Chapter Thirty: Eighteen
(Ria's POV)
( 4 Years later)
Date:August 18
The house was finally quiet.
Balloons drooped against the walls, the speakers were still humming from the last song, and Lia was half-asleep on the couch with frosting on her cheek. My eighteenth birthday party had been loud, messy, full of love — just like the years that led to it.
I slipped outside for air. The night was cool, humming with that faint spring smell that always reminded me of Dhaka. I'd gone back for a visit only a week ago, and the scent still clung to my clothes — mango, rain, and home.
"Hey."
I turned. Miles was leaning against his car, hands in his pockets, wearing that half-smile that made me want to both roll my eyes and melt.
"You disappeared," I said.
He nodded toward the road. "Come with me. I have something to show you."
---
The drive was short. City lights blurred by, and neither of us spoke much. Just the radio whispering low, his hand occasionally brushing mine between gears.
We stopped in front of an old building downtown — the one with the closed-down bookstore we used to pass after school. The sign was half gone, the door propped open with a "For Rent" poster.
"Miles…" I began.
He grinned. "Just trust me."
Inside, it was nothing like I remembered. He'd cleared out the dust, strung up fairy lights from shelf to shelf, and set a small table in the middle with my favorite flowers — white lilies — in a chipped vase. A Bluetooth speaker played an old Bengali song softly in the corner.
My breath caught. "You did all this?"
He shrugged, pretending it was nothing. "You said once that this place smelled like stories waiting to be told. I thought it deserved one more."
I laughed, trying not to cry. "You're such an idiot sometimes."
"Your idiot," he said, stepping closer.
---
We sat on the floor, our backs against empty shelves, sharing cupcakes from the leftovers he'd stolen from the party. The frosting was smudged on my fingers, and he wiped it away with a napkin, too gently for his usual teasing self.
"This is crazy," I murmured. "Graduation's in a week. We're almost adults."
He smiled. "Almost."
"We've been through everything — fights, breaks, long nights of not knowing if we'd make it—"
"And yet," he interrupted softly, "we always come back."
"Yeah," I said. "We do."
He looked at me for a long moment. "You scare me sometimes, Threads."
"Why?"
"Because you're the only thing I've never been able to control."
The air between us went still. His thumb brushed the side of my hand, slow, hesitant.
"I don't want to lose this," he whispered. "Any of it."
"You won't," I said. "Not as long as we keep choosing each other."
---
We stayed like that for a while — talking about nothing and everything, the future, Lia's new job, Maya's plans for college, Emma's endless lists, Ethan's latest song. Every few minutes, Miles's fingers found mine again, like he needed to check I was still there.
Then, as the lights dimmed low and the city outside grew quiet, he leaned in — forehead to mine — and breathed, "Happy birthday, Ria."
And in that moment, nothing else existed: not the past, not the next morning, not the uncertain years ahead.
Just us.
---
(Later, Miles's POV)
She fell asleep with her head on my shoulder, the fairy lights turning her hair to liquid gold. I sat there for a long time, memorizing the curve of her smile, the faint scent of jasmine and rain she always carried.
So many times we'd almost fallen apart. But somehow, we'd always found our way back.
I looked at her and thought — this must be what forever feels like, right before it begins.
---
He leaned in slowly, like he was giving me every chance to pull away.
"Ria," he murmured, voice low, uncertain for once. "Can I—?"
I didn't let him finish. I just nodded.
And then he kissed me.
It wasn't the soft, nervous kind from before. This one was heavy with years of almosts and maybes, of fights and makeup texts and every heartbeat we'd spent trying to figure out how to love each other without breaking.
My hands tangled in his hair; his thumb traced the side of my face, steady and careful. The world outside blurred — the city, the years, the noise — until there was nothing left but the sound of us breathing.
For a moment, I forgot where we were. Forgot that we were supposed to be careful, supposed to be young.
It just felt like falling — again.
Then the lights flickered, and we broke apart, breathless, staring at each other like the air had changed.
Miles's eyes searched mine, full of something I couldn't name.
"Happy birthday," he whispered again, softer this time.
I smiled, heart pounding. "Best one yet."
He brushed a strand of hair from my face, and for a second, neither of us moved — just that electricity, that quiet promise that something between us had shifted for good.
The night held its breath.
And then — fade to black.