The city felt colder than it should have.
Maybe it was the concrete - or maybe it was just me. A new place, new faces, and the same old heart still wrapped around a girl I had no right to hold onto.
I came here to study. That was the reason. But deep down, I knew - part of me had come here hoping for a second chance. Not with life. Not with fate. Just... with her.
It had been over a year since we last spoke. Since school ended and time began to blur everything we once were. I told myself I'd moved on. That I was okay. That I was healing.
But the truth is, when someone lives in your veins, even time forgets how to make them leave.
That's when it happened.
There she was - standing beneath the soft yellow glow of the hostel's old streetlight, surrounded by three girls, laughing.
God, I could recognize that laugh in a room full of noise. I'd spent years tuning everything else out just to hear it.
My feet moved before my brain did.
I don't remember what I was thinking. Maybe I wasn't thinking at all. Maybe I just needed to see her.
"Sia?" I said, my voice quiet. Fragile.
She turned. Her hair had grown longer, tied loosely like she always did when she didn't care who was watching. She blinked for a second, as if the memory of me was trying to fit into the shape of who I'd become.
"Aarin?" she said my name like a question wrapped in nostalgia.
I smiled - small, unsure. "Didn't expect to see you here."
She stepped forward, almost cautiously. "I didn't know you were coming here too."
I shrugged. "I guess we've got unfinished business."
She laughed - not mockingly, but like something inside her softened. "Still trying to be poetic?"
"Still trying to impress you," I said before I could stop myself.
There was a pause. One of those heavy, aching pauses that carry years of silence between them.
Her lips curved, but her eyes didn't meet mine for too long. "You haven't changed much."
"I wish I had," I whispered. But I knew she didn't hear me.
Just then, one of the girls with her walked over. Tall, confident. Her expression wasn't welcoming.
"Meera," she said. "Aarin. Long time."
I knew that tone. She wasn't happy to see me.
We'd never really been friends. She always thought I was too clingy with Sia, too intense. Maybe she wasn't wrong. But she didn't know what it felt like to love someone who smiled through your soul and didn't even realize it.
The other two girls stood a little behind, whispering to each other. I caught bits - "Is that him?" "They used to know each other?" - and it stung more than it should've.
I wasn't someone Sia had spoken about, clearly.
Just a story she didn't tell anymore.
"I'll catch up with you later," she said to Meera and the others, who nodded reluctantly and walked off.
Now it was just us.
Alone. Together.
Again.
"So," she said, arms folded. "How've you been?"
I looked at her - really looked. The little mole near her eyebrow, the chipped nail on her thumb she always picked at when she was nervous, the quiet exhaustion in her smile.
And I realized, no matter how much time passed…
She was still her.
Still the girl I stayed up for.
Still the reason I smiled when I had no reason to.
"I've been breathing," I said. "Trying not to remember things you probably forgot."
She glanced away. Silence again. Thick and familiar.
"I didn't forget everything, Aarin," she said finally.
But she didn't say what she remembered.
Later that night, I moved into my dorm. It was small, shared with a stranger I hadn't met yet. I sat by the window, legs up, staring at the moon like it owed me answers.
My phone buzzed.
Sia: "It's crazy we're here again. Do you want to grab coffee sometime? Just like old times?"
I read the message five times before replying.
Me: "Yeah. Just like old times."
But in my heart, I knew -
The old times had never really left.
They just hid under the surface, waiting for one more smile from her to come alive again.
And damn it - they did.