Volume 5 Chapter 9 – “The Escape”

 The sea smelled of salt and forgotten promises. A far cry from Mumbai’s endless noise, here the waves whispered in their own rhythm, slow and forgiving, as though time itself had loosened its grip.

Kamini leaned against the balcony railing of their rented villa in Goa, her hair dancing with the ocean breeze. Below, fishermen’s lanterns bobbed in the distance, glowing like drifting fireflies. For once, the city’s cameras were nowhere to be found. No auditions, no scripts, no directors calling her name. Just the sound of waves crashing against the shore, and the man who stood behind her, silent.

Aarav.

She had convinced him—almost begged him—to leave Mumbai, if only for a few days. He hadn’t argued much. Perhaps he, too, was tired of drowning in the glass. Perhaps he had run out of excuses to stay in a city that fed his ghosts.

He now stood barefoot in the living room, holding a cup of black coffee instead of whiskey. His gaze lingered on the horizon, as if trying to measure how far he had fallen from the man he once was.

“You hate it, don’t you?” Kamini asked, breaking the silence. “Being away from the noise.”

He looked at her then, the corners of his lips twitching with something caught between a smile and a sigh. “It feels like… being invisible. Strange, isn’t it? People spend their lives craving obscurity. But when you’ve lived under the spotlight too long… shadows feel like a coffin.”

Kamini walked toward him, her bare feet cool against the tiled floor. She took the cup from his hands and set it on the table. Her palms cupped his face, urging his eyes to meet hers.

“You’re not invisible to me, Aarav. Not here. Not ever.”

The weight in his gaze softened, if only for a moment. His hands found her waist, tentative, like he was afraid she might disappear if he held too tightly. “You say that as though you could carry all of me,” he murmured. “The man, the ruin, the mess.”

“I don’t want to carry you,” Kamini whispered, her breath brushing his lips. “I want to walk with you. But you have to walk, too.”

For the first time in weeks, he let out a laugh. A real one. Unpolished, unguarded. It rolled through the room like a promise that he was still there, beneath the ashes and smoke.

That evening, they walked along the empty beach, their footprints side by side in the wet sand. Kamini hummed old songs under her breath; Aarav threw pebbles into the water, competing with the waves to see who was louder. He told her stories about his early days in cinema—the cheap motels, the rehearsals in damp basements, the first time he saw his name on a poster and thought, this is it, I’ve arrived.

“Funny,” he said, picking up a shell and rolling it between his fingers. “Back then, I thought the only way to matter was to be seen by everyone. But with you…” His voice trailed off, heavy with something he couldn’t name. “With you, I matter even when no one’s watching.”

Kamini’s throat tightened. She wanted to etch those words into her skin, to keep them safe for the nights when his demons returned.

Later, back at the villa, she lit a single candle by the window and sat with her diary. Aarav slept on the couch, his breathing deep and steady—the kind of sleep only the sea could grant. She wrote carefully, slowly, each word a prayer:

“Tonight, for the first time, I saw him without his ghosts. Just a man, weary but alive. And if the world tries to steal this from us, I will fight it. Even if it breaks me, I will fight it.”

The candle flickered, shadows swaying across the room. Kamini looked at him once more, his features softened by the glow. She allowed herself to believe, if only for that night, that they could make it. That love, stubborn and relentless, might be enough.

Outside, the tide crept closer, erasing their footprints one by one.