Chapter 35 – A House With Yellow Curtains
It wasn't a palace.
It wasn't big.
But it felt like them.
A little rented house on the corner of an old street, where the paint peeled but the walls breathed warmth.
And yellow curtains that danced every time the wind flirted with the windows.
—
"I wanted the white ones," Mehar protested playfully as Aarav unwrapped the mustard-yellow drapes.
He held them up, proud. "White is boring. These look like sunshine."
She rolled her eyes. "You mean they look like mango pickle."
Still, she helped him put them up.
—
That house wasn't their forever home.
It was small. No balcony. Cracked tiles. A noisy neighbor upstairs.
But it was where they learned how to be together.
How to argue and still choose each other.
How to cook and burn rotis and laugh about it.
How to be quiet in the same room and not feel distant.
—
One Sunday morning, they painted the kitchen walls mint green.
Aarav got paint in his hair. Mehar got a splatter across her face. And they ended up on the floor, laughing until their ribs hurt.
Later that evening, they ate instant noodles from the same bowl, legs tangled, yellow curtains glowing golden in the sunset.
"I don't want anything else," Mehar whispered.
Aarav kissed her forehead. "Then don't ask for white curtains again."
She smiled.
—
Sometimes, love doesn't look like candlelit dinners or luxury vacations.
Sometimes, it looks like shared toothpaste, mismatched mugs, and a house with yellow curtains.
—
And when they'd move out someday, they'd take the curtains with them.
Because they weren't just fabric.
They were memories.
The kind that still smell like fresh paint and rainy mornings.
—