Armaan was baffled at first. She wanted to talk? She wanted to talk! He had imagined he'd have to do a lot more to get her to talk. In the past, she had a knack for running from things that would make things real. And here, she was the one proposing they talk this out.

The years had surely changed her.

He suggested, "There's a coffee shop down the..."

She shook her head, "Not hungry. Let's go to the beach?"

It was unexpected again, but he agreed nonetheless. He didn't point out that she's not the biggest fan of going to the beaches, considering she is deadly afraid of the waters. He figured that if she was suggesting it, she must not mind. Besides, it wasn't as if they were going to get in the waters. The place where they talked didn't make a difference. Just the fact that they did talk would.

Riddhima suggested the beach, figuring that the two could blend into the evening crowd of couples and friends. If they went to a small-knit place, Armaan could have been easily spotted. At the beach, amongst countless people, and dusk approaching, they just may have the privacy they needed. It sounded ironic, privacy at the beach filled with people, but when there, who was looking out at others to see who else was at the beach? They'd just be minding their own business.

They walked silently at first, navigating through the wet spots, the vendors selling quick street food, and the groups and couples having an evening walk or sitting facing the beach, being romantic and all. Both wordlessly agreed on a place to sit at.

Riddhima looked out at the stretching horizon hearing the sounds of the gulls and the crashing waves. Dry sand sticking to her feet. Spreading her feet out, she rested back on her palms. She was looking up with squinted eyes towards the almost setting sun. She was taking in the surroundings when all the while, he was only looking at her. He desperately needed for her to say something instead of continue to stall it.

Still looking ahead, she broke the silence between them. "So, you and Nikita?"

He couldn't help himself from commenting, "Of all the things, that is what you want to talk about?" He didn't mind telling her of Nikita, but he would have preferred more important topics she could have picked from. There were plenty.

She smiled catching on to his meaning and turned her head in his direction. "Just trying to find a starting point, I guess." Even she would have liked to ask the questions running through her head about everything else she had read. Nikita simply seemed like a safe topic to start with before they got down to the nitty-gritty details that was bound to make her emotional.

He was quick to offer up, having nothing to hide. "Well, yes. Like you read, we did kiss. It didn't mean much and it certainly shouldn't have happened. She didn't remember the next day so I didn't tell her, but eventually I felt guilty for hiding it from her so I did tell her. I say it was for the better of our friendship."

"I'm honestly surprised you handled that maturely." She spoke that before she could think through what her statement could mean. At his silence, it clicked. He thought she was sarcastically pointing towards how he had handled it with her when they had kissed. "I didn't mean it like that."

"You can thank Muski for beating some sense into me." He decided it was best to just move on, believing she couldn't have had the intention of making him feel guilty for it.

Riddhima chuckled, topic turning light once again. "I actually believe that. Count on her to physically beat some sense into you."

He smiled as well, "Oh yeah. She did do that once or twice. In Nikki's case though, she didn't beat me up. Just scolded me, I guess."

Riddhima nodded in response, pulling her feet up and hugging her knees. "She's so violent, she really should have joined the military, follow her dad's footsteps. I don't get how Rahul handles her."

Armaan casually shrugged, "The guy is hopelessly in love with her."

"Right." It was the only response Riddhima could conjure up. A few passing seconds ticked by in silence as she kept searching her brain to fill in that said silence. Clearing her throat, she did find one. "Did you really hate Abhi that much?"

Armaan answered with a groan.

Riddhima laughed, "C'mon, he's not a bad guy! Why don't you like him? I'm surprised you didn't say anything to me during our phone calls when you hated him this much."

He answered, trying not to sound sad. "How could I? Even a fool like me could see how happy he made you... and back then, it's what you wanted. It's what I've always wanted for you... to be happy."

Once again, Riddhima had to be proud of his maturity. Putting his own feelings aside, he looked out for her. It's one of the things she'd always wished for.

With a sigh, he continued, "I hated him because I'd rather it be me that made you that happy."

Her eyes traveled to his hand resting in between their bodies, considering holding it, but decided otherwise. Looking back up at him, she expressed. "You did make me happy, Armaan. At first I might have been mad at you for forcing me into talking to you, but eventually I did start looking forward to them. I was doing my own things, but once in a while, it felt nice to go back to my roots."

