'Just One More '

 

Just One More 

She wasn’t the kind who warmed up easily especially not to strangers with display pictures and digital footprints. The idea of making friends online felt like holding fireflies in closed palms: beautiful but brief, bright but never certain. But then came him. A chat request turned into conversations that slipped into her nights. She didn’t notice when "just talking" became a ritual, and how her laughter began to echo in his texts.

They didn’t rush. They talked. About little things that felt like everything, childhood scribbles, parents, career worries, unfinished dreams, what makes them feel alive, what keeps them up at night. And somewhere between all the backspaces and full stops, a soft bond was tied not with promises, but with presence.

Eventually, the idea was thrown into the air, casual and dangerous — let’s meet.

Not through screens. Not pixel to pixel.

Real. Like coffee mugs sweating on a table. Like air shared in the same silence.

She wanted it and feared it in the same breath. What if the magic was a filter? What if comfort turned into awkwardness when the typing bubble disappeared? What if the world, loud, suspicious, always-watching world — saw them and labeled something they hadn’t even defined yet?

But he was the kind of calm that didn’t push, just reassured.

“You won’t have to handle anything alone,” he said. “I’ll be there.”

So, She met. 

Her first ever online friend now standing before her, in daylight. No edits. No curated captions.

And yet… he looked just like his Instagram posts. 

Effortless. Polished.

The kind of boy you couldn’t draw with words, only recognize in the way your heartbeat pauses when he smiles.

They didn’t fall in love.

They didn’t fall apart either.

What bloomed between them was softer than desire, deeper than friendship —

a connection shaped like a secret only they could speak.

Life moved, as it always does.

Different cities, distant timelines, new distractions.

But he remained like an unplayed song in her playlist.

Never deleted. Just… waiting.

Then, years later, he texted:

“Shall we meet? "

And she, still cautious, still thinking ten thoughts in one moment, whispered to herself: God, I want to.

He arrived before she could talk herself out of it.

This time, he didn’t ask.

He just walked up and wrapped her in the kind of hug that felt like it had been held back for seasons.

Enough to remind her what comfort smelled like.

And God, he smelled...

Not like perfume, not like any cologne —

but like a monsoon evening soaked in books and half-burnt incense.

Like someone who’s lived through tired nights and still carries a calmness that can hush even the most chaotic thoughts.

His beard, no longer just a detail on his face, looked like dusk drawn with intention the kind of dusk that softens everything it touches. 

And that jawline...

Not carved, not sharp like clichés —

but shaped like conviction: firm, deliberate, as if the universe had traced him with steadied hands on a trembling canvas.

He didn’t even try — that was the maddening part.

He didn’t wear charm like a coat. It seeped out of him like music leaking through a wall, subtle, magnetic, unnoticed until it stays in your head for days.

They didn’t hold hands.

Her feet hesitated where her heart wanted to leap.

The world still had too many opinions and she had too many fears.

But as they walked side by side, 

she counted the seconds like petals:

He’s here. He’s real. He’s leaving soon. He was here.

He left with the same ease he arrived, 

a smile, a wave, a sense of normalcy that made her heart long for more hours together.

But she carries his hug now like a perfume she doesn’t want to fade.

And the next time they meet, if they do... 

she doesn’t want a short embrace.

She wants that kind of hug —

the kind that makes time hold its breath,

that presses apologies and unsaid feelings between two heartbeats,

the kind that tells her she didn’t imagine it all.

Until then,

she walks around with his scent in her lungs,

his memory curled under her collarbone,

and a quiet wish blooming like a prayer:

Just one more hug.

Tighter.

And longer.