A Season for Hearts

The first time Leena met Arman, the sky was blushing — streaked with soft gold and pink, like the heavens had opened their diary and spilled secrets into the clouds.

She was sketching on the pier, barefoot, her legs dangling over the edge, toes grazing the warm air just above the water. Her sketchpad was full of unfinished sunrises, waves, and strangers' eyes. Then came the voice.

“You forgot the shadows,” he said, pointing at her half-finished sailboat. His voice was calm, but held a quiet confidence, like he belonged to the ocean.

She looked up, annoyed at first, but then saw him — lean, with salt-tousled hair, a camera slung around his neck, and eyes that didn’t just look at her drawing, but saw it.

“I’ll add the shadows,” she said, closing the book. “After I meet the light.”

From that day, the summer turned into something else.

They met every afternoon. Sometimes they wandered the beach collecting driftwood and sea glass. Other days they sat in silence, back-to-back, she drawing and he photographing. At night, they lay on the sand, pointing at constellations and making up stories that always seemed to end in love or heartbreak — as if the stars had written both into their souls.

Leena didn’t ask him why he always looked at the sky like he was listening to it. Arman didn’t ask her why her drawings always had something missing.

They weren’t trying to fix each other.

They were just... there.

In the moment. In the magic.

One evening, the sky turned violet. They sat beneath it, sharing a blanket and a bowl of cut mangoes. The air smelled like salt and sunburnt sand.

“I leave in two weeks,” he said, quietly.

Leena didn’t react. She kept sketching, her pencil moving slower now.

“Back to the city. Work. Deadlines. Noise.” He paused. “I hate it.”

She finally looked at him. “Then stay.”

His lips curved into a sad smile. “I want to. But life doesn’t pause just because we’re happy.”

She nodded, pretending not to feel the sting in her chest.

“But we’ll write,” he added quickly. “Call. Visit.”

“We won’t,” she said, with a smile that trembled like the tide.

And they didn’t.

The summer ended, and with it, the easy rhythm of stolen afternoons and wordless connection.

Leena stayed. She finished her art degree. Opened a studio by the pier.

Every year, during the first week of July — the week they met — she returned to the same spot on the pier and sketched the sky. Not the sea. Not people. Just the sky.

Because that was where their story lived now.

In the sky that whispered promises in pastel hues. In the clouds that floated like memories. In the silence between the stars.

Ten summers later, she stood on the same pier, sketching a particularly stubborn sunset. The clouds wouldn’t hold their shape and the light kept shifting. She frowned.

A voice spoke beside her — calm, familiar.

“You still forget the shadows.”

Her heart stopped.

She turned slowly, as if afraid the moment would vanish like mist.

There he was.

Older. Broader. Kinder eyes.

“Arman?” she whispered.

“I was walking the beach,” he said, stepping closer. “Didn’t even know why. Then I saw your hair. And the way you draw like you're talking to the sky.”

She laughed. A single, small laugh full of disbelief and relief. Her hands trembled. He took them.

“You stayed in the sky,” he said. “And I finally came home.”

She didn’t need to ask where he had been. Or why it took ten years. The sky had already told her — every summer, in its quiet, golden way.

And now, the sky whispered again.

But this time, she whispered back.