We're cuddling. Oh my god. Ishika Vyas is cuddling with me. Dreams do come true.
Not the first time we are cuddling but the first time she has initiated it. I let her warmth engulf me and the press of her body against mine feels so...good. As if she's a magnet and she takes away all my stress. "Talk to me, Golden boy." She whispers.
“You ever feel like you had people around you,” I inhale the scent of her hair, it spreads comfort in my chest, “but still didn’t have the one person you actually needed?”
The words come out quieter than I expect. She doesn’t answer immediately. I don’t look at her. I don’t know if I want to see her reaction.
“I had my family, Rudra, Siddhant,” I continue, my voice steady even though something under it feels… off-balance. “They were always there. Still are.”
My fingers tighten around hers without me meaning to.
It’s strange—how you can say something that sounds whole on the surface and still feel the hollow underneath it.
“I wasn’t alone,” I add, quieter now. “Not really.”
She shifts slightly against me, her head resting more comfortably against my chest. I can feel the weight of her there. The warmth. The steady rhythm of her breathing. It does something to me. Calms me down and unsettles me at the same time.
“But I still felt like something was missing,” I say, staring at the ceiling. “Like there was this…gap I couldn’t explain.”
She doesn’t interrupt. That’s something about Ishika. When she listens—she really listens. No rushing. No fixing. No pretending she understands more than she does. Just… presence. “I had people who would show up if I called,” I continue. “People who would fight for me, stand by me, do anything I asked.”
I pause. “That’s not the same as having someone who sees you before you even say anything.” My thumb brushes absently over her knuckles. “You know?” I murmur.
She hums softly. I exhale slowly. “I think I got used to being…easy to handle,” I admit. “Not needing too much. Not asking for anything that would make things complicated.”
That part comes out more honestly than I expect. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it,” I add. “It just…became normal.”
Normal to be the one who adjusts. Normal to not expect more. Normal to fill your own spaces. “And then you came in like a storm and made everything complicated anyway,” I say, glancing down at her.
She tilts her head slightly, looking up at me. There’s no defensiveness in her eyes. Just quiet curiosity. “And now?” she asks.
“Now I notice it,” I say simply.
“The gap?”
“Yeah.”
She studies my face like she’s trying to map that answer onto something she understands. “And I hate that I notice it more now,” I admit with a small, almost self-aware smile. “Because I was doing fine before.”
“Were you?” she asks quietly.
I don’t answer immediately. Because I don’t have a clean answer to that. I was…functioning. I was moving forward. I was okay. But fine? I huff out a soft breath. “I thought I was,” I say. Her fingers tighten around mine. Just a little.
“You don’t seem like someone who lets themselves feel that kind of…emptiness,” she says slowly.
I laugh under my breath. “That’s exactly the problem.”
“I don’t,” I admit. “Or I didn’t.” Saying it out loud feels…strange. Like pulling something into the light that’s been sitting quietly in the background for years. “It’s easier to stay busy,” Icontinue. “To focus on things that make sense. Work. People. Responsibilities.”
“Control,” she adds softly. I glance at her. Yeah. She gets it.
“Control,” I repeat.
There’s a pause. “And me?” she asks. The question is quiet, I can hear she’s trying to be careful.
I look at her fully now. At the way she’s watching me—not guarded, not distant. Just…open enough to ask something that matters. “You?” I echo.
She nods slightly. “What am I in all of this?”
