30
Rihaan
THE THING ABOUT SCRABBLE was that it always looked harmless at first.
Just a board, a grid of little squares, and a bag of wooden tiles with letters printed on them, as though they were nothing more than pieces of language waiting to be arranged.
But it was not harmless.
Not once you started paying attention to the scoring. Not when you realised that every word was a calculation, every placement an opportunity. Double word scores. Triple letter scores. The quiet violence of a well-placed Q without a U.
I had been tracking all of it without meaning to.
Maeve did not play as though she cared about points. She played for momentum, as though the board were something she could argue with until it eventually gave her what she wanted.
I, unfortunately, cared about both.
And I had been winning.
A triple-word score on river early in the game. A double-letter Z tucked into a corner she had not noticed in time. Small margins that had accumulated quietly, the kind of lead you only recognised once it was already difficult to catch.
Except I had been waiting for something else entirely.
Not the score.
Not the win.
Her.
And that was the problem.
Somewhere between her placing tiles and laughing at my increasingly ridiculous strategy, I had stopped thinking about Scrabble as a game I was supposed to win and started thinking about it as something I did not want to end.
Now, with the board between us and the word LOVER sitting there as though it belonged exactly where I had placed it, I could feel the shift.
The way my chest tightened had nothing to do with competition anymore.
Maeve was still laughing when I stood. It was not just amusement in her expression. There was disbelief threaded through it, as though she could not quite decide whether I had actually managed it or had somehow cheated the entire concept of language.
“You’ve been waiting for that,” she said again, still slightly breathless.
“I have.”
Her eyes dropped to the board and then lifted back to me.
She knew exactly what I had done.
I had been waiting for the right moment, keeping those letters close and hoping she would unknowingly give me the chance.
She had.
Maeve sat cross-legged on the rug opposite me, one of my jumpers swallowing her wrists as she studied her remaining tiles with the seriousness usually reserved for international cricket fixtures.
“You’re cheating.”
She looked up.
“I’m not.”
“You’ve been staring at those letters for four minutes.”
“How is that cheating? I’m thinking.”
“You’ve been thinking about one word for four minutes, when we set a limit for 60 seconds each.”
“Some of us like to be strategic.”
I leaned back against the sofa.
“Some of us are waiting for our moment.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Are you always this competitive?”
“It’s the only way to be.”
She ignored me and returned to her tiles.
I had been waiting for an L.
Not just any L.
The L.
I had seen the shape of the board several turns earlier. I had watched spaces appear and disappear as we built around them, and I had kept my tiles close, waiting for the right opportunity.
I had exactly the letters I needed.
I just needed her to play hers first.
Eventually, she sighed.
“Fine.”
A tile clicked against the board.
L.
The corner of my mouth lifted.
She did not notice. Or, more accurately, she had no idea what she had just done.
She picked up the rest of her tiles and arranged them in a neat little line before looking back at me. Her eyebrows lifted in a smug little waggle that was almost impossible to tolerate.
“You’re in trouble.”
I looked at the board.
Then at her.
She had no idea.
I slowly placed my first tile.
“L.”
Her smile faltered.
I placed another.
“O.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Don’t.”
I looked up. “Don’t what?”
“You’re doing something.”
I placed the next tile.
“V.”
Her mouth fell open.
“No.”
I smiled.
“E.”
She stared at the board.
I placed the final tile.
“R.”
The word sat between us.
LOVER.
For a moment, she simply stared.
Then she laughed.
Really laughed.
Her head tipped back, her eyes squeezed shut, and one hand came up to cover her mouth as though she could somehow contain the sound.
“Dream on.”
“Oh, I do.”
I winked.
She shook her head, still laughing.
“That’s so unfair.”
“It’s Scrabble.”
“You planned it.”
“I was patient.”
“You’re insufferable.”
I leaned back against the sofa.
“You said I’d never win.”
“You haven’t won.”
I glanced at the score and then back at her. “I have.”
“You cheated.”
I smiled. “Who’s dreaming now?”
“You. Because you’re delusional.”
“Interesting choice of word from someone who spent forty minutes refusing to play an L.”
She threw a tile at me.
It bounced harmlessly off my knee.
I laughed, before the raising a brow.
“You made a promise.”
