Maithili.

It's been six years—six long, aching years—since I last saw her. I stopped showing up around the time she got married. But for a while, I couldn't help myself. I counted the days since I last saw her, stalked her father to their new home, lingered at the edge of their new colony, just far enough away to not be seen but close enough to catch a glimpse of her.

She always looked different. New scars carved into her skin, bruises blooming like wilted flowers on her face every time too much time had passed.

She hardly got outside. She never looked up when she did. When she stood in line for rations, she wasn't looking at the world around her; she was looking through it, past it, as if she didn't belong to it anymore.

I'd fight the pull to run to her. Fight the ache that whispered, Tell her. Tell her that none of this was supposed to touch her. Tell her I never wanted her to pay the price for my mistakes. Tell her I'd give everything, be everything, to make up for what I'd done—for the rest of our lives, if that's what it took.

But I didn't.

Then I got selected for the IPM at IIM. And just like that, I stopped haunting her streets. Stopped looking for her in the places she used to be.

I meet her eyes—deep brown and achingly familiar, the kind that can pull you straight back to a time when life felt simple and happiness felt easy. But the face around those eyes has changed. Her cheeks are hollow, her skin stretched thin, her slick black hair pulled back into a long braid. She looks smaller, frailer than the eighteen-year-old I last saw. Like life has spent the years since then trying to whittle her down.

'May God put his soul to rest!' A frail woman in her mid-fifties stands beside Maithili, smacking her lips and dabbing at her mouth to wipe the trace of dal with her dupatta. She folds her hands in a quick namaste, then gestures for Maithili to follow.

Maithili looks at me for a moment—a second longer than she should—before her gaze drops. She wraps her fingers around the edge of her dupatta, her face quickly recovering from any sign of the shock from our unexpected encounter.

I fold my hands in return, my mouth a hard, unyielding line. I watch as she falls into step behind the woman, quiet and obedient, like a shadow or a pet on an invisible leash.

The sight burns, and before I know it, the instinct rises—her name, caught in my throat, desperate to break free. I almost call it out, the reflex so startling after all these years that it leaves me frozen for a beat. I swallow it back, scanning the crowd instead. My eyes land on Himansh Kaka, our driver.

'Quick, follow them. I want their location,' I say, barely waiting for his response before he moves. I watch him weave through the gathering, his pursuit mirroring my racing heart.

I glance back at the folded hands, sombre faces, and murmured reassurances of peace—the quiet my father was said to have found in death. But I know better. Words mean nothing. They hold no weight, no substance. It's actions that matter. People that matter. And in that department, my family—myself included—has failed time and time again.

It's late in the evening when Himansh Kaka finds me in my study. He explains, in his calm, measured way, that they had come on foot, so he had to follow them on foot, which took time.

I sit there, rolling the scrap of paper with the address between my fingers, waiting for a feeling to settle—something warm, something that pulls at my chest and whispers the word: home.

Home. I didn't really understand that word until I met Maithili. Her home wasn't just a place; it was a feeling. A soft, steady embrace. A quiet corner of the world where I could let my guard down, where I could be exactly who I was and nothing more. I'd never felt that before her. I haven't felt it since.

Methi Paratha girl. I taste the words on my tongue, and before I know it, a small smile is tugging at my lips.

I pull out my phone and open the messages on the number I'd once saved as Maithili's. It's probably been disconnected for years, but the messages always deliver, even if no response ever comes back. Over time, the chat box became less a conversation and more a journal, a place where I let myself feel the things I didn't know how to say anywhere else.

The last entry stares back at me—a half-finished poem. I'd written it in a moment of longing, or maybe regret, but I never managed to finish it.

I met you like an enemy
I knew you like a friend
I lost you like a lover
...
(note: follow abcb)

I read the words again, turning them over in my mind, letting them settle somewhere deep. Then my eyes fall to the address note in my hand, the ink smudged slightly from where my fingers have been gripping it too hard.

And just like that, the last line comes to me and I finish the stanza:

I met you like an enemy
I knew you like a friend
I lost you like a lover
I found you like the end

'I found you like the end,' I whisper. 'Inevitably.'