The rain began like a rumor—soft at first, then certain, rinsing the city in silver. Shreya Mehra stood at the bus stop hugging a parcel wrapped in brown paper, its corners darkening where raindrops kissed it. Inside lay a hand-stitched tie in midnight blue, a pattern she'd spent two nights perfecting. Arjun loved ties that whispered wealth rather than shouted it. "Subtle, like me," he'd joked, dimples on cue. She had laughed then, warmed by the idea that subtle could mean dependable.
Now she watched the traffic smear into light and thought of the text he'd sent a few hours ago: 8 p.m., Blue Fable. Big news. Wear the black dress I like.
Her pulse had skipped. Big news. Finally? A ring? An apartment together? Something that would mean she wasn't forever the guest in other people's lives.
Her phone buzzed again—Rhea: Don't stay out late, Shre. Mom wants you home early. We have relatives over tomorrow.
Another message followed too quickly: a selfie—Rhea in crimson lipstick, the neckline of her sequined blouse cut to make statements, not conversations. Wish me luck. Event night!
A cold thread tugged through Shreya's chest. She typed good luck and erased it. She typed you look lovely and erased that too. In the end she sent only a heart, then felt silly for it.
The bus hissed to a stop. She climbed in, cradling the parcel, ignoring the seat even when one emptied, choosing to stand and watch raindrops race across the window. On days like this, when the city blurred and the past tried to whisper, something inside her went very still—as if waiting for a sound it used to know. A tune with no words. A lullaby, maybe. She could never catch it; it always slipped away before the second bar.
"Ticket?" the conductor asked.
"Blue Fable," she said, and almost smiled. The fancy lounge on the forty-third floor of the Aurora Tower. She'd seen it once in a magazine she'd pulled from the recycling bin at work. Silvery lamps like upside-down tulips. Tables spaced like fortunes: far apart, whispering privacy.
Her stop arrived in a wash of neon. She stepped out under the silver awning of the tower, adjusted the strap of her small purse, and walked toward the elevator banks. The mirror walls sent a dozen versions of her back at once: black dress, rain-kissed hair twisted into a loose knot, the little wing-shaped hairpin she always wore tucked just above her ear. She had no idea where the pin came from. It had been in the small tin box the Mehras gave her when she was old enough to ask about "before." A hairpin, a faded photograph of a garden swing, and a child's bracelet with two beads missing.
"Forty-three," the concierge said, pressing the button for her.
The elevator hummed. As it climbed, her stomach learned to count. Thirty-two. Thirty-three. Big news. She swallowed, held the parcel closer, and told herself not to expect too much. Expecting too much is just an elegant way of tripping over thin air, her therapist had said gently last month. Dr. Tara Singh. Kind eyes. Voice like a blanket. Shreya had nodded, had meant to tell her about the tune that hovered at the edge of memory, then had let it drift away.
The elevator sighed open. Blue Fable stretched before her in glass and hush. A hostess in a cobalt sari approached with a smile polished to perfection.
"Reservation for Arjun Malhotra," Shreya said.
"Of course. He's already here." The hostess gestured. "This way, ma'am."
They wove through tables where laughter drifted in dry sparklers and cutlery chimed. The city outside lay like a galaxy, all the stars nailed down. Halfway across the room, Shreya slowed. A laugh she knew—Rhea's—curled through the music like smoke. She blinked, irrationally sure it couldn't be here, and then turned as the hostess slowed too.
"Mr. Malhotra requested privacy," the hostess murmured, parting a velvet curtain.
Inside the alcove, candles leaned toward a bottle of champagne. Arjun stood with his back to them, jacket off, sleeves rolled, his hand at a woman's waist. When he dipped his head to kiss her, the woman's bracelet flashed. A familiar bracelet. Two beads missing.
Shreya didn't make a sound. The soundless ones are the worst; they have too much room to echo. One heartbeat. Two. Her brain tried to file the moment under "misunderstanding," but the filing cabinet caught fire. Rhea turned, lips shining, and froze. For half a second her eyes widened with the purest truth. Then lids lowered, mouth softened into a pout of remorse, and Arjun stepped back so quickly the champagne fluted in offense.
"Shreya." He said her name too quickly, like a code he hoped still worked. "Listen, this—"
Rhea recovered first. "Shre, you weren't supposed to— I was just—" She touched her lips as if they were innocent and delicate and not lies shaped into flesh. "It's not what it looked like."
What it looked like was his hand still around her waist.
The hostess took a silent step back, melting into the shadows. Shreya placed the parcel on the nearest table because her hands had begun to tremble and she refused to let them ruin the stitching. When she looked at Arjun, she saw not the man from coffee dates and safe jokes, but someone who had loved watch faces more than time.
"Big news," she said, and surprised herself that her voice was steady. "This is it?"
