Hiya returned to the Basu residence just as the sun dipped low, spilling gold across the threshold like a silent blessing.
She stepped out of the car slowly, the air cool against her skin, Dev's jacket draped over her shoulders — warm, oversized, scented faintly of him. He had wrapped it around her earlier. Said nothing. Just did it.
Inside, the house felt too bright, too alive.
Riddhi rushed toward her, arms outstretched like a mother bird.
"My baby bunny is home!" she cried, cupping Hiya's cheeks, brushing away the tiredness with kisses and laughter.
Hiya managed a smile. Soft. Fragile. Her eyes, despite everything, scanned the room — not for comfort, but for him, even though he had just been beside her seconds ago.
But Dev had vanished.
That evening, he didn't sit near her.
He didn't speak much.
But he was everywhere.
A hand at her back as she climbed the stairs. Fingers grazing hers as he passed her a glass. Eyes — always his eyes — watching, like a tide just before it crashes.
He hovered without presence.
Spoke without sound.
Touched without claiming.
Every small gesture carried the weight of something… undone. A storm not yet named.
That night, Riddhi tucked her in with jokes and a kiss on the forehead. But it was Dev who returned after the lights were out — his silhouette lingering in the doorway.
He didn't enter.
He just left a flask of warm milk on her side table, and a quiet voice filtered through the half-open door:
"Keep the window shut. You catch colds too easily."
And then he was gone.
Hiya lay there — eyes wide in the dark, the blanket pulled to her chin. Her heart fluttered like pages in wind. His jacket still hugged her shoulders like a second skin. Her breath grew warm, thick with a desire she didn't yet know how to name.
Why did his silence feel louder than most men's promises?
Why did his nearness make her body still, then tremble?
That night, she dreamed of him.
Not kissing.
Not confessing.
Just looking at her — with that quiet intensity, like she was the only warmth he needed in a cold world.
She woke up breathless. And flushed.
The next day, Dev was everywhere.
He poured her juice.
Adjusted the cushion behind her.
Opened doors before she could reach them.
She was grateful, confused, giddy. And when she murmured,
"Thank you, Dev da,"
he turned — not sharply, but with something burning low behind his gaze.
"Don't call me that," he said.
She blinked. "Then what should I call you?"
He looked at her — long, lingering. The moment stretched between them like pulled silk.
"Call me whatever you like," he said. "Just… don't look at me like that."
"Like what?"
But he'd already turned away — leaving her cheeks aflame, and something deeper stirring in her chest.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, Mira sat upright in her bed — cheeks pale, pride bruised, her eyes gleaming like glass about to shatter. She hadn't seen Dev in days.
And he hadn't replied to a single message.
Because Dev wasn't thinking of her.
He stood in his father's study that morning — shoulders squared, voice steady.
"Baba, I want to marry Hiya."
There was a pause. A slow look from the man who had raised him with both reason and warmth.
"You're sure?"
"I've never been more sure of anything," Dev replied. "But… let her finish college. I'll wait. Years, if I have to."
His father's lips curved, faintly — approval hidden beneath restraint.
"Then you have my blessing. But this stays between us."
Dev nodded. "Good. I want it to be a surprise."
Back home, Hiya sat curled by the window, her fingers playing with the hem of a sweater she found tucked in her closet — one that smelled of worn pages, old soap, and him.
She didn't know what he had promised.
But she felt it — in the way his gaze lingered at her doorway.
In the brush of his fingers as he handed her the spoon.
In the storms he carried into a room and never let break.
The love he hadn't spoken.
But bled through every silence.
She didn't yet know what name to give this ache in her chest.
But this time…
She wasn't running from it.
She pulled his sweater closer, closed her eyes.
And for the first time since her world had gone quiet —
she let her heart speak,
even if only in silence.