Snow fell like whispers that day—quiet, slow, inevitable. The pines outside their hill cottage stood like quiet guards, draped in white. Meera stood on the wooden porch, her shawl fluttering slightly in the cold breeze, a worn leather-bound notebook in her hand. Her pen danced between her fingers like it had a rhythm of its own, a melody only she could hear.
Aarav watched her from the doorway, wrapped in two sweaters and a blanket she had knit the winter before. His camera hung loose around his neck. He wasn't the man he used to be—no longer broad and strong, no longer the energetic photographer who scaled rooftops for a shot. His face was thinner, his eyes deeper, yet somehow softer. But he still smiled like he had all the time in the world.
"You're going to freeze," he said, his voice raspy but playful, stepping outside and pressing a warm cup of ginger tea into her hands.
Meera took a slow sip, eyes still on the valley. "Let me finish this line. Don't scare the muse."
Aarav chuckled and leaned over to peek at her page. "Some endings come softly, like snow. But even snow melts in sunlight."
He raised an eyebrow. "You always write like you know how this story ends."
Meera shut the notebook gently. "Because we do, don't we?"
They never tiptoed around it. The cancer. It was there, silent but ever-present. In the calendar marked with doctor visits. In the little tray of pills by the bedside. In the worn paths between the porch and the kitchen. But it wasn't the center of their lives.
Love was.
They met in Delhi, two years ago. At a tiny art café hidden behind a crowded bazaar. Aarav's photography was on display—mostly black and white shots of street life. Faces, emotions, and stories caught mid-breath.
But what caught his attention was the poem beneath one of his photos. It wasn't part of the exhibit.
"Wait not for the train that never returns— But for the one that dares to leave with you."
Handwritten, in blue ink. Signed: Meera Kapoor.
He spotted her a few feet away. White kurta. Ink-stained fingers. A paper cup of chai cradled between her palms. Her eyes flicked between people and poems, like she belonged to another era.
"You wrote that?" he asked, approaching her.
"You clicked that?" she countered.
He nodded, smiling. "I think we made something together."
They laughed. Spoke for hours. Walked under fairy lights that stretched across narrow lanes. She told him she was a literature teacher. He told her he traveled to freeze fleeting moments. By the time they said goodnight, the air between them already felt like the beginning of a story.
Two months later, Aarav told her he loved her. She didn't say it back right away.
She waited a week.
And then, standing in his kitchen while making aloo parathas, she looked up and said, "I love you, Aarav. But I'll only say it once a day. So don't waste it."
From then on, he made it his morning ritual. "I love you," he'd whisper as she stirred her coffee. "I love you," as they brushed teeth together. "I love you," in the pauses between his camera clicks.
It was the pain that changed everything. A dull ache after meals. Nausea that wouldn't leave. Tests that took too long to arrive.
And then the diagnosis.
Stage 4. Terminal. Inoperable.
He was 28.
"I'm dying," he said softly, almost amused, as they sat on the hospital bed. He stared out the window, watching a child with a balloon struggle against the wind.
"No," Meera said, not blinking.
"You heard the doctor."
"Yes," she replied calmly. "And I also heard you're alive right now. So we start there."
He turned to look at her, stunned. "You don't have to stay."
"Don't insult me," she said quietly, eyes burning. "We don't abandon the people we love."
That night, she moved into his apartment.
And three weeks later, she found them a cottage in the hills. "If time is short," she said, "let's stretch it with quiet."
The cottage became their sanctuary. No traffic. No noise. Just wind, pine, and the occasional cow wandering too close to the porch. Meera decorated the cottage with old books, fairy lights, and handwritten quotes on the walls. Aarav began taking pictures again—of her. Only her.
They made a new kind of bucket list—not of places to visit, but things to feel.
* Watch the sunrise and sunset every day
* Plant a hundred trees
* Teach village kids how to read
* Record a documentary: "Love in Terminal Time"
* Say "I love you" daily
* Write letters to each other to open after death
Some days, Aarav could walk. Some days, he couldn't even eat. But Meera never left his side. On good days, they sang old Hindi songs in the kitchen. On bad days, she read him Neruda in bed. When he cried, she held his face like it was the last gift she'd ever received.
One evening, Aarav brought out a wooden box and placed it on the bed.
"What's this?" Meera asked, half-laughing.
He opened it. Inside were dozens of sealed envelopes, labeled with dates: Your first birthday without me, The day you publish your first book, When you miss me the most.
Her breath caught. "Aarav…"
"I want to stay with you, even after I go."
"You're not going anywhere."
He smiled softly. "Maybe not tomorrow. But eventually. I just want to leave behind something… more than photos."
The final envelope was labeled: Two days after I'm gone.
Meera touched it like it might burn. "Why two days?"
"You'll know when the time comes."
That night, Meera didn't sleep.
She lay beside him, counting the rise and fall of his chest like a hymn. She memorized every freckle, every wrinkle that had come in the last year. She whispered love stories into his dreams, hoping he'd carry them with him wherever he went.
Outside, the wind carried snowflakes to the earth.
Inside, their world was still full of warmth.
To be continued…..