"Woh pehli mohabbat hi kya jo adhuri na rahe?"

~ Author ~

Mumbai, India

The sky above the rose garden was the color of softened ash, a muted blue slowly surrendering to dusk. The sun was dipping behind the horizon, casting a honeyed glow over the flowers—blush pinks, velvety reds, creamy whites—all swaying lightly in the warm evening breeze.

Kabir walked through the rusted gate, his fingers grazing its familiar iron frame. The soft creak echoed behind him, swallowed by the quiet bloom-laced air of the garden he had once built with trembling hands and a fractured soul.

This garden was hers.

Every rose, every path, every stone bore Radhika's name, her laughter, her memory. He could almost hear her voice in the hush of the petals brushing together, in the faint rustle of leaves above.

And she had been gone for four years.

Kabir's steps slowed as he reached the center, where a circular bed of red and ivory roses stood in full bloom. The place where her favorite rose bush bloomed the brightest. He stood there, unmoving, the golden light filtering through the climbing vines dancing along the ground like ghosts of the past.

He bent slightly, brushing his hand across a single red rose.

"Hi, Rads."

His voice was steady at first. Too steady.

"It's been a while since I came to talk to you properly," he murmured, staring at the rose as though it held her spirit. "I come here often, but I don't always speak. Maybe because I don't know where to begin. Or maybe because saying things aloud makes it all feel... too real again."

The ache in his chest bloomed slow, familiar. He dropped to the bench beside her favorite corner of the garden, where she used to read, legs folded, hair wild, laughter carried in the wind.

God, how he remembered her laugh. How he ached for it.

He pressed his palms together between his knees, eyes fluttering shut. "Four years," he whispered. "And some days... it still feels like yesterday. Like I could turn around and you'd be standing there with that smirk, telling me I look like a lost puppy when I cry."

He laughed wetly, a tear already tracing down his cheek. "You hated it when I cried, remember? You'd make me sit down and drink chamomile tea—your stupid cure for everything. I used to pretend it didn't work, but it did. It always did."

Silence stretched again, soft and aching.

"I kept this place alive for you," he said. "I learned how to garden, Rads. Can you believe that? Me. The guy who once killed a cactus."

He smiled, but the smile faded fast.

"I thought keeping this garden alive would keep you alive somehow. I needed that. I still do, on some days."

Kabir looked around—at the hundreds of roses, each in full bloom, like they bloomed only for her. "But that's not why I'm here today."

His fingers trembled slightly as he reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a small photo— creased at the corners, aged gently with time. It was Radhika in the snow, arms out, scarf flying in the wind, mouth open in unrestrained joy. He placed it gently on the bench beside him.

"I loved you with everything I had," he whispered. "And you gave it back to me in ways I never thought possible. You were the kind of love that sets roots so deep, the soul forgets how to breathe without it. You made me feel like I was enough just by looking at me."

His voice cracked.

"When you left... I stopped living, Radhika. I existed. I walked through life like it was a punishment, like joy was a betrayal. I couldn't understand why the world kept spinning when mine had shattered."

He wiped a tear away roughly, then breathed out, steadying himself.

"And then... Meher happened."

There was no thunderclap. Just the name, soft and honest.

"She wasn't you. Not even close. In fact, she was the last person on this planet I could have imagined being with. You knew that. You used to say we were like fire and ice, and you were right. We hated each other. And then life—life shoved us into something neither of us expected."

He chuckled bitterly. "A marriage. A real one. Not born out of love, but necessity. And I was angry, Rads. Angry because how could I give anything of myself to someone when I hadn't even mourned you fully?"

He leaned back, letting the air soak his words.

"But she didn't ask for anything. Not my love. Not my heart. Not even my friendship. She gave me space, silence. And in that silence, something changed. Not all at once. But slowly, slowly... the way flowers bloom after the frost."

He turned to look at the photo again.

"I didn't cheat you, Radhika," he said softly. "I swear on everything that matters, I never stopped loving you. But somewhere along the way, I started loving her too."

He paused, then added in a breath, "Not instead of you. But after you."

His voice dropped lower.

"And I kept wondering what you'd think of that. If you'd be hurt. If you'd be angry. If it would break you the way losing you broke me."

The wind picked up, lifting the photo slightly before it fluttered back into place.

