Chapter 4 – The Rainy Day
654 Words
The sky had been restless all morning, heavy clouds drifting across the city like unspoken thoughts. By afternoon, the inevitable arrived—rain poured down in a steady sheet, drumming against windows, flooding the streets, painting everything in shades of silver and grey.
Kavya stood beneath the awning outside her office, clutching her umbrella. It had broken two days ago, and she hadn’t had time to replace it. Now, watching the storm, she realized she had no choice but to wait it out.
But the rain showed no mercy. Minutes stretched, then half an hour. People rushed by with umbrellas and raincoats, while she lingered at the edge, unwilling to ruin her papers and laptop bag.
“Still deciding if you want to run for it?”
The voice startled her. Deep, calm, familiar.
She turned—and there he was. Aryan. His coat was damp at the shoulders, hair slightly tousled from the rain, but his presence was steady, like always. He held an umbrella in one hand, effortlessly commanding the small circle of shelter it provided.
Kavya’s lips parted in surprise. “Aryan… what are you doing here?”
“Meeting nearby,” he said simply. His eyes softened as they flicked to the rain, then back to her. “And you?”
“Work.” She lifted her bag helplessly. “And now I’m stranded.”
His brow furrowed slightly, as if the idea of her standing here alone in the storm unsettled him. Then, without hesitation, he shifted closer and tilted the umbrella toward her.
“Come.”
Kavya blinked. “What?”
He extended the umbrella just enough to cover them both. “You’ll be drenched otherwise.”
For a moment, she hesitated. The closeness, the intimacy of sharing such a small space with him—it was more than she had prepared for. But the rain showed no mercy, and something in his steady gaze pushed her past her reluctance.
“Thank you,” she murmured, stepping beneath the umbrella.
The world narrowed to the two of them—the steady drum of rain, the faint warmth of his shoulder so close to hers, the quiet rhythm of his footsteps beside her. Their arms brushed occasionally, sending little shocks through her.
Neither spoke for a while. Yet the silence wasn’t awkward. It was filled with awareness, with the fragile electricity of a bond forming in the smallest of moments.
Finally, Kavya found her voice. “You didn’t have to.”
Aryan glanced at her, his expression unreadable. “I did.”
Something in the way he said it made her chest tighten. She wanted to ask why, to pull at the threads of his silence until his truths spilled out. But she didn’t. Instead, she let the moment linger, let herself feel the rare care he showed so effortlessly.
They stopped at the crosswalk, waiting for the signal. Kavya risked a glance upward. A drop of rain slipped from the edge of the umbrella and landed on Aryan’s cheek. Without thinking, she reached up with her sleeve and brushed it away.
The gesture was small, instinctive. Yet when their eyes met, the world stilled.
Aryan’s gaze darkened, not with anger, but with something deeper—something he seemed unwilling to name. For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. The rain roared louder around them, but inside the umbrella’s fragile shelter, everything was quiet.
The light changed. They crossed.
When they reached her building, Kavya turned to him, reluctant to leave. “Thank you… for walking me.”
His jaw tightened slightly, as though holding back words he wanted to say. “Take care, Kavya.”
Her name on his lips felt like a secret, spoken gently, almost reverently.
As she watched him walk away into the rain, her heart whispered what her lips could not:
She was falling. And he—despite his silence—was letting her.
- Writer
