love

The first time Aarav saw Mira, she was dancing in the rain.

Not performing, not trying to be seen—just dancing. Spinning barefoot on a muddy patch of earth behind the college library, hair soaked, face turned to the sky, eyes closed. The world around her moved like chaos—horns blaring, students rushing, thunder threatening—but she looked like peace. And peace was something Aarav hadn't felt in years.

He stood there, holding his books, forgotten in his arms, while the storm drenched him too. When she opened her eyes and saw him staring, she laughed—not mockingly, but like she was inviting him to join in.

And somehow, he did.

That day marked the beginning.

At first, it was small things—walking to class together, stealing bites from each other’s lunch, passing notes during boring lectures. Mira was color where Aarav had only known gray. She talked about everything—the books she loved, the people she missed, the dreams she chased like stars. And slowly, she pulled him out from behind the quiet, cautious walls he’d built around himself.

Aarav was all logic and plans, raised in a house where affection was something you earned, not something freely given. Mira loved with ease, like it was the most natural thing in the world. She hugged friends like she hadn’t seen them in years, cried at happy endings, and smiled like sunlight. At first, he didn’t understand it.

But he learned. For her.

One evening, they sat by the lake after classes, legs dangling over the edge of the old wooden dock. The sun was setting in ribbons of orange and pink, and Mira was tracing circles on his palm.

"Do you believe in soulmates?" she asked, quietly.

Aarav thought for a long moment before answering. "I didn’t. But now… maybe."

She smiled. “I think love is life. Like, not just romance, but the act of loving. Loving people, loving moments. That’s what makes everything worth it.”

He looked at her, this girl who saw magic in the mundane, and for the first time, he felt like he was exactly where he was meant to be.

But life has a cruel sense of timing.

It started with headaches. Mira brushed them off. Then came the dizzy spells, the fainting. And then the hospital visits. The diagnosis came like a quiet bomb: a rare neurological disorder. Not fatal, they said—but no cure. The flare-ups would come and go. Some days she’d be fine, others she’d feel like she couldn’t move without falling apart.

Aarav sat beside her on the hospital bed, hands shaking, heart sinking. She looked at him, calm as ever.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “I’m still me. Just slightly malfunctioning.”

He laughed through the tears. "You’re ridiculous."

“You love that about me.”

“I do.”

And he meant it.

The months that followed tested them both. College turned into hospital corridors. Dates turned into waiting rooms. Mira hated being seen as weak. Aarav hated feeling helpless. But they held on—sometimes tightly, sometimes barely at all, but they held on.

One day, after a long, quiet stretch in her recovery, Aarav took her back to the lake. It was early spring. The trees were blooming like they had something to prove.

He knelt on one knee, holding a tiny silver ring.

“I don’t know what tomorrow looks like,” he said, voice trembling. “But I want to face every one of them with you.”

Mira blinked, then laughed through her tears. “You really are terrible at speeches.”

“Is that a yes?”

She threw her arms around him. “Of course, yes.”

They married in a small garden with fairy lights and old friends. She wore flowers in her hair. He couldn’t stop smiling.

Years passed. Some harder than others. Mira’s condition never fully faded, but they learned to live around it. They built a home filled with books and music and soft lighting. They adopted a cat named Whiskey who never listened. They learned to dance slowly, to speak softly, to treasure mornings when nothing hurt.

Aarav became a writer. His first book was dedicated simply: To the girl who danced in the rain.

Mira painted. Not for galleries, but for their living room walls. Each piece was a memory—of places they’d been, faces they loved, moments that mattered.

One night, long after their hair turned gray and their hands wrinkled from time, they sat together by the same lake, older but still in love.

“Do you still believe love is life?” Aarav asked, gently.

Mira leaned her head on his shoulder. “Now more than ever.”

He kissed her forehead. “Then I’ve lived a full life.”

She smiled, eyes reflecting the starlight above them. “Me too.”