"But then I remembered you," he whispered. "You, with your boundless heart. The girl who told me once, 'If I go before you, promise me you'll find someone who sees you the way I do.' You told me to find a reason to smile again."

He blinked against fresh tears. "I think I have."

Kabir rose from the bench, slowly. Reverently. As though every movement was part of a farewell ritual. He walked to the stone marker nestled between the rose bushes—just a small piece of marble engraved with her name. He knelt beside it, touched his forehead to it, and whispered the words like a prayer.

"Thank you for loving me first. Thank you for loving me the best. You were my beginning, Radhika."

He pressed a kiss to his fingers and laid them against her name.

"But this... this is goodbye. Not to you, but to the guilt. To the grief that kept me from letting my heart beat again. I'll carry you always— but today, I let go of the weight."

He stood and looked out at the garden one last time, the sun now a fading memory on the edge of the earth.

"And I promise, she'll never replace you. But she has healed something in me I thought was broken forever. I think you'd have liked her, Rads. She's fierce. A little unhinged. And she loves me like she's afraid to lose me, even when she pretends she doesn't."

He smiled through the tears.

"I think you'd be happy for me."

With that, Kabir turned, leaving behind the only place in the world where he could still feel her warmth. He could swear that he heard her laughter.

But this time, he didn't look back.

Because this time, he was walking toward something new.

Something Radhika had always wanted for him—

A second chance at love.

* * *

Bangalore, India

The air in the old bookstore was heavy with dust and memory.

It wasn't truly a bookstore anymore— just a place with forgotten shelves and the ghosts of unread stories. But it had once been theirs. A tiny hole-in-the-wall shop on a forgotten lane near their college, where time used to fold into itself. Where tea was served in cracked porcelain cups, and where she used to sit across from him and argue over poetry and politics, dreams and destinies.

Meher stepped inside, the rusted bell above the door giving a tired jingle. Her boots clicked softly against the worn wooden floor, the silence echoing louder than sound.

It had been six years.

Six years since the moment her heart had been ripped open and never quite stitched back together.

Six years since he had said it.

Since they both had said it.

"I love you."

And then— he was gone.

Just like that.

An accident. A stupid, senseless, cruel accident that had stolen Abhimanyu from the world before the ink of their love could even dry.

She had told no one about that day except the one who knew, Sahil, and now it was Arya and Aryan who had watched the video. Not fully. Not what was said. Not how the words had felt like falling and flying at the same time.

She had buried it inside her, wrapped in grief and guilt, and pretended to keep living.

But now, six years later, she was finally here.

She ran her fingers across a familiar shelf, touching the worn spines of books he once loved. "Rumi," she murmured with a half-smile, "you and your obsession with poets."

She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a small photograph— creases running through the corners. It was the only one she had of the two of them before they confessed to each other. He was making a silly face, she was laughing, her eyes crinkled, his arm slung carelessly around her shoulders. She looked alive. He looked eternal.

"I don't know why I chose here," she whispered, setting the photograph gently against the shelf. "Maybe because this is the only place where you still feel real to me."

She leaned against the shelf, sliding slowly to the floor, arms hugging her knees to her chest. Her breath hitched as the ache crept in— the one she had lived with for six years like an old wound that still stung in the rain.

"I told myself I moved on. That I had to. That you wouldn't have wanted me to carry you around like this," she said. "But the truth is... I never really let you go, Abhi."

The name on her lips cracked her open.

"I held on to you like a lifeline after you died. Every laugh I faked, every smile I wore... it was because I didn't know how to exist in a world where you didn't."

Her tears fell freely now, staining her cheeks and the old floor beneath her.

"I kept asking why. Why would the universe give me you, give us, only to take it away before we even had a chance? We had just two hours. One kiss. One confession. And then you were gone."

She looked up at the ceiling as if searching for him in the grains of wood above.

"I was so angry, Abhimanyu. At the world. At fate. At you. How dare you leave me right after telling me you loved me?" she asked, her voice trembling. "How could you say those words and not stay long enough to prove them?"

There was no answer.

Only silence.

But in that silence, something shifted.

Meher reached into her other pocket and pulled out a small bundle of letters—some written, most unfinished. Letters she had written to him on every birthday, every anniversary of his death, every time she missed him so much she couldn't breathe.

"I kept these. For six years. Words I never sent. Emotions I never shared. I thought writing them down would somehow keep you with me. Like if I kept talking, you'd still be listening."

