“Where the Lilies Grow”

It began on a rainy Thursday in June. 

Mira was not supposed to be at the train station that day. Her office cab had broken down. The metro was closed for maintenance. She was upright beneath a rusting iron roof on platform 3, clutching a badly faded red umbrella, scrolling endlessly through endless newsfeeds, and pretending she wasn't late. 

And that's when she saw him.

He was sitting on the bench on the other side of the platform. Head bent forward slightly, wet curls fell haphazardly down to his forehead around a camera on his lap. Not a phone. Not a book. A camera. Mira saw the way he watched the rain, not irritated like everyone else, but as if he were watching a performance that he didn't want to finish. 

She smiled in spite of herself.

Just her luck, the train was delayed. Canceled, in fact. When she looked up again, he was gone. 

But not for long.

Mira kept coming back. Every Thursday, at the same time, at the same platform. No one knew. Not her mom. Not her friend. Not even, she thought, her diary. She called it “my private madness”—waiting to see a stranger again, without knowing even his name or where he was from.

Four Thursdays passed. Five.

Finally, the sixth Thursday came, and he returned.

“Looking for me?” he asked her, smiling. His voice was deeper than she'd anticipated, tinged with a hint of sarcasm, and something kinder underlying it.

Mira blinked. “Pardon?”

He motioned to her umbrella. “Red. Same umbrella as last time, and you’ve been showing up every week for weeks. I noticed.”

Mira laughed, feeling the redness creep into her cheeks. “You noticed?”

“I did. And I was hoping you’d show up again. Last time, I left my usual spot early. I regretted it for days.”

He extended his hand. “I’m Aarav.”

She took it. “Mira.”

Over the following weeks, the platform became a new world altogether. They began meeting with purpose—sometimes with coffee, some days with stillness. Aarav really was a travel photographer. Mira was a writer about travel. Their lives weren’t perfect matches, but they had a soul match.

One Saturday, Aarav asked, "Have you ever seen a lily field in bloom?"

"No," said Mira, "only pictures." 

He smiled, all mystery. "Then pack a bag. We are leaving tomorrow." 

They drove five hours to a quiet valley in the hills, with wild lilies peeking out like secrets yet to be told. Mira found herself standing in the field of lilies, surrounded by the scent of famine and trapped in the spilling sunlight.

"It’s beautiful," she whispered. 

"So are you," he quartered for her. 

Right then and there she kissed him softly like rain on skin.

Days whipped by in a haze. Mira counted the Thursdays, checking them off on her calendar like rosary beads. She had not called. He had not written. That was their agreement.

Then, on the twelfth Thursday, it rained.

Of course.

Mira stood there in her red umbrella, heart racing.

At precisely 5:32 PM, a familiar silhouette loomed through the fog. The camera was still hanging from his neck. Hair still risen.

Eyes still only for her.

"You waited," he said.

"I did."

"Then come with me," he whispered. "Wherever the lilies grow."