Radhika’s POV – Paris
Two years.
That’s how long it had been since I left. Since I shut the door on the world I knew… and on a boy I once loved more than he ever knew.
France didn’t feel like home, but it gave me what I needed — distance. From my family, from questions I couldn’t answer, and from a pain I still didn’t have the words to explain. Until that one call broke the quiet rhythm I had built around myself. My phone buzzed with a name I hadn’t seen in months.
Ishuu
The moment I saw it, my heart smiled before my lips did.
"Tu zinda hai?!" I teased as I picked up. Her laughter echoed like the past — familiar, reckless, warm.
"Not just zinda, Radhi. Getting married!"
I froze. “WHAT?!”
“I’m serious,” she said, breathless.
“And listen — I’m calling because you have no option. You have to come. You’re my best friend. You’re the one who always said you'd design my every look, remember?”
I blinked back tears, stunned. “Of course I’ll come” I whispered.
The moment I ended the call, I just sat there — still, breath shallow, heart heavy. Because going back didn’t just mean booking a ticket. It meant standing again in the house I once ran from. Facing the people I couldn't explain my silence to. Wearing the weight of everything I never said.
And maybe, most of all…
It meant becoming that girl again — the one who once left.
The thing is, when a girl leaves her home for the first time — for studies, for dreams, for breathing space — the world claps for her strength. But no one ever warns her that she’s also walking away from a version of her life she’ll never get back. She’ll come home again, sure. But never as a daughter who belongs fully. Because something shifts. Her bedroom won’t smell the same. Her corner of the wardrobe might be gone. The tea will taste slightly different. And conversations will carry pauses that didn’t exist before. She becomes a guest in the place that raised her.
You know what no one tells you? That the first time a girl leaves home — really leaves — she never comes back the same. Not after the late nights in a new city. Not after learning to heat her own food and silence her own breakdowns. Not after missing birthdays and feeling guilty for wanting more than what was left behind. And then, one day, she marries — and the world expects her to pack not just her clothes but also her roots. To start again. Somewhere new. With new people. New rituals. A new last name. But what about all that she quietly leaves behind? The room that still smells like her childhood. The kitchen where she once learned to stir chai. The mother who still calls at 6 p.m. even if it’s just to ask, “Khaana khaya?” .
Going back doesn’t undo the leaving. And for someone like me… Who left with a heartbreak she couldn’t name — and silence she still carries —
The idea of going home felt more terrifying than staying away ever did. I hadn’t said those words — I’ll come back — to anyone in two years. But Ishika was different. She didn’t come with the weight of betrayal.
“My wedding’s in three weeks, Radhi,” she said, excitement bubbling over her words. “You’re coming, right?”
I froze. India. That place still held the ghosts of everything I had buried.
But Ishika was family. She didn’t carry the same weight as the others. She was light. And I missed light.
Little did I know, my yes had just placed me on a collision course with everything I had run from.
Reyansh’s POV – New York
I had built an empire of distractions here — boardrooms, blind dates, and buried emotions.
When Yash called, I almost declined. But he was my best friend. The one person who still treated me like I hadn’t turned into someone colder, sharper, angrier.
“She’s everything I’m not, Rey,” he said about his fiancée. “Loud. Clumsy. Radiant. You’ll love her.”
I gave a humorless smile. “I don’t love anything anymore.” He laughed. “Just come for me.”
I said “yes”.
Not because I wanted to celebrate love. But because I owed loyalty to the few people left untouched by the past.
My mother — she never shed a single tear in front of me the day Radhika left. She sat beside me, her hands trembling, but her voice steady. And then she made me promise her something I didn’t understand back then — “Never cry for someone who walks away without a goodbye. Promise me, Rey.” And I did. Because I was too numb to do anything else. Because I couldn’t bear to watch her break — not after everything we had already lost.
My father…The man who once stood at the top of the business world with unshakable pride, was brought to his knees overnight — not by market crashes or bad investments, but by betrayal. From his best friend. From someone he trusted like a brother. I watched him lose deals, clients, dignity — while pretending it didn’t hurt. While protecting me from the fallout I could see in every wrinkle that formed too soon on his face.
And in the middle of all that wreckage —was Yash. My best friend. The only constant who didn’t ask for explanations or offer pity. He didn’t try to fix me. He just stayed. Through every cold night. Every rage-filled silence. He made space for me in a world where I no longer trusted anyone. So when he called and said, “I’m getting married, and I want you here,” how could I say no?
Even if it meant going back. Even if it meant reopening wounds I had convinced myself were scarred over. Even if it meant standing in the same country as her.
Some debts are not written in contracts. They’re carved into your bones. And this one — this loyalty to the ones who held me when everything else shattered — was the only reason I boarded that flight.
What I didn’t know… was that I was walking straight into a memory I thought I had buried for good.
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