She set them down beside the photo, hands trembling.

"But I don't want to carry this pain anymore," she whispered. "I don't want your memory to be a wound."

She looked around the old bookstore, at the crumbling shelves, the soft shafts of light breaking through cracked windows. "We had something beautiful. Brief but beautiful. And I think... I think that's enough."

A soft smile touched her lips through the tears. "I'm in love now. With someone who challenges me, annoys me, and protects me, someone who sees me. Someone who held me together when I didn't even know I was breaking."

She closed her eyes for a moment, steadying herself.

"His name is Kabir. And you would've hated him," she laughed through her tears. "You would've said he's too rigid, too by-the-book, too full of himself. And you would've been right."

She smiled. "But you would've liked him, too. Because he loves me in the quietest, most persistent way. And maybe you're the reason I was even capable of loving again. You were the beginning of that story."

"I'll never stop loving you, Abhi," she said, voice breaking. "But I have to stop mourning you. Because you're not a wound anymore. You're a chapter. A beautiful, tragic, perfect chapter."

She stood slowly, brushing off her coat, her eyes shimmering but steady now.

"And I'll tell our story someday. To my children, maybe. Not as a tragedy, but as a reminder that even the shortest love can change your life forever."

She turned to walk away, then paused.

One last look.

One last memory.

"I'll always carry you," she whispered. "But I won't chase you anymore."

And with that, Meher stepped out of the bookstore and into the golden light of the setting sun, leaving behind the weight of what could've been, finally ready to embrace what was.

* * *

Haridwar, India

The day had worn its light gently, as if even the sun didn't want to be harsh on Sahil today. The skies above were stretched in soft grey and amber, clouds casting elongated shadows across the ghats. Sahil stood at the edge of the riverbank in Haridwar, his shoes held in one hand, the hem of his kurta flapping slightly in the breeze. The sand was still warm under his feet, but the breeze from the Ganga carried the kind of coolness that brushed old wounds — not to hurt, but to remind.

He had taken a train in silence, with nothing but a single envelope in his coat pocket and the weight of eight years unspoken pressing down on his chest like a second spine. His fingers clutched a single marigold garland, the petals beginning to wilt ever so slightly from the journey. It was all he had brought.

There was no grave to visit.

No stone was engraved with her name.

Tara Jaiswal had been cremated here. The rituals had taken her body, given it to fire, and then surrendered her ashes to the river. There had been a crowd that day — Sahil remembered from the periphery. He hadn't been allowed to stand close. He hadn't earned the title of lover. He was just the boy who always stood by her and never said the one thing that might've changed everything.

He closed his eyes.

Tara's laugh came rushing back in full clarity, as if the wind carried it in pieces just for him. The sound had always been reckless and loud, like joy wasn't meant to be hidden. She had never feared being too much.

And he had never said what he felt.

Eight years. And he still woke up from dreams where she was alive, scolding him for his arrogance, teasing him with her sharp wit, walking beside him in stolen moments he fabricated in the dark. He hadn't just lost her to death. He had lost the version of himself that existed when she was near — bolder, fuller, more alive.

The world had changed. Meher had survived. Kabir had fought. Lives had mended slowly in jagged lines. But Sahil — he had frozen in that moment. The night Tara died. When he had been too late.

The paper in his coat pocket crinkled as he pulled it out, careful, reverent. A letter — one he had rewritten a hundred times in his head, never daring to say it aloud until now. It trembled in his fingers as he sat by the riverbank, legs folded, the water brushing just past his toes.

"I thought I had time," he said, his mouth tightening. "I thought you'd always be around, with your damn sarcasm and your terrible playlists. I thought, I had forever to be brave."

A pause.

A long, quivering breath.

"But I was never brave, was I?"

The letter in his hand shook now as he stared down at it. Folded paper, stained at the corner with a tear he didn't realize had fallen.

"I wrote this for you," he murmured, his thumb running over the worn crease. "The day after you left. I've rewritten it more times than I can count. Trying to find the words I never said."

He hesitated—then unfolded the paper.

And read aloud, his voice cracking with every word.

Dear Tara,

You'll probably never read this. Maybe that's why I can finally write it.

I was in love with you.

From the moment you called me out for being full of myself in college. From the way your eyes softened only when you talked about your mother. From the way you danced like no one was watching and made people believe they could be free, too.

