The World That Existed Only for Them - Part 6

 

Distance Without Departure

Change arrived quietly, the way it usually does.

Aarav’s site work increased. A new project meant longer hours and visits outside the district. He stopped coming to the office as often. When he did, it was hurried—files signed, calls taken mid-walk, mind already elsewhere.

Ananya noticed.

Not immediately. At first, she assumed timing hadn’t aligned. Then days passed. Then weeks.

She told herself it didn’t matter. People came and went. That was life.

Yet she began checking the corridor more often than she needed to. She lingered near the steps after work, even when her bus had already arrived. She didn’t wait for him—she simply wasn’t ready to leave.

One evening, she saw him again.

He looked thinner. Tired in a way that sleep doesn’t fix.

“You’ve been busy,” she said, as they walked together after a long time.

“Yes,” he replied. “This project… it’s important.”

She nodded. “Congratulations.”

“It’s not that kind of important,” he said, after a pause. “But it needs doing.”

They walked in silence.

“I thought you had stopped coming,” she admitted, surprising herself.

He looked at her then—not startled, but attentive. “I didn’t know you noticed.”

“I didn’t think I did,” she said honestly.

They didn’t speak of it again.

But something had shifted.

Distance had entered—not as separation, but as awareness. The kind that makes you realize that someone’s absence changes the weight of your day.

That night, Ananya found herself hoping his work would go well—not for success, not for recognition, but so that he would return to his usual self.

Aarav, miles away on site, caught himself wondering if she was still waiting for that appointment letter. The thought followed him longer than it should have.

Neither of them called it anything.

But both understood: this was no longer accidental.