"Shreya, please." He glanced around, calculating—he was always calculating—then dropped his voice. "We were going to tell you. Rhea and I—we didn't plan—feelings happen—"
Rhea slipped out of his hold as if innocence could be performed by distance. "Shre, I begged him not to tell you tonight. Mom will—"
"Mom will what?" The question broke from Shreya before she could stop it. Rain slid down the glass wall behind them as if the sky were learning to cry. She imagined her adoptive mother's pinched mouth, her father's silence that had always sounded like shame, and suddenly she was tired in a way that began in her bones.
"I'm sorry, Shre." Arjun's apology had the dull gleam of something pawned and reclaimed. "This isn't your fault, I swear. You're… you're amazing. You deserve someone who can—"
She laughed then—one sharp sound that felt like a plate breaking. "Finish that sentence carefully."
He didn't. Neither of them did. The silence was full of the fizzing patience of champagne.
"I wish you both every happiness," she said. The words came out too clean. Something in her wanted them to come out messy, to demand explanations and receipts and the kind of dramatics that made other people feel important. Instead, she picked up the parcel and held it out to Arjun. "I made this. You don't have to wear it."
His mouth worked. "Shreya, keep it."
She looked at the tie a second too long, then turned, parcel still in her hands, and walked out before the air around them learned how to suffocate. She moved through the lounge with a calmness borrowed from statues, felt the stares only as changes in pressure, reached the corridor, and kept walking until the elevator closed and a mirrored version of herself stared back. Black dress. Hairpin. Eyes she didn't recognize.
The elevator carried her down through light and air and music, deposited her into a lobby where the rain had gathered and decided it would not be ignored. She pushed through the revolving doors and let the cold bite her cheeks. The parcel pressed into her ribs.
"Miss?" The concierge lifted his hand, maybe to offer an umbrella.
"I'm fine," she said, and the lie was such a familiar companion it almost felt like a friend.
She stepped into the rain, heels hesitant on the slick marble, and only when she reached the silhouette of the bus stop did her composure crack enough to let breath in jagged. Somewhere behind her, the tower kept the kind of secrets only money knows how to keep. Somewhere above her, the sky kept none.
A car slowed near the curb, the expensive growl of its engine somehow polite. She ignored it. Another step, and her ankle wobbled on the drain grate. The parcel slipped. A pair of hands caught it before it hit the watery ground.
"Careful," a voice said, low and even, like a note struck on a violin meant for dusk. "It looks handmade."
She turned. The man held the parcel as if it were glass and a promise. He was in a dark suit that made silhouettes envious, rain beading on his shoulders, hair damp enough to look human. Up close, he was less immaculate than the magazines made men like him seem; there was a small scar near his eyebrow, a reminder that perfection is best with a history.
"It is," she said, because telling the truth to a stranger sometimes feels safer than telling it to a mirror. "You can keep it."
One of his brows lifted. "I didn't earn it."
Her throat tightened. "Neither did he."
A ghost of a smile. Not amused—understanding. He stepped half a pace back, offering space without making a ceremony of it, and then offered the parcel back with both hands—a courtesy so old-fashioned it unstitched something in her chest.
"Thank you," she murmured, taking it.
"Do you have a ride?" he asked.
"I have a bus pass," she said, and meant to sound wry. It came out tired.
For a heartbeat, traffic wrote silver scores on the wet road. He studied her face with a focus that wasn't the appraisal she'd learned to endure in fitting rooms and office corridors. This gaze was… recognition? No, impossible. He masked it quickly, voice back to neutral. "There's a storm warning. If you'd like, I can call you a cab. It's safer."
"Strangers and cabs." She tried to smile. "My therapist would have notes."
He laughed once, quiet, like she'd unlocked a private door. "Understood. Then at least stand under an awning." He angled his head toward the cafe a few meters away, its orange awning fluttering like a small sun. "You're shivering."
Only then did she notice. The rain had taught itself to be cold. She hesitated—then nodded, the small surrender of someone choosing not to be brave every minute. They walked side by side without touching. The scent of cedar and rain rose from his suit—a calm, clean thing she wanted, absurdly, to bottle.
Inside the awning's shadow, the city's noise pulled away. A single string of fairy lights swung in the wind, brushed by rain. He braced a palm against the awning's pole to hold it steady. The movement made his sleeve ride up. A watch—simple, not flashy. The kind bought by someone who thinks about time, not about being seen with it.
"Are you always this kind?" she asked before she could stop herself.
"No." He said it with a softness that didn't need explaining. "Tonight, yes."
Something loosened. She exhaled. "I'm Shreya."
A pause too delicate to measure. "Nice to meet you," he said. "Adrian."
The name sat in the air as if it had been waiting there, patient as rain. She tasted it once in her head, and a shiver that had nothing to do with weather walked the line of her spine. Adrian. The syllables chimed against a place in her memory that had been asleep.
"Thank you for not prying," she said, staring at the city smearing itself beautiful. "Most people would have… asked."
