assignment,” I say, deadpan. “I was ruling you out.”
He barks a laugh. “Shit!I should’ve been more careful.”
Then my voice softens, almost unwillingly.
“So our relationship was built on your protectiveness?”
It comes out more sad than I intend. I don’t want to believe that. I thought what we had was respect. Trust. A friendship that turned into something deeper. But if all this time he was just trying to protect me—was it ever real?
“No,” he says, and the word is almost desperate. “Stop that spiral,please. That’s not what I meant. I mean... yeah, maybe that’s how wemet. But it stopped there. When I saw you again—at that bar a few weeks later—I didn’t even connect the dots at first. I just... needed to know you. And then when I did know you, Greesha, it wasn’t about any of that.”
He leans back, visibly shaken by the memory. “Our ease of talking was so refreshing. We were in the same space, same world—me in cybersecurity, you in investigative reporting... wait—wereyou?”
I smile. “No. I was between assignments. You met me at a rare lull. But after two months of dating you, I filed for inactive status.”
He goes still.
“Why?” he whispers. And I hear the crack in his voice. He already knows. But I think heneedsto hear it.
I look at him for a long moment, weighing the truth. I don’t know if saying it will free him or destroy him—but I can’t hold it anymore. I don’twantto carry it alone.
“Because, Advik...” I lean in, staring into the eyes of the man I once left everything for. “I thought I finally found a soft place to land. For the first time, I thought... I could just be Greesha. Not the agent. Not the orphan-turned-operative. Justme. A regular woman.”
His eyes well with tears. A tremor runs through his shoulders.
“I was ready to leave the adrenaline, the constant vigilance behind. Ready to live a quiet, boring, normal, beautiful life. Because for the first time, I saw that life with someone. Because I wanted to live the dream of that fifteen-year-old girl, carelessly watching trash TV in her home—not knowing that her parents would be dead the next day.”
