What we call home

That final note from Druv was folded once, neatly and tucked between the pages of Ishika’s favorite book, the one she always said smelled like her childhood.

He had not said goodbye in person. For all the writer he was, words always betrayed him when it came to her, so he let the pen do the talking.

Ishika found the note a week later, after the chaos of packing up their shared apartment. She read it sitting on ther floor, crossed legged, surrounded by unopened boxes and unanswered calls.

The silence in Druv’s words was not absence. It was presence, gentle and persistent. She smiled, not because it did not hurt, but because it did. He had chosen to stay in the only way he could.

“Like buildings collapsing into each other, sideways and silent, I shall be there, to catch your weight as it leans. To hold what is left when everything else has given way. I do not promise to rebuild the skyline but I will stand beside you, maybe tilted, maybe broken, but still there.

-Druv-“

She read it once more, then pinned it to the fridge with a magnet. That note felt more like home than the empty apartment did.