SANDHYARANI PARASHAR
---
The rain was the kind that felt like the sky was confessing its sorrow.
A girl stood beside her car — stuck and helpless on a flooded road.
Lightning had knocked off her phone’s signal.
She looked around and called out, “Is anyone here?”
Aditya, driving by, stopped his car.
Without even looking at her face, he walked out in silence and began checking her car.
After figuring out the issue, he calmly said, “You can go safely now.”
She turned.
That was the first time he saw her face.
Bluish eyes — like a storm trying to become peace.
Hair — gold, not in color, but in calm.
A face — not beautiful, but unforgettable.
Time slowed.
Wind paused.
Rain blurred everything — except her.
She drove away.
He just stood, stunned.
That night, his words trembled out like a prayer.
“Rohan… I don’t know who she is,” Aditya whispered.
“But her eyes — they weren’t just eyes.
They were an answer to a longing I never admitted.”
A week later, Rohan came rushing in.
“Bhai… I found her. She comes to that café near the old church.”
The café buzzed softly. Then the door opened — and she walked in.
She wore a long ivory-white dress, soft as monsoon mist,
covered with tiny rose prints.
A silver chain held a teardrop pendant.
Her earrings — small roses in rusted gold — swayed gently with every step.
She didn’t try to be noticed.
But she was impossible to miss.
Aditya froze.
She passed by.
Glanced once — brief, but piercing.
They didn’t speak.
When she left, Rohan nudged him. “Just confess.”
The next morning, Aditya nodded.
“I’ll tell her today.”
Then suddenly —
“I forgot the roses!”
“Don’t worry,” Rohan said. “I’m coming.”
At the café, Aditya finally stood before her.
“I’m not good with words,” he said. “But if you let me, I’ll speak to you every day.
Will you be mine forever?
I promise to decorate your life with roses — real and spoken.”
She smiled.
“What’s your name?”
“Aditya. You can call me Adi.”
“You helped me that day, and you never even looked at me. That impressed me.
Then you kept coming... silently.”
“I didn’t have the courage,” he said. “You felt like a poem I wasn’t worthy of.”
“You’re speaking poetry now.”
They talked for hours.
Before leaving, Aditya smiled. “I want to tell my brother. He’ll be happier than me.”
He dialed.
-No answer.
Aditya chuckled softly. “Maybe he’s driving… or maybe he went to buy the roses I mentioned.
He’s the world’s best brother, you know?”
He looked at Ruhi with soft pride. “He’s all I have.
He’s not just my brother — he’s my family.”
He called again.
-Still no answer.
This time, he frowned.
Third call — the phone rang longer.
His smile faded.
His fingers trembled slightly as he lowered the phone.
A strange tightness grew in his chest.
“Maybe I should check at home…”
---
As they neared his home — a crowd.
Screams. A woman crying.
Aditya stopped the bike.
His heart suddenly clenched, as if it knew.
He stepped down. Legs trembling.
The roses he held — now shaking in his hands.
Pushing through people, he saw a car.
A black one. Familiar.
Then —
-A hand… hanging out the window.
Fingers smeared with blood.
A rose crushed inside the palm.
Aditya’s throat dried.
His chest screamed with unbearable pain.
His vision blurred — not from rain, but from the horror rising inside him like fire.
**“No… no, no, no…”**
He rushed forward — eyes begging to unsee what lay before him.
And then he saw him.
**Rohan.**
His baby brother.
His shadow.
Head tilted, lips parted, as if frozen mid-laugh.
His blood had painted the seatbelt red.
The box of roses — scattered all over the road like they were crying too.
Aditya fell to his knees.
**“Rohan…”**
His voice cracked. Not loud — just broken.
He crawled to him. Held his hand.
It was already cold.
“No… you were just talking to me… just this morning you smiled…
I needed you…”
People tried to pull him back.
He didn't let go.
“I asked you to bring roses…
Not yourself into this…
You weren’t supposed to go like this…”
He pressed his forehead to Rohan’s chest.
No heartbeat.
“I didn’t even say thank you...”
The sky above him cracked with thunder —
as if even God couldn’t bear the silence between brothers now.
