She points at me warningly before turning back toward the wall display again.
God.
I love her.
Not in the dramatic movie way where violins start playing every time she walks into a room. Loving Ishika feels quieter than that. Deeper. Like knowing exactly how she takes her coffee and still making it wrong on purpose because her annoyed face makes my mornings better. Like learning that when she gets overwhelmed, she reorganizes things that don’t need reorganizing. Likerealizing the girl who once kept the entire world at arm’s length now unconsciously reaches for my hand in crowded places.
A year ago she used to flinch at needing people. Now she’s standing in the middle of her own studio while my family hangs streamers crookedly behind her and argues about tape. And somehow—She lets herself belong here.
Radhika walks past me carrying snacks and whistles low. “That woman has threatened three people in the last twenty minutes.”
“She’s stressed.”
“She told Vedant she’d legally disown him from humanity if he touched the flower arrangement again.”
“That sounds reasonable honestly.”
Radhika snorts. Across the room, Ishika bends slightly to inspect a table setup and I catch the glint of the ruby ring on her finger. My ring. The one she argued about for almost forty minutes before finally accepting. The one she still twists around absently when she’s nervous. Something warm settles heavily in my chest. There are moments now where happiness hits me so suddenly it almost feels painful. Because I know what almost happened. I know how close I came to losing her. And maybe that’s why ordinary things feel sacred now. Watching her laugh with Ma in the kitchen. Seeing her asleep in my T-shirt. Listening to her fight with Siddhant over cricket like her life depends on it. Existing beside her still feels unreal some days. My gaze shifts toward the entrance again instinctively.
And there he is.
Dheer.
He stands near the glass doors quietly, hands tucked into the pockets of a dark jacket, observing the studio without stepping too far inside.
If someone didn’t know the history standing in that room, they probably wouldn’t notice anything unusual.
But I do. I notice the way Ishika goes slightly still when she spots him. Not tense exactly. Not anymore. But careful. Like someone touching an old wound to check if it still hurts. And I notice him too.
The hesitation in the way he stays near the edge instead of moving closer. The way his eyes soften every time they land on her before he quickly looks away like he hasn’t yet earned the right to look for too long.
They’re trying.
That’s the thing.
Not perfectly. Not magically.
There are still pauses between them sometimes that feel too heavy. Still conversations that end awkwardly because neither of them knows how to bridge years worth of grief in one sitting.
But there are also quieter things now.
Phone calls.
Short visits.
Her occasionally saying “Papa” without freezing afterward.
Him learning how to stand near her life without disappearing from it again. Healing doesn’t look dramatic the way peoplethink it does. Sometimes it just looks like two people choosing not to walk away despite how difficult staying feels.
Ishika glances toward him again. He gives her a small nod.
Pride.
Quiet and overwhelming.
Her expression softens for barely a second before she clears her throat and immediately starts fixing a flower vase that absolutely does not need fixing. I smile to myself.
Baby steps.
