Lights of Love

"Hey, mind if I stand here?" Tara glanced up, ready with a quick witty response. It had been that kind of night, after all. The festival of lights had brought together family, friends, and foes alike for an evening of carefree chatter and dazzling fireworks. Standing in the crowd outside, she felt tethered to her roots, reveling in the warm glow of the diya lamps. Across from her, where a makeshift stall dispensed hot chai faster than celebratory crackers exploded in the sky, stood Rishi, older but still recognizable. Their last encounter had been back in school when his bobble-headed self had borrowed her paper for the fourth time in a row. They had circled each other with parallel lives since. "Rishi!" She feigned displeasure but was secretly thrilled. "Who let you out of the pod?" "And to think you were the one hoping I stayed! How are you, Tara?" His grin hadn't changed, still as infectious as ever. Tara crossed her arms mock-skeptically. "I could be better. Fancy running into you here!" "'Hear ya'. This place felt like a cosmic magnet tonight," he replied, nodding toward their mutual friends. As the night went on, they fell into the syncopation of two people intimately familiar with each other's hesitations. Talking in half-steps and dancing around nostalgia, until the conversation ventured into dreams and things that mattered. "You know," Tara said, gazing at the sky as fireworks painted fleeting art against the night, "I thought I’d be... somewhere else by now. Anywhere but here." "Funny, I thought the same," Rishi chuckled, fingering a light string levitating between them. "But sometimes in life, sense plays peekaboo, doesn't it?" "Too true," she agreed, feeling strangely buoyed by his sincerity. "You still into astronomy and everything?" "Yeah, you remember that, huh? Stars and dreams - hard to give up. Deep skies have a pull, kinda like you, I suppose." Tara paused, processing the comment, while warmth flooded her chest, easily lit by old familiarity. "Too dark for compliments, strategist!" Just then, the stall owner popped up with some sundae-glass contraption, "Your chai's on the house!" he said, interrupting them playfully. "Hey, I've got an idea." Rishi beckoned toward a quieter corner and, filled with anticipation, she followed. In quietude now, Tara looked around, taking it all in, the kaleidoscope of colors, the paper lanterns swaying in brittle wind, loud and light—joy unhinged. "Still remember the sway of stars?" he asked, drawing her back in. "Kinda like water guides," she replied thoughtfully. "To depths of things unknown." Bumping their shoulders lightly, he grinned. "Imagine that, and mystery binding it all together!" Lightness filled the silence between them; thoughts unspoken were almost explained. They held firm eye contact, truly looking without the preschool jokes coating them otherwise. Moments of clarity between friends were rare and precious. A loud crash above broke the tension, sparking laughter. "Guess the universe ain't ready," she jested casually. Mingling with the crowd, they rewound the past, each crack and love harvested by time, yet fortified in splendor and hue. Stopping near a forgotten bonfire, Rishi, hair tousled by the wind, looked vulnerable like never before. "Hey," he began, serious but with no guards. "Crazy thought, what if we give us a chance? Go somewhere unexplored?" Her heart skipped in effervescent disbelief and she could only nod. "It’s like daring destiny." The sky's last firework crackled above, both sealing their pact as bright purple flame made its sweeping trail across dark blue. "Perfect," Rishi whispered, drawing her hand into his, knowing nothing like reassurance yet conveying everything she needed. That night as Tara lay awake in bed, she knew that Diwali would not be forgotten. Sometimes it was those flickers of spontaneity cradled with uncertainty, embedded within life’s ordinary mirth, that transformed bright moments into lasting love.