If you actually win, I’ll kiss you for each point you’ve got.
I had laughed when she said it. She had assumed I would forget.
Apparently, I had remembered enough for both of us.
I got to my feet.
Her eyes followed me.
“Why are you standing?”
I stepped around the board.
“Checking something.”
“What?”
I came closer.
She shifted backwards until her shoulders met the sofa.
My heart started beating harder.
Because this was the part I had not prepared for.
Not winning.
Her.
The last few days had been so easy that I had started pretending they were not temporary. I had stopped thinking about what would happen when we left. I had stopped thinking about the flights, the team, her father, the rules, and everything waiting beyond the cabin.
Instead, I had let myself imagine.
Not just tomorrow.
Not just the next kiss.
A life.
I imagined mornings like ours becoming ordinary. Her books abandoned around the house. Her coffee beside my breakfast. Her feet resting in my lap while she read. Her voice filling rooms that had once seemed too quiet.
I imagined coming back from training and finding her there.
I imagined her staying.
And that was when the fear arrived.
Because I was falling.
Not gradually. Not carefully.
I was failing spectacularly at stopping myself.
I crouched in front of her.
Her eyes flicked down to my mouth before returning to mine. “Are you collecting your prize?”
I smiled. “Something like that.”
She swallowed. “Can we move somewhere comfortable then”?
I laughed, picking her up easily as I moved us onto the couch.
The confidence had disappeared from her face. Something softer had replaced it, something that made my chest tighten all over again.
I reached up and brushed my thumb gently against her cheek.
Her breath caught.
Then I kissed her.
Slowly at first.
A question.
She answered by curling her fingers into my shirt and pulling me closer.
The kiss deepened, and my heart thudded hard against my ribs. I felt her smile against my mouth, and suddenly Scrabble, the score, winning, the stupid promise, all of it became completely irrelevant.
There was only her.
I pulled back just enough to breathe.
She looked at me.
“You still owe me another 145 kisses.”
“You cheated.”
I laughed quietly. “Keep telling yourself that.”
Her eyes narrowed playfully, before she leaned in and kissed me again.
And because I knew this moment had an ending, I let myself forget about the reality for one more minute.
I had been playing for time.
And I was running out of both.
I just needed to find a way to make sure I could keep her.
Maeve
THE MORNING HAD BEEN quiet in the cabin, the kind of quiet that made every small sound feel important. Rain tapped against the windows while I sat at the kitchen table, turning my coffee mug slowly between my hands.
“I was thinking of heading back home,” I said.
He looked up from where he was standing by the counter. “Really?”
“Yeah. My annual leave ends in a couple days, so it’d make sense to get back before and settle in.”
“How soon were you thinking?”
“Tomorrow, probably.” Or sooner. I wanted to say, as I tried to make it sound simple and practical response. “I was thinking of taking a flight. You’ve got so many things to tackle here, and I think that would be better. What do you think?”
His expression changed, though only slightly. “Sure. If that’s what you want. Have you thought any more about we talked about us?”
The question settled between us.
I looked down at my coffee. “I don’t know.”
“That’s not really an answer.”
“I know.”
He came closer, stopping on the other side of the table. “Maeve.”
I hated the way he said my name. Gently. Carefully. As though he already knew I was about to hurt him and was trying not to make it harder.
“I don’t know how this works when we leave,” I said. “I don’t know what happens when we’re not here, when everything isn’t this easy.”
“It hasn’t been easy, We’ve just been too good at keeping each other occupied.”
“That’s true.” I swallowed. “But it’s been simple. Here, it’s just us. There’s no one else asking questions. No one reminding us what this is supposed to be.”
I felt him stiffen. “And what is it supposed to be?”
I looked at him then.
He was watching me with an openness that made it difficult to look away.
“I don’t know,” I said again, quieter this time.
His jaw tightened. “Do you want it to be something?”
The answer came too quickly. “Yes.”
The word frightened me as soon as it left my mouth.
His expression softened, but the uncertainty remained.
“But, just like you said. Wanting it doesn’t mean that it can happen the way we want.”
He looked away.
The silence that followed was worse than an argument would have been.
“I don’t want to make promises I can’t keep,” I said. “And I don’t want you to ask me to stay when you don’t know what you can give me.”