A bit gingerly, he concluded. "Yeah, but he treated you a lot better than I, didn't he? I didn't like it, but I did get why you picked him over me."

She shifted so her body would be facing him as well while she said. "Stop that, I did not pick one over the other. Yes, he treated me in his own way, but that doesn't mean it was better than you. You are still the first guy I let into my life, the first guy to know me better than I know myself sometimes, the first and only guy who could've done something so adorable as to save all his pocket money for months to get me that guitar I casually said I liked, the only guy to see something in what I so immaturely wrote, the only guy to insist on teaching me self-defense not to be chauvinist but to make sure I wouldn't have to depend on anyone to save me, the guy to keep my secrets of what terrifies me, the guy I had my first dance with, the guy who encourages me to stand up for myself at every turn – even if it means standing up to you and all of this could have been because we grew up together but the best part of it all is that you are still the only guy to call me intelligent and its synonyms first and beautiful and its synonyms second. Armaan, you can't imagine how much of a confidence boost that can be for a girl to have a guy appreciate her for her brain instead of her looks. Most of all the other guys see me as pretty or hot, and smart second. You don't do that. You've never done that."

He lifted his hand, wiping off the lone tear trailing down her cheek as she was pouring her heart out. "Then all those guys are stupid for not seeing you the way I see you." The sun was setting, but the light with which he saw her would always glimmer even in the darkness.

She smiled at his mumble, leaning slightly into his palm just before they parted ways with her cheek again, "Exactly. You see, with you and others, there is no comparison. You'll always be the guy who has given me so much. No one else can come remotely close enough. It'd take me the whole night and more to just list every single of it... but just for starters, you gave me the most precious relationship of mines – Khushi. If you hadn't asked her to have me join you two in playing that first day, my life would have been so different."

She quickly paused, reminding herself to stay focused, for if she started talking of her childhood days again, it would turn into a huge lecture. "Even if we fought it for the longest and made each other miserable, you still made me understand what loving someone actually means. I might have had different firsts with Abhi, but Armaan, you will remain my first crush and thing about first crush... those feelings never truly go away."

"It would kill me if they did."

She admitted, "Me too."

Neither could imagine a life where loving the other wasn't a part of who they were.

===

With her eyes on Arnav and Khushi dancing on the yacht, Riddhima leaned back into Armaan's chest. She loved seeing this happiness returning in her friends' life. "That's going to be us next, you know?" Armaan started their side conversation speaking in quiet voices.

"Really now?" She arched a brow, tilting her head back to his sparkling ocean blue eyes.

"Oh yes."

She pulled her weight on her own heels and turned about sobering up from the champagne and the humor. "Armaan, you're not serious."

He was confused on why she would be surprised hearing this, "It's our future, Riddhima. Ofcourse I am serious."

"Yes, but Armaan, we've only been together for a few months now."

"Don't tell me you think this is rushed, Basket. We've both always known it was coming down the line, surely." He countered with a chuckle, though nervous at her insistence on why they wouldn't be getting married soon.

"Okay, can we not talk about this right now?" She asked feeling this conversation was jumped on her out of nowhere.

He knew that if he let it go right now, it would probably take weeks or months even for them to return to this topic and he wasn't willing to wait. This was important to him, as he figured it should be for her too. He needed her to know – he was in this for the long haul. He wasn't just in a relationship with her. He saw his entire future with her. And he knew, he knew she felt the same. So, he couldn't understand why.

"No, right now seems to be the time to talk about it. Why are you against this?"

She glanced around at all their friends and not wanting them to overhear, fearing it would escalate in an argument, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him to the opposite side of the yacht where it was quiet. "I'm not against this, Armaan. I just... how do I explain it to you. Okay, see – you are financially independent. Your career is set, well almost set. You're more than okay for someone your age. But I have yet to get there."

"Basket, you're on your way to be a doctor. What's a more secure future than that?"

"Yes, it is but I am not there yet, Armaan. I am not saying I need to financially independent and all too, but I am going to say that we can't get married while I am still in medical school. I can't think of being married, to you, a celebrity, while in school, and give importance to both us and studies and still be expected to maintain a social life. That's just too much. In medical school, there's not even time for yourself, let alone a relationship. Do you not see how we're already struggling to give each other time? Whenever we're together, one of us is almost always sleep deprived if we aren't running around like mad people to get stuff done."

