The days after their unexpected encounter at the art gallery moved slowly for Tushar. He couldn't shake off the image of Amrita standing in the corner, eyes drenched in the hues of an unfinished canvas. There was something unspoken in that gaze—something that clung to his thoughts like sand in a tide, impossible to brush away.
He stared at the message thread on his phone. No replies. Nothing since the short "Thank you for coming" that night.
Tushar knew better than to push. Amrita had always been the one to retreat into herself when she was hurting. As children, she had often sat on the beach, building castles out of wet sand just to watch them be washed away. It had frustrated him back then. It frustrated him even more now.
Unable to bear the silence, he booked a ticket to Jaisalmer—a place Amrita had once spoken about during their college years as the only desert she wanted to walk across alone. He had dismissed it then as another of her poetic metaphors. But now, it seemed like a clue.
The golden city was quieter than he had imagined. The sandstone buildings shimmered in the heat like mirages. Tushar wandered through narrow lanes, asking local artists if they had seen a woman with curious eyes and a sketchbook. It was at a small dhaba near the dunes that a man remembered her.
"Beti jaisi lagti thi. She sat here for three days. Just drawing. Didn't talk much."
Tushar felt a strange relief, knowing he was close. That night, under the stars, he took a camel ride across the desert, scanning the horizon like a child seeking a lost kite.
It was early morning when he finally found her—sitting cross-legged in the shadow of an abandoned havelī, sketching the crumbling arches onto the pages of her notebook. Her hair was tied messily, and her kurta was dusted in sand. But her face—her face lit up in shock and something else when she saw him.
"Tushar?" she said, as if her voice didn't trust her eyes.
"I figured if I couldn't find you in your city, I'd try in your stories," he said gently.
She looked away, and the silence returned—but it was not as cold this time. They sat side by side on the warm stone steps, watching the sun pour gold across the dunes.
"I wasn't hiding," she said after a long pause.
"I know."
"I just needed to feel... less watched. Less talked about."
He understood. Everyone wanted to speak to Amrita after her father's death, after the legal battle over her mother's share of the property, after her art had suddenly turned into a symbol of loss. Everyone had something to say.
But no one had anything to hear.
"You know, you were the only one who didn't offer condolences," she said, looking at him.
"Because I didn't come to mourn your father. I came for you."
She smiled—a small, pained smile—but it was a beginning.
They spent the next two days walking across ruins, sharing food under trees, and talking like they once had—without fear or filters. Tushar didn't ask her to return. He didn't need to. On the third morning, she said, "I think I'm ready to go home."
And he simply nodded.
Moral: True friendship doesn't chase, it waits—silently, patiently, faithfully—until the heart is ready to return.