“I haven’t asked you to stay.”
“I know.”
“Then what are you saying?”
I stared at him, trying to find a version of the truth that would not hurt either of us.
“I’m saying that maybe this is easier if we stop before it becomes something we can’t survive.”
His face went still. And in that moment, I knew I had said the thing I had been trying not to say.
He took a breath. “Is that what you want?”
I wanted him to argue.
I wanted him to tell me I was wrong, that distance did not matter, that we could figure it out.
Instead, he only waited.
I looked down at my hands. “I think it’s what we should do.”
He nodded once, but there was nothing accepting about it. “Right.”
“Really?”
Rihaan sighed. “Well, I would like to talk about it. But at the same time, when I kissed you in bed—after making it abundantly clear why we shouldn’t, I can’t put this on you, can I?”
All I could do was nod, and that was that.
“Right. I’m gonna take a shower.” He muttered, under his breath before turning on his heels.
When I gave into the impulse that had been climbing me since I woke up this morning, I didn’t feel brave.
Not even a little.
I felt hollow, as though something had been scooped out of me and left behind in that cabin, still warm and still breathing, waiting for me to come back and pretend I hadn’t noticed it was gone.
The worst part was how quiet everything had become inside my own head. There was no anger and no clarity, nothing sharp enough to hold onto. There was only a slow, sinking ache that made every step feel slightly delayed, as though my body had not agreed with the decision even if my hands had.
I kept replaying it.
Not the argument.
Not the logic.
Rihaan.
The way he had looked at me when he asked for space. He had not looked cruel or careless. He had looked careful, as though he were trying to protect something fragile by holding it at arm’s length.
And I hated that I understood him.
Because understanding him made it harder to justify leaving. It made this feel less like an escape and more like a loss.
I sat in the airport and stared at my boarding pass until the words blurred.
London.
Home.
The two words should have meant safety. Familiarity. Something I was returning to.
Instead, home suddenly felt too large for what it actually meant.
My fingers tightened around the edge of the paper.
I should have felt relieved. That was what I kept telling myself. I had made the responsible choice. I had avoided asking him to carry something he had never asked for. I had left before something good could become complicated and painful.
But there was no relief.
There was only absence.
A shape where he had been. A silence that somehow still sounded like his voice.
I pressed my thumb against the crease in the boarding pass until it hurt.
Pain was easier to understand than everything else.
When the announcement for boarding echoed through the terminal, I stood too quickly. My legs felt unsteady, as though they did not fully belong to me anymore.
I joined the queue without looking around.
I did not let myself wonder what I might see if I did.
People moved forward in front of me with the quiet efficiency of people who had somewhere to be. Suitcases rolled over the floor. Phones glowed in people’s hands. Conversations rose and disappeared around me.
Everyone else seemed to be continuing with their lives.
Mine felt as though it had stopped somewhere behind me.
When I reached the gate, I handed over my passport with hands that were steadier than I felt. The woman scanned it and gave me a polite smile.
“Have a good flight.”
I nodded because I did not trust my voice.
I walked down the tunnel and into the plane, each step taking me further from the place I had just left.
I found my seat and strapped myself in, surrounded by strangers who had no idea I was leaving something behind that I did not yet know how to name.
I stared out of the window as the cabin door closed.
The plane began to pressurise around me. The engines stirred to life, and the familiar sounds of departure filled the cabin.
I told myself I had done the right thing.
I told myself it would make sense later.
I told myself a lot of things.
None of them reached the part of me that still felt as though it were sitting in that cabin, waiting for him to come back from the shower and find the note I had left behind.
The plane began to move.
Slowly at first, then faster.
The runway blurred beneath us, and the lights outside stretched into long streaks against the dark glass.
My reflection looked unfamiliar.
Tired.
Too still.
I closed my eyes.
And for one brief second, I allowed myself to imagine what would have happened if I had stayed.
If I had waited.
If I had let him come back and say the rest of what he had not been able to finish.
Maybe he would have changed my mind.
Maybe I would have changed his.
Maybe we would have found a way through all the things standing between us.
I would never know.
The plane lifted before I could finish the thought, and the ground fell away beneath me.
For one last moment, I felt the weight of everything I had left behind.
Then I closed my eyes and let the plane carry me home.