He placed his hands on her shoulders to get her to breathe through all the logical points she was bringing up. even he had noticed how life was getting in the way of their relationship. They weren't able to give each other the time that was needed. The only reason their relationship was pulling through it was because they'd known each other their whole lives and they weren't going through the 'getting comfortable around each other' that couples went through in the initial phase of the relationship.

"Riddhima, it would be too much and I won't put you in a place where you'd be constantly overwhelmed..."

"But?"

He breathed out and voiced out his perspective, "But I want you, Riddhima. All of you. Just being my girlfriend isn't enough. I want everyone to know we're in this for the long run."

Momentarily, she misunderstood. "Wait, you want this because you want the world to know? Are you still stuck over the things that were written about me?"

He shook his head, "No, love. It's not what I meant. It came out wrong. What I meant is... I love you so damn much, so much that sometimes I think it hurts and I need you to be so much more than my girlfriend. That word... it doesn't feel right. It doesn't justify what we share. You're so much more to me."

"And you for me." She was quick to fall in line and assure him. "Armaan, I admit. Seeing Arnav and Khushi, seeing all of this, even I have thought of it. Us and marriage. But our time is not now."

"Who is to say that, Riddhima? Just because we haven't been together for more than a few months? Basket, we might as well have been together our whole lives."

"Armaan, listen to me and believe this please. I want to marry you, I do, but its just not going to happen before I am done with school." Her voice was tender but he caught the undertone. The finality of the decision.

But then, he also caught another meaning of those words that reached him to a compromise. "Then we'll get married after."

Her brows narrowed, suddenly startled at his agreement when she had been expecting another round of resistance and was ready with her ammunitions to argue back and make him see things her way.

He smiled in response, bringing his palm to her nape and thumb reaching up to caress her cheek. "But till then, there is no reason you can't be my fiancé."

===

He asked the big question, "So, what now?"

"You tell me." She left it on him, looking him right in the eyes. "I left before, and honestly, I think we both needed that. I wanted you to sort yourself out and for me to not be miserable all the time. We both needed to figure things out... and this time around, I'm here. I'm staying. And, I'm not worried because if we take the chance, this time I know it won't be just me in this relationship. It'll be the both of us, and it's how it should have been."

He agreed with every single word of his, but he had his own concerns. He didn't trust himself the way she did. "What if I mess up again? The last thing I want to do is hurt you again."

Her palm found its way to his, taking it in between her two hands. "Armaan, we've both learnt from our past mistakes. Are you willing to not take a risk just because the outcome could be uncertain? Look at it this way, at the end, we decide what happens."

"Will you do one thing for me?" He asked with hooded eyes filled with vulnerability. She nodded, urging him to go on. "Will you always be a friend first? Will you let me know anytime you start feeling that things between us are going back to how it was? Tell me everything honestly instead of sugarcoating to spare each other's feelings?"

He needed for her to agree to that, even if it meant having that conversation would be calling for a break up. They could do everything right, but in a matter of days, the world was going to know who she was. Under the pressure, he was afraid of how drastically things could change.

But, this was Riddhima. She even picked up on the words he hadn't said. "You're not going to go back to being that way, Armaan. You won't have me again."

"How can you be so sure?"

At first, she simply shook her head and leaned in to hug him. He was so vulnerable, she thought a hug would fix it all. Two seconds into the hug though, just as his hand rested on her back, she knew exactly what to say. "Because, tu mera Armaan hai." (You are my Armaan).

===

authors note:

Let the celebrations begin? One side, they're talking marriage and the past, they've cleared everything and gotten together! I honestly did not plan for the past and present to coalign in a chapter.. I had thought they might come in two different chapters (given I write the whole past in one document and the present scenes in another and combine both into a chapter afterwards.) Glad it turned out the way it did though!

Where do you stand on Riddhima's take on marriage? And your favorite line from their past conversation? Leave behind some comments and votes!

I will try to update next on Tuesday if I can write the next chapter by then.. Enjoy your days till then!