---
Three months passed.
But time didn’t move for Aditya.
It just… existed.
Sleep mocked him.
Food turned to ash.
The house whispered Rohan’s laughter — and then his silence.
But nothing silenced the voice in his head:
“You loved her more than me, bhai?”
“Would you have died for her… like I did?”
He screamed,
“No! She’s nothing! Come back… please…”
Each night, he sat with the roses Rohan never gave.
Each dawn, Rohan’s name still lived in his throat.
Some nights, he stood where it happened.
Bloodstains — still there in his eyes.
He wasn’t just grieving his brother.
He was grieving who he used to be.
---
Then — a knock.
Aditya didn’t move at first.
He wasn’t expecting anyone.
But something about that knock…
familiar, hesitant — like someone unsure whether they’d be welcomed or not.
He opened the door.
And froze.
**Ruhi.**
For a second, time refused to move.
She stood there, soaked in drizzle, her body thin, trembling.
But her presence — still fragilely fierce.
Aditya’s breath hitched.
His eyes widened.
He hadn’t imagined seeing her again.
She looked… changed.
Like someone who had been quietly falling apart.
Her bluish eyes — once wild with magic — now carried dark circles.
Her lips were dry.
Hair, unevenly chopped.
Glow — gone.
But it was her.
And he was stunned.
Before he could say anything, she whispered:
**“Will you marry me?”**
“No,” he said, voice heavy, back turned.
“Then at least look at me,” she pleaded.
He turned.
She trembled.
“I love you,” he whispered. “But I’m just surviving.
If there’s a next life, let me come only for you.”
She cried.
“Don’t leave me.
I’ll speak until you hear me.
I’ll sing until you sleep.
I’ll wait.”
He placed her hand on his heart.
**“Always.”**
Then softly:
“Can you die for me?”
She froze.
And he said:
“…Because my brother did.”
That night, the rain returned — not gentle, but furious.
The sky cracked like something divine was breaking.
Ruhi, alone behind the wheel, sped down the winding road.
Her breath was uneven.
Her hands trembling on the steering.
Tears blurred the headlights.
The radio played a love song — soft, ironic, cruel.
She gripped the wheel tighter and screamed into the storm,
her voice hoarse, but rising:
“He asked me if I could die for him!”
Silence.
The wipers sliced through the rain, again and again —
but nothing could clear what her heart held.
Her knuckles went white.
She screamed louder:
“And I said nothing!”
The thunder answered.
“But YES! YES, Aditya!”
She hit the accelerator.
Faster.
Tears mixing with the rain.
Her scream echoing through the dark road,
through the sky,
through fate.
And then — silence again.
Only the engine humming.
The storm watching.
And a girl driving straight into it.
---
Morning.
Her bag. Forgotten.
Inside: a silver key. An address.
He didn’t want to go.
Didn’t want more pain.
But something pulled him.
A quiet apartment.
He opened the door.
Every wall — covered in him.
Photos. Diaries. Drawings of him.
Letters. Songs. His name.
“You didn’t just love me,” he whispered.
“You lived me.”
He sat on the floor.
“Rohan… I’m sorry.
I know I asked her — ‘Can you die for me?’
But now I don’t want the answer.
I just want her.
I’m tired of punishing myself.
I want to feel everything again.
I want to live.
Forgive me… I want to live with her.”**
He bought fresh roses.
While driving, he imagined her beside him.
“Ruhi… I’m sorry.
Let’s live this life.
Not wait for the next birth.
Just come back.
Let’s restart. Let’s live.”
He reached the river.
He stepped out.
Breathless.
Looked everywhere.
“Ruhi?” he called.
“Are you here?”
He searched like someone chasing the last breath of life.
A rose petal beneath his shoe.
Then — a car.
Hers.
Slowly surfacing.
And then — a body.
Her hair floated.
Her name drowned.
Ruhi.
Aditya fell to his knees.
The roses slipped from his hands.
He stared at the sky and whispered:
“God… I asked her a question.
She answered it.
But tell me…
Was it necessary for her to answer?”
No reply.
Just silence.
And everything faded out.
And the wind whispered
" love me in next birth"
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