For the first time that night, neither of us spoke about the accident.
Or the memories.
Or the years we had lost.
Instead, we sat quietly beside each other at the nearly empty station while rain softened into a light drizzle outside.
Something had changed between us.
Not completely.
There were still too many unanswered questions, too much pain sitting silently beneath every conversation.
But the distance felt smaller now.
More human.
Meera leaned back slightly against the bench, looking exhausted.
"You should probably go home," I said quietly. "You look like you haven't slept properly in weeks."
She smiled faintly.
"That's a little hypocritical coming from you."
"Fair."
For a moment, the tension eased.
Just slightly.
And strangely, that normal conversation affected me more than all the dramatic revelations earlier.
Because for the first time, I could almost imagine what we used to be like before everything broke apart.
Comfortable.
Easy.
The thought left an ache inside my chest.
A train rushed past the platform loudly before disappearing into the dark city beyond.
Then Meera spoke again.
"You used to hate stations."
I glanced at her.
"What?"
"You said they always felt temporary." She smiled softly at the memory. "Like places built for people leaving each other."
Something about that sentence triggered another small flash inside my head.
Me standing beside her near a vending machine.
Her laughing while trying to force me to drink terrible station coffee.
My own voice saying—
"If we ever stop talking, I'm blaming this place."
The memory disappeared gently.
Not violently like before.
Almost naturally.
I pressed my fingers briefly against my forehead.
"It's happening more often now."
Meera's expression softened immediately.
"The memories?"
I nodded.
"They don't feel random anymore."
"That's good."
"Not always." I looked at her carefully. "Sometimes it feels like remembering hurts you more than it hurts me."
Her eyes shifted away instantly.
And that reaction told me enough.
"How bad was it?" I asked quietly.
Meera stayed silent.
Then finally—
"The first few months?" She let out a weak breath. "Terrible."
The honesty in her voice made something tighten painfully inside me.
"You really tried contacting me that much?"
She laughed softly beneath her breath.
"You blocked me eventually."
Guilt hit instantly.
"I'm sorry."
"You didn't know why you were panicking every time you heard my voice." She shrugged slightly, though the sadness behind the gesture remained obvious. "I stopped blaming you after a while."
"But you still stayed."
This time she didn't answer.
Because she didn't need to.
The silence itself was enough.
My phone suddenly vibrated inside my pocket.
Kabir.
I stared at the screen for a moment before answering.
"Hello?"
"Finally," Kabir said immediately. "You vanished again. Do you enjoy stressing people out?"
I glanced briefly toward Meera before standing from the bench and walking a few steps away.
"Sorry."
"You don't sound okay."
"I'm not sure I am."
That made him quiet instantly.
Rainwater dripped steadily from the roof while distant announcements echoed faintly behind me.
Then Kabir spoke more carefully.
"You remembered more, didn't you?"
I leaned against a cold pillar near the platform.
"…Yeah."
"How bad?"
I closed my eyes briefly.
"There was a baby."
Silence.
Complete silence.
When Kabir finally spoke again, his voice sounded shaken.
"Oh God."
"You knew?"
"No," he answered immediately. "I swear I didn't."
I believed him.
Mostly because Kabir sounded genuinely horrified.
"I think my father erased parts of my memory after the accident," I said quietly.
Another long silence followed.
Then—
"Arjun…" Kabir lowered his voice further. "There's something I never told you."
My chest tightened.
"What?"
"The night you woke up in the hospital…" He hesitated. "You kept asking for someone."
My grip tightened around the phone.
"What did I say?"
"At first, nothing clear. Just fragments." Kabir sounded disturbed remembering it. "But one night you suddenly started screaming her name."
A chill spread slowly through my body.
"Meera?"
"Yes."
I looked toward her instinctively.
She sat alone on the bench beneath the station lights, quietly staring at the tracks.
Waiting.
Probably terrified of what I might remember next.
"You were crying," Kabir continued softly. "I'd never seen you like that before."
Another memory flashed suddenly.
Hospital bed.
My hands trembling violently.
A nurse trying to calm me down while I repeated—
"Where is she?"
Pain shot through my head again.
I inhaled sharply.
"Then what happened?"
Kabir hesitated again.
"That's the strange part."
"What strange part?"
"The next morning…" His voice lowered further. "You didn't remember her anymore."
Cold fear settled heavily inside me.
Not because the story sounded impossible anymore.
Because deep down—
It sounded real.
Too real.
"Did my father say anything?"
Kabir stayed silent for several seconds.
Then quietly—
"He told everyone not to mention her again."
The station suddenly felt freezing cold.
I looked through the rain-covered darkness beyond the tracks, trying desperately to process everything.
My father hadn't just hidden the past.
He had erased it.
Deliberately.
"Arjun?" Kabir said carefully. "Where are you right now?"
I looked back toward Meera again.
She noticed me staring and gave me a small, uncertain smile.
A smile carrying years of grief beneath it.
And somehow—
Seeing it hurt more than the memories themselves.
"At the station," I answered quietly.
Kabir immediately understood.
"…With her?"
"Yeah."
He exhaled slowly.
Then after a pause, he asked the one question I had been avoiding myself.
"Do you still love her?"
The words hit harder than expected.
Because logically—
How could I answer that?
I barely remembered our relationship.
Most of our history still existed only in fragments.
But emotionally?
Emotionally, something inside me had already known the answer long before the memories returned.
I looked at Meera sitting alone beneath the dim station lights.
And for the first time—
The feeling inside my chest no longer felt like familiarity.
It felt like loss.
The kind people spend years trying to survive.
My voice came out almost as a whisper.
"I think I never stopped."