The room existed somewhere between light and shadow, lit only by a candle. The power outage had darkened the house, but the candle did what it could, spilling its warm yellow light across the room, its flame flickering every few seconds. Somehow, the room seemed warmer and cozier than it ever had beneath the harsh brightness of LED lights.

Rounds of laughter and conversations expressing thoughts, happiness, and confusion seemed to flow more freely than they usually did on ordinary days. The room, usually bright in every corner and alive with the glow of screens, now had only the small flame between them, barely reaching beyond the faces gathered around it. Yet somehow, in that limited light, the conversations seemed to stretch further. Without the constant pull of a screen, words found their way from one person to another, pauses were filled with glances instead of scrolling, and thoughts that might have been lost in the noise of technology were given a moment to linger.

Eyes crinkled with deep smiles and laughter, yet they remained warm and affectionate. He looked at her, blinking twice. She looked ethereal beneath the flickering candlelight, her brown eyes shining like amber caught in a flame, holding the softest traces of gold whenever she turned toward the light. Her hair shone as it cascaded softly across her shoulder while she talked about the stress of her work life. He hummed along with quiet words of acknowledgement, the kind he knew she wanted to hear.

His heart clenched. He had seen her every day, from the beginning of the day to its end, but had he ever appreciated the beauty placed before him? He hadn’t. She turned, smiling softly as she felt his stare. He smiled back without a thought, without a care that the awe in his eyes was speaking to her in ways words never could. There were no words, yet the warmth that settled over her heart was something she could never explain. Not now, not ever.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

The world around them continued as it always did—the distant hum of vehicles, the rustle of leaves, the faint sound of footsteps passing by but somehow, it all seemed to fade into the background. There was only her. And him. And the quiet understanding that lingered between them. She looked away first, a faint blush settling across her cheeks. 

She tried to hide the smile threatening to betray her, lowering her gaze as though the ground had suddenly become far more interesting. He noticed. Of course he noticed. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. He didn’t say anything, afraid that even a single word might break the quietness settling between them. She glanced at him again.

“What?” she asked, a little amused, finally having a little courage to speak, ask.

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been staring at me for a while.”

“Have I?” she nodded, trying not to smile. He looked away for a moment, almost embarrassed at being caught. “I was listening.”

“To what?”

“To you.”

She laughed softly. “I haven’t said anything for the past five minutes.”

“I know.”

“Then what were you listening to?” He looked back at her.

“Nothing.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, clearly unconvinced. He smiled. The candle flickered between them, casting shifting shadows across her face. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The silence wasn’t uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that came from knowing someone well enough that words weren't always necessary. She leaned back slightly, resting her head against the wall.

“You know,” she said quietly, “I think I like this.”

“This?”

“Not having electricity.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You like sitting in the dark?”

“I like this kind of dark.” He understood what she meant.

There was something different about the room without the harsh lights, without the constant glow of phones and screens. Everything felt slower. Softer. Like the world had finally given them permission to stop for a while. She looked toward the candle. “Everything looks prettier like this.” He looked at her instead.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. She turned to him. He didn’t look away. A smile slowly appeared on her lips when she realised what or rather, who he had been looking at. “You weren’t talking about the room, were you?” he smiled.

“No,” he replied. She shook her head, laughing under her breath. She looked down, her fingers absentmindedly tracing the edge of her sleeve. For a while, they simply sat there. No phones. No distractions. No reason to be anywhere else. Just the two of them, the flickering candle between them, and a quietness that somehow felt fuller than any conversation they could have had. He looked at her again. And this time, he didn't wonder why she seemed so beautiful. He only wondered how he had spent so long without noticing.

He knew her. He knew how she took her tea, how she smiled at the stupidest jokes, how quickly she grew awkward in unfamiliar places. He knew the little crease that appeared between her brows when she was concentrating, the way she hummed absentmindedly while doing chores, and how she would pretend not to be annoyed whenever he teased her. But seeing her in this light made something shift inside him.

