November had arrived.
And with it came the familiar fragrance of Saptaparni blooms — that heady scent carrying twenty-two years of memories and a quiet ache of longing that never really left. It always began this way — the scent, the chill, and that unmistakable flutter in my heart, reminding me he’d soon be here.

As always, I waited on the old bench beneath the Saptaparni tree. The season had just turned — morning mist clung softly to the air, the mild wind carried a tender chill, and the city had wrapped itself in thin woollens. The same squirrels darted across the branches, the same guard offered me a knowing nod. Nothing had changed — except perhaps, the deepening lines on my face and the weight in my heart.

We were in school when we first discovered each other. It began with a hesitant touch, a fleeting brush of hands during basketball practice — and soon, grew stronger with stolen kisses behind the old science block. It was reckless, innocent, and fierce all at once. We didn’t know what we were doing, or where it would lead. It just felt like love — though neither of us dared to name it so.

Back then, love like ours didn’t exist in the open. It had to hide in whispers, in glances, in the small spaces between right and wrong. We didn’t know how to accept who we were, and the world wouldn’t have allowed it even if we had.

When school ended, life scattered us. I stayed back in the city, and he flew away to a distant land. We went along with life as it unfolded — college, jobs, marriages — each step taking us further away from ourselves and from what we once were. The world applauded our choices, never knowing what they had cost us. We became what others wanted us to be, while happiness quietly slipped away.

Yet something lingered — a faint echo of love that refused to die. It haunted our years, calling us back to this bench every November.

It had started in our first year of college. He had rushed back home after just a few months. I had called him in tears — desperate, breathless — finally admitting that I was madly in love with him and couldn’t imagine a life without him.

We met here, on this very bench. I remember crying, begging him to take me away. Neither of us knew what to do. I wanted him to break free; he didn’t have the courage to. I gave him a day to decide.

The next morning, we sat again — side by side, silent. He was calm; I was restless. Deep down, I knew he wanted to stay. But when he finally spoke, his voice trembled.
“I’ll go back,” he said.

I smiled through my tears and asked for just one thing — a day from his life, every year, only for me.

And that’s how it began.

We’re forty now.
He flies down from a faraway land — London this year, I think — and meets me here, in this garden, at this same hour. He always looks the same to me — the same eyes, the same half-smile, the same warmth that time hasn’t managed to steal. For a few hours, I am his, and he’s mine again — my knight in shining armour, the boy who once made the world disappear with a kiss.

By morning, he’ll be gone — leaving behind the faint scent of his cologne on my scarf, and another year of waiting.

Such has life been for us — a secret that never aged, a love that never found a name.

“Hey…”
His voice drifted through the mist — soft, steady, heartbreakingly familiar.
Even after all these years, the same rush returned, just like the first time we kissed. My heart betrayed me again. I smiled and whispered, “Hey.”

Like every November, he brought a gift. As his paychecks grew heavier, so did the boxes — guilt, perhaps, wrapped in glossy paper.
And like every year, I accepted it with a smile.
“You know this goes to the NGO,” I said.

He laughed softly. “You haven’t changed.”
“Neither have you,” I lied.

The silence that followed was easy — the kind only two people who have loved too long, too secretly, can share.

He extended his hand. “Shall we?”

And just like that, we were eighteen again — holding hands, smiling, walking through the mist like ghosts of a life that could have been. For one more night, the world would fade. For one more night, we’d belong to no one but each other.

By dawn, he would leave, and I would return to my life of measured smiles and polite conversations — until next November, when the Saptaparni blooms again.