He entered my life at its darkest

I was lonely.

And perhaps that was the most honest thing about me then.

I didn’t need someone to save me. I needed someone to stay.

Someone who would make me feel that I mattered. That my existence wasn’t just another name on the long list of people life could do without.

So I asked him to stay and he not only stayed but showed me a new world. A world full of love and belongingness.

People had come into my life before. They arrived with warmth, stayed for a season, became important—and then, almost inevitably, left.

Some people are like rain.

They arrive when the earth is thirsty.
They make everything smell new.
For a while, they make everything feels so beautiful.

And then the clouds move on.

I thought he would too.

That was my expectation. Nothing grand. Nothing permanent.

Just another beautiful season passing through.

Until one day, the season began to change.

And he said goodbye.

I cried.

Not because I didn’t know goodbyes. I was actually quite good at them. I had mastered the art of letting people go before they got the chance to leave me.

But this time was different.

I didn’t understand why he mattered so much.

Perhaps that is the inconvenient thing about love.

It doesn’t arrive with an explanation.

There is no notification saying:

“Congratulations. You are now emotionally attached. There is no cancellation policy.”

I confessed my fears.

I confessed what I wanted.

I told him I wanted him to stay.

Usually, I am strong. I let people go with a dignity that sometimes looks suspiciously like indifference.

But this time, I didn’t want to be dignified.

I wanted to be honest.

And perhaps honesty is the most frightening form of vulnerability.

So I spoke my mind.

I spoke my truth.

And he stayed.

For a while, I wondered whether I had imagined the whole thing.

Whether this was love.

Or loneliness wearing the perfume of love.

Whether it was desire.

Or simply two people finding warmth in the same cold season.

I still don’t know.

Maybe I don’t need to.

I grew up watching movies like Bombay,Veer Zaara, where love happened in unexpected way , between people who are not supposed to be together. The movie dramatizes  the whole beyond religion love concept. You fail to understand the reason of such forbidden love at that age and dismiss it to that fact that all this is for boxoffice hits.

Now I know better.

You don’t always find love. Sometimes love finds you.

And usually, it is at the most unexpected time and unexpected person and unexpected way.

It doesn’t ask whether the timing is convenient.

It doesn’t care about your carefully constructed plans, your boundaries, your logic or your beautifully organised emotional filing system.

It simply happens.

And by the time you realise what has happened, you’re already too deep to pretend you don’t care.

The season changed.

This love survived that season.

I still don’t know whether it was love, belongingness,loneliness, or some beautifully complicated combination of all three.
Some fruits are called forbidden and it should remain forbidden.

I don’t know what consequences come with choosing them.

I only know this:

I want this in my life.

Because a life without love is still a life.
But it is a life slightly under-lived.

Like reading a book and stopping just before the best chapter.

Like standing at the window while it rains and refusing to step outside because you are afraid of getting wet.

And if life has given me the strange, unexpected privilege of having someone to love, who am I to withdraw my feelings simply because the story doesn’t come with guarantees?

I don’t want guarantees anymore.

I want moments.

I want the conversations that make midnight disappear.

I want the comfort of knowing that somewhere, someone exists who makes this enormous world feel a little less lonely.

I don’t know how long this will last.

Maybe seasons have their own plans.

Maybe people do too.

But for once, I don’t want to live in anticipation of the goodbye.

I don’t want to love with one foot already outside the door.

I want to stay.

I want him to stay.

And perhaps that is what growing  has taught me—

not every season needs to become forever to be real.

But some seasons make you brave enough to ask for forever.

And this time…

I want something beyond seasons.