Memories from the past year ran through his mind like a train, their first coffee together, when she had spent nearly ten minutes deciding what to order only to choose the same thing he had. The time she had tried to cook a new dish and nearly burned the whole house down, then stood in the kitchen with a horrified expression while he looked at the mess. A whole year of waking up to her sleepy voice, watching her move around their home, listening to her complain about the smallest inconveniences, hearing her laughter from another room. And somehow, he had never truly looked.

Not like this. Not as though he were seeing her for the first time. The candlelight softened every edge of her face, making her look almost unreal. He watched the way the flame reflected in her eyes, the gentle curve of her smile, the way a strand of hair had fallen across her cheek. His chest tightened. How had he missed this? How had he looked at her every single day and never realized that there was an entire world in the person sitting right in front of him?

The sudden flicker of light made him close his eyes, shutting her from his vision. The brightness had been so sudden that he had to force them shut just to escape it. For a moment, everything disappeared. The candlelight, the room, her.

He blinked beneath his closed lids, waiting for the brightness to settle. Then, slowly, he opened his eyes. The room was still there. The candle still burned between them, its flame trembling gently as though nothing had happened. Wax dripped slowly down its side, pooling around its base on the table. But his eyebrows creased. His body stretched slightly as he looked around.

Where was she? Where had she gone?

“Tara?”

His voice echoed through the empty room. His heart beat faster, thundering against his chest as he looked around again. Nothing. The chair where she had been sitting was empty. He stared at it for a moment, almost expecting her to emerge from somewhere, laughing at the confusion on his face.

“Tara?”

Nothing. His gaze wandered across the room until it stopped at the wall directly opposite him. His heart clenched, his throat went dry. He blinked once. Twice. As if doing so would change what he was seeing. There, on the wall, was her picture. It wasn't unusual. Her photograph had been there for as long as he could remember. But the garland hanging around the frame was.

The flowers had begun to wilt, their once-bright petals curling inward. Beneath the photograph, a small lamp flickered weakly, casting a trembling glow over her smiling face.

He stared at it. At her. At the smile he had just been looking at. The same smile, the same eyes, the same face he had been speaking to only moments ago. His lips parted, but no sound came out. His mind refused to understand what his eyes were telling him. He looked back toward the empty space where she had been sitting. Then at the photograph again and suddenly, the room felt much colder than it had before.

The world seemed to freeze around him as the situation sank in. She’s gone. The truth, cold and sharp, pierced through the haze of disbelief he had been living in for the past month. His mind, still grasping at any shred of hope, struggled to accept what his friend had said. He had spent the past weeks searching for her calling, hoping, running through endless scenarios in his head, all in vain. He had told himself that maybe she was just lost, maybe she had left without telling him. But deep down, he knew the truth he was avoiding.

He sank back into the chair, its weight pressing down on his chest. He had attended the funeral. He had seen her laid to rest, surrounded by the faces of friends and family who mourned her loss. And yet, he hadn’t been able to let go, to truly grasp that she was no longer here. He had clung to the idea that somehow, somewhere, she was still out there, just beyond reach.

But now, the reality was undeniable. Tears brimmed in his eyes as he fell apart. She was gone, away from him, from the cruel world where he asked every star in the sky what worse he had done to suffer this, but no answer came, only silence. A sharp, piercing silence he himself couldn't comprehend. But everything dissapeared as he closed his eyes, and he heard her again, all sorrows gone, questions gone as she called him. 

“Ayan, come, dinner is getting cold.” And there she was again, the way he always remembered her.

Not as the photograph on the wall, frozen beneath a garland of flowers, but as she had been in life: soft laughter in her eyes, warmth in her smile, and that familiar little crease between her brows whenever she pretended to be annoyed. He remembered the way sunlight caught in her hair, the way her eyes softened whenever she looked at him, and how even the most ordinary moments seemed gentler simply because she was in them. To him, she had never needed to be extraordinary. She had been beautiful in the quietest ways, in the way she existed, the way she loved, the way she made a home out of every place she stood.

And that was how he saw her now. Not gone. Not lost. Just there. Smiling at him as though nothing had ever changed.