“Aryan!”
I blink. She’s staring at me from across the room now.
“What?”
“Stop staring at me like a Victorian man seeing ankles for the first time and help me.”
I grin instantly. “There’s my girl.” Her cheeks go pink immediately. Still. After one whole year. I walk toward her slowly, stopping right in front of her until she has to tilt her head back slightly to look at me.
“You nervous, Sunshine?”
“No.”
“You reorganized this table four times.”
“It was ugly four times.”
I laugh softly. She exhales dramatically before glancing around the studio again. And for the first time since morning, I seeit. Real, overwhelming emotion sitting quietly in her eyes. Her throat moves slightly before she says, quieter this time, “Do you think people will actually come?”
The question lands somewhere deep inside me. Because I know what she’s really asking.
Will people choose me?
Will I finally have something that stays?
I take the clipboard from her hands and set it aside before pulling her closer by the waist. “They would be stupid not to.”
“Aryan.”
“I’m serious.”
Her fingers curl lightly into my shirt. “I still feel like this could disappear,” she admits softly. “Sometimes I wake up and think maybe I imagined all of this.”
I brush a strand of hair behind her ear carefully. “You built this.” Her eyes flicker. “You stayed,” I continue quietly. “You fought for yourself. You let people love you.” I smile a little. “That last one was very difficult for you, by the way.”
She rolls her eyes but they shine suspiciously. “I’m still difficult.”
“You are.” I kiss her forehead lightly. “But now you’re difficult and emotionally attached to me.”
“That sounds unfortunate.”
“For you maybe.” A laugh escapes her then.
The opening goes better than any of us expect. By evening the studio is full. Clients. Friends. People move around admiring her work while she stands there trying to pretend she isn’t internally combusting every time someone compliments her. I catch her smiling more today than she used to in entire months. And every single time it feels like witnessing something precious. Ma practically adopts the staff. Radhika posts approximately nine hundred stories. Vedant sits in one corner acting like he’s too cool to care while secretly telling everyone “yeah she did all this herself actually.”
And Dheer—He never tries to take space that isn’t his. But I see him watching her quietly from afar sometimes with this expression that almost hurts to look at. Like pride mixed with regret. Like he still cannot believe he gets to see her at all. At one point she walks over to hand him coffee. Their conversation is short. Awkward in places. But then he says something that makes her snort softly before shaking her head. And for some reason that tiny moment punches straight through my chest. Because a year ago she thought she had nobody. Now she has people everywhere.
Hours later, after everyone slowly begins leaving and the studio finally quiets down, Ishika drops into the chair near the reception desk with an exhausted groan. “I think my soul left my body at some point.”
I walk toward her holding two cups of coffee. “You survived.”
“Barely.”
“You threatened a customer because he called beige boring.”
“He deserved it.”
I hand her the coffee and she takes it immediately, mumbling a tired thank you before taking a sip. There’s a softness to her tonight. And suddenly my heartbeat becomes unbearably loud. Because I know. I’ve known for months. Exactly how I want this night to end. She glances around the studio one more time, eyes lingering on every little detail she worked for.