He looked away from her to the rain, producing a handkerchief—not the kind that knows dust, but the kind that knows sincerity. He offered it to her without looking at her face, as if protecting the dignity of her grief were second nature.
"Here." He added, gently, "It's clean."
She used it to blot rain from her temple. The handkerchief smelled faintly of something warm—sandalwood and home. She closed her eyes for a fraction of a second. A children's swing creaked in the wind. A boy's laughter—a sound full of summer—spun like a kite string.
When she opened her eyes, Adrian was watching the rain with an expression that ached. "The thing about storms," he said, "is that they make the city honest. Everyone is either running toward something—or away."
"Which am I?" The question left before pride could intercept it.
His gaze came back to her. It was a steadying thing, like the horizon. "Today?" He thought a beat. "You're standing still. That's the bravest option."
The ridiculous, dangerous warmth that bloomed in her chest made her press the handkerchief to her lips for cover. "You don't know me."
"Not yet," he said, so softly she wasn't sure she'd heard him right.
A gust worried the awning. Rain skated off the edge in sheets. On the boulevard, a biker cursed and laughter cracked from a passing car. Somewhere inside the cafe, a barista told a story with her whole body. The world kept being itself. Shreya's phone buzzed; the screen lit with Rhea's name. She turned it face down.
"Do you want me to call someone?" Adrian asked.
She shook her head. "There isn't anyone to call."
"That," he said, voice gentling further, "is a solvable problem."
The words brushed her skin like warmth. She should have bristled. Instead she listened to the part of her that leaned—just a degree—toward that warmth. He didn't step closer. He didn't crowd. He simply waited in the rain's pale theater with her until her breathing returned to something like hers.
"Thank you, Adrian," she said. The name was easier the second time. "I should go."
He nodded, then looked past her shoulder. "Your bus."
She turned. The number glowed, the doors sighed, and for a second she could see the rest of her life like a neat schedule: bus, home, pretend to sleep, pretend to be okay. She stepped toward it—and something inside her recoiled from the neatness. She paused with one heel on the curb.
"Would you—" The question startled even her. "Would you mind walking me to the stop? I mean, not because— I just… if I stand alone right now, I might vanish." The confession tasted like rain.
Adrian didn't make it heavy by answering earnestly. He simply fell into step beside her, matched to her pace, a shoulder's width away. The bus exhaled impatience, then sealed itself and pulled off. Shreya and Adrian stood there watching red taillights unspool into the wet night.
"My timing is terrible," she said, almost teasing.
"Or perfect," he said. "Depends on the story you want to tell later."
"Later," she echoed, as if the word were new.
He studied her hairpin then—a small wing catching awning-light. "That's unusual," he said, casual. "Family piece?"
"I don't know." She touched it, and the tune she could never catch darted just out of reach again. "I had it before I had a name that fit."
His inhale was so quiet she might have imagined it. When she glanced at him, the look was gone, replaced by the careful expression of a man who knows the price of showing his cards.
Rain softened. The awning stilled. Somewhere a siren negotiated with the night. Shreya felt the world slide an inch back into place and knew—like you know when a migraine is coming or dusk is deciding— that nothing was in the same place anymore.
"I should go," she said again, but this time the words held.
Adrian traced a glance down the street. "There's a taxi stand around the corner that still works in storms. If you'll let me walk you there, my conscience might survive the night."
She wanted to refuse on principle. The principle was tired. "Okay," she said.
They walked. The city steamed. Their reflections braided and broke in the puddles, anonymous and familiar. At the corner, a yellow cab idled, its meter lit like a small altar. Adrian opened the door and stood aside. She slid in, parcel first, then turned to thank him—properly, the way you thank someone who had sat guard while your heart did emergency surgery.
"Shreya," he said, her name like a held breath. His gaze was steady, but now it carried a tremor of something vast and private. "Take care."
"You too."
He hesitated a heartbeat longer, as if at the edge of a cliff he had waited his whole life to jump from. Then, so softly the rain almost took it, he said a word that was not the name she'd given him.
"Aarohi."
The cab's engine shivered. The driver flicked his eyes up in the rearview. Shreya froze. The word moved through her like a key turned in a lock she had forgotten existed. The little winged hairpin warmed against her scalp. Wind swung a memory through the cab—sun on a garden swing, small hands clapping, a boy laughing, Firefly, higher!
"Sorry?" she asked, voice paper-thin.
But Adrian had already stepped back, the rain reclaiming his shoulders. He closed the cab door gently, as if he were tucking in a story for later, and lifted two fingers in a wave that was barely a wave at all.
The driver glanced at her. "Madam? Where to?"
She had an address. She had always had one. She swallowed. "Home," she said, then, quieter, to no one and to the storm and to the name in the air, "Whichever one that is."
The cab slid into the night. In the mirror, the man under the awning grew small and stayed exactly the same size inside her chest.
Outside, the rain eased, as if even the sky were listening.