The days had grown warmer, but inside the Basu home, something lingered in the air — unspoken. Like breath held too long beneath the surface.
Hiya noticed it first in Dev's silences — not the comforting ones, but the kind that felt... distant.
He still touched her the same. Still kissed her forehead after her tea, still pulled her close in sleep. But there was something behind his eyes now. A flicker.
A hesitation.
One afternoon, while folding his shirts for laundry, her hand brushed against a forgotten envelope tucked inside his coat pocket.
Foreign postmark. Medical crest.
She froze.
Her name wasn't on it.
But it was open.
With trembling fingers, she pulled out the letter — her eyes scanning the lines as her pulse quickened.
"Dr. Devraj Basu, we are pleased to offer you a research fellowship in the Department of Neurological Sciences, University of Edinburgh..."
Her throat closed.
He hadn't told her.
When Dev returned home that evening, he found her sitting on the edge of their bed, the letter folded beside her. Her hands were calm, too calm. But her eyes shimmered — not with tears, but with a storm she had quietly contained.
"You were going to leave without telling me?"
He paused. His jaw clenched. "I wasn't going."
"You lied."
"I didn't lie," he said, stepping closer, "I just... couldn't hurt you. Not again."
She stood, hands trembling now. "Hurt me? You think love is chains? That I would ask you to stay behind and bury your dream because of me?"
"I chose you, Hiya."
"And I choose you, Dev," she whispered fiercely, pressing her palm to his chest. "That's why you have to go."
His breath hitched. "I don't want to leave you."
She smiled, but her eyes ached. "Then don't leave me... just follow what you've worked for. And I'll be right here — in every word, every call, every heartbeat. Waiting."
He broke then — the strong man, the silent one — pulled her into his arms and buried his face in her neck. Her sari bunched between them. Her fingers curled in his hair.
"I'm scared," he whispered.
"So am I," she replied, voice shaking. "But I love you more than my fear."
That night, they didn't make love.
They held each other. Skin to skin. Breath to breath. Like memory, like promise.
And when he left weeks later, with her scarf in his suitcase and her scent still on his skin, neither of them said goodbye.
Only, "Come back."
And "I will."