THE PICNIC
Golden sunlight dappled through the trees as laughter spilled across the picnic blanket—bright and effortless to anyone listening. But Diya felt the tension humming beneath every interaction, the unspoken words that thickened the air between them.
She sat cross-legged, pretending to be engrossed in Nivi's dramatic retelling of a disastrous date, but her attention kept snagging on him.
Maddy.
Leaning against the trunk of an old banyan tree, one knee drawn up, his fingers absently plucking at the grass. He wasn't laughing. Wasn't even pretending to. His gaze, heavy and unreadable, kept drifting to where Harsh's shoulder brushed against hers.
Diya knew that look.
Jealousy.
It should have thrilled her—this proof that he still cared. Instead, it settled like a stone in her chest.
Because wanting her and choosing her were two very different things.
And Maddy had made his choice weeks ago.
THE WALK
As twilight painted the campus in hues of lavender and gold, Maddy finally approached.
"Can we walk for a bit?"
His voice was low, rough at the edges like he'd been rehearsing the words in his head.
Diya hesitated. Then nodded.
They moved in silence at first, the crunch of gravel beneath their shoes the only sound between them. The path wound past their old haunts—the bench where they'd shared secrets under the stars, the oak tree where he'd first kissed her, the courtyard where they'd argued and made up a dozen times over.
Every step was a memory.
Every memory, a wound.
"I meant what I said," Maddy finally murmured, stopping beneath a flickering lamppost. "That night."
Diya turned to face him, the golden light catching the flecks of amber in his eyes. "Which part?"
"All of it." His throat bobbed. "That I want to come back to you. That I'm trying to be someone who deserves you."
The ache in her chest sharpened. "But?"
"But I'm scared," he admitted, the words raw. "Scared that even if I get it right, you'll have already moved on."
The confession hung between them, fragile as spun glass.
Diya exhaled slowly, her breath misting in the cool evening air. "I can't promise I'll wait, Maddy."
"I know."
"But that doesn't mean what we had wasn't real."
Something fractured in his expression. "Then what do we do?"
She reached out, her fingertips grazing his—a ghost of the touch that used to set her world alight. "We let it be what it is. No promises. No deadlines. Just… this."
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then his fingers curled around hers, warm and familiar. "Just this," he echoed.
And for the first time in weeks, the space between them didn't feel like distance.
It felt like possibility.
HARSH'S POV
From the shadow of the hostel archway, Harsh watched them.
The way Diya's shoulders relaxed as Maddy spoke. The way Maddy's thumb traced idle circles over her knuckles. The way they stood there, bathed in lamplight, looking for all the world like two halves of the same broken whole.
He should have walked away.
But he couldn't.
Not when every fiber of his being screamed to cross the distance between them, to pull her away, to fight for what he'd only just realized he wanted.
But this wasn't his moment.
So he turned on his heel and left—before the ache in his chest could turn into something he couldn't take back.