The Echo of Your Footsteps

The bookstore smelled of aged paper and nostalgia, a scent I had always found comforting. The soft chime of the entrance bell faded into the quiet hum of rustling pages and the occasional murmur of other visitors. It was my haven, a place where time felt suspended.

But tonight, time jolted back to life.

Because as I reached for a book on the top shelf, another hand touched mine.

A familiar hand.

I froze. Slowly, I turned my head, and there she was. Aanya.

Her name still echoed in my mind like an unfinished melody. It had been six years, yet the moment our eyes met, I felt like no time had passed at all.

She looked the same—yet different. Her dark hair was shorter now, framing her face in soft waves. She wore a deep green coat, the color she always loved. But it was her eyes that held me captive. They carried the weight of years, of unsaid words, of moments lost between us.

"Aanya," I breathed.

Her lips parted slightly, as if she, too, was struggling to believe this moment was real. "Rehan."

Silence stretched between us. Outside, the autumn wind howled against the windows, rattling them gently, as if urging us to speak.

"You still love poetry," she finally said, glancing at the book between us—Pablo Neruda’s collection of love poems.

"And you still reach for the same stories," I replied, noticing the novel in her other hand. It was the same one she had made me read all those years ago.

A small, sad smile touched her lips. "Some things don’t change."

But we had.

The last time I saw Aanya, we had been standing at a train station, much like the characters in the stories we loved. She was leaving, chasing dreams in a city far from ours, and I had let her go. Not because I wanted to, but because I thought it was the right thing to do.

She had promised to write. I had promised to wait.

Neither of us had kept those promises.

I cleared my throat, forcing my thoughts back to the present. "Are you—are you back for good?"

She hesitated, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "No. Just visiting. My father isn’t well. I came to be with him for a while."

I nodded, processing the reality of it. She wasn’t back to stay. This was just another fleeting moment, another stolen chapter in our unfinished story.

"How have you been?" she asked softly.

How was I supposed to answer that? Should I tell her about the nights I spent staring at old letters I never sent? About the way her absence had hollowed me out, leaving spaces no one else could fill?

Or should I just smile and say, "I’m doing well"?

Before I could decide, she spoke again. "I always wondered… what would’ve happened if we had fought harder for us."

The confession lingered between us, heavy and bittersweet.

I exhaled, rubbing the back of my neck. "Me too."

Aanya looked down at the book in her hands, tracing its spine with her fingers. "Maybe we were never meant to last, Rehan. Maybe we were just—" She paused, searching for the right words. "A beautiful beginning with no ending."

I wanted to tell her that wasn’t true. That even after all these years, she still existed in the spaces between my breaths.

But the words remained stuck in my throat.

Instead, I smiled faintly. "Then why does it still feel like we never really ended?"

Her eyes softened, glistening with something unsaid. "Maybe because some people leave, but they never really go."

The bookstore speaker crackled to life, announcing that the shop was closing soon. Aanya glanced at the time.

"I should go," she murmured.

I nodded, though every part of me wanted to ask her to stay a little longer.

She hesitated for a second before stepping closer. And then, in a moment so brief yet eternal, she reached up and pressed a soft kiss to my cheek.

"Goodbye, Rehan," she whispered.

And just like that, she turned and walked away.

I stood there, listening to the echo of her footsteps until they disappeared beyond the door.

Maybe she was right. Maybe we were never meant to last.

But as I ran my fingers over the worn pages of Neruda’s poetry, I realized something—she had never truly left.

Not from my heart. Not from the pages of my story.

Some love stories don’t need an ending.

Some love stories simply exist, forever suspended between the pages of time.