I loved you quietly, like a prayer I never had the courage to say out loud.

I was going to tell you that night. I'd made up my mind.
But I was late. And you were gone.

I thought if I saved enough people after you, maybe it would bring me closer to peace. But the truth is— I never left that night.

I've been stuck in it for eight years.

And I miss you. Every day. I miss the life we could've had. The chance to mess things up together. To try.

I hope you knew. I hope some part of you knew.

And I hope... wherever you are, you're dancing.

Love,
Sahil.

"I never got to tell you," he began, his voice barely above the river's whisper, "how much I loved you."

His eyes stung. He didn't blink.

"I think... I think I knew the first time you yelled at me in class," he continued, a small breathless laugh escaping him. "God, I was so smug. And you just — shut me up with one line. No one had ever done that. You didn't care who I was. You just saw through it. Through me."

The garland sat in his lap, forgotten for a moment. His hand trembled slightly as he held the letter tighter.

"I used to wait for you at the canteen, remember? Pretending I was there early by accident. You always knew. You always had this look on your face, like you knew everything I wasn't saying."

The sky dimmed further, clouds moving to veil the fading sun. Sahil looked up briefly — something was comforting in the melancholy of the hour. Like the world itself paused to listen.

"I was going to tell you that night," he whispered. "I had the words ready. I had everything planned. But you never came."

He closed his eyes.

"He told me you were gone."

His voice broke on the word.

"Abhi called. I don't remember what I said. I think I fell apart before he finished speaking. I don't remember how I got to your house. But I remember the silence. I remember your mother sobbing. I remember wishing it was me instead."

He sucked in a breath, sharp and sudden. Like pain.

"I never told you. I loved you, Tara. And maybe that's my punishment. That I have to carry this forever. This guilt. This silence. This 'what if'."

The marigold garland now rested in his hands, and he slowly stood up. His feet sank slightly into the wet earth as he stepped closer to the river.

He whispered a prayer he hadn't said in years. Not because he stopped believing — but because it hurt too much to speak.

Then, he gently placed the garland on the surface of the river. It floated lightly, the orange petals vibrant against the grey reflection of the sky.

Sahil watched it drift away, his eyes following the curve of the water.

"I hope you knew," he said. "Somewhere deep inside you, I hope you felt it. Even if I never said it. Even if I was too much of a coward."

A silence passed.

And then, almost breaking apart as he said it —

"I miss you every day."

The wind picked up slightly, lifting strands of his hair and brushing against his cheek like a phantom touch. He tilted his head, eyes glimmering.

"I tried to move on," he admitted. "I've tried. I smile more now. I laugh sometimes. I work, I fight, I live. But there's still a corner of me that's yours. That will always be yours."

He reached into his pocket once more and pulled out a small clay diya. He lit it, the flicker catching even in the wind, and placed it on the water beside the garland. The flame danced, unwavering.

"I hope you're at peace," he whispered. "I hope wherever you are, you're still dancing. Still teasing the universe. Still laughing with that wild, beautiful laugh."

He stared at the floating diya, watching the light move farther away.

And then, in a voice almost inaudible, he added:

"I loved you. I still do."

The sky above darkened into blue and navy. Stars blinked to life, slowly and tentatively, like they too mourned the girl who had left too soon.

Sahil remained there for a long time, unmoving, until the last glimmer of the diya disappeared into the distance. And finally, with a heart hollowed and heavy, he turned away from the river, wiping the back of his hand across his eyes.

He didn't feel lighter.

But he felt something shift.

Like maybe the grief would always stay — but the guilt didn't have to.

Maybe this was how you began to live with loss. By saying the things you never got to say.

By loving them, even when they were gone.

By letting go — not of the memory, but of the ache.

And so he walked away from the river, barefoot, the earth still clinging to his skin.

He didn't know what the future held.

But he knew, for the first time in eight years, that Tara would walk with him in a different way now — not as a ghost of a love unspoken, but as a truth finally set free.

I don't think I could ever end Every Flame before giving homage to these wonderful souls. Abhimanyu, Tara and Radhika had left these people, making a void in so many hearts, and the pain they felt and the love they left behind. I think it was only right for them to say goodbye to these noble souls.

I really have nothing to say today. I hope you enjoy reading this chapter.

Do VOTE, SHARE and COMMENT. Comment a heart if you enjoyed reading this chapter.

With Love,

Akii.