If it was real

Chapter Three: The Space Between Stars

She sat beside me now in a periwinkle dress with soft pleats and little silver stars printed near the hem. Her necklace was shaped like a crescent moon, and her lip gloss shimmered when the restaurant light hit her just right. She sipped Sprite and carefully drew a constellation on her napkin using my glitter pen.

She looked up. "This one's ours," she whispered. "Every star is someone at the table."

I smiled. "Who's that one?" I asked, pointing at the biggest dot.

She grinned. "You. Obviously."

"And that one?"

"Me. Right next to you. Always."

I didn't say anything for a second; I just looked down at the twinkling napkin between us. She reached over and wrote our initials along the stars-*D & B*, then drew a tiny heart. "Some stars don't need to be far apart," she added softly.

I swallowed my throat tight in the best way. "You're my favorite part of turning nine," I said, and I meant it more than I'd meant anything that week.

Around us, the party buzzed with its usual chaos. Rohit was already three tacos in and trying to stack them like a sculpture. Karthik showed Dev a video of his school's science fair where a kid's experiment exploded all over the vice principal. Neel, perched on a booster seat next to Dada, was flipping through a book about Jupiter's moons, muttering, "Europa... Callisto... Io..." like they were old friends.

Navya and Dania were drawing makeup designs on napkins with glitter pens while simultaneously debating whether glitter was essential to winged eyeliner. Danish, their twin, had just discovered hair gel and sat like a future CEO, nodding at everyone and opening the door for elders like it was his job.

Ayaan was busy swiping tortilla chips and trying to make Dev laugh so hard he'd snort Sprite. "When you turn eleven," he declared, "you gain immunity from homework and broccoli. It's science." Dev chuckled but didn't argue.

Zain's family sat at the adult end of the table. Zulfikar Uncle ordered queso for the whole table-twice. Zoya Aunty handed me and Dev each a delicate handmade card with dried jasmine petals pressed into the paper. "From our garden in Mumbai," she said warmly. "I saved them for something special." Eshaal had flown in from college for the weekend and looked like a movie star in block heels and a cream blazer. She hugged me gently and told me to keep reading stories that made my heart feel big.

And Zain? He was there. Sitting with Ayaan, quiet, like always. He didn't joke or fight for chips or even laugh at Dev's impressions of our math teacher. But he kept glancing over. Not in a weird way-just like he was checking the weather. Maybe I was a forecast he couldn't reasonably predict.

Then, just before the cake came, he stood, walked over, and placed a tiny wrapped box on the table next to my plate.

"It's not much," he said, barely above a whisper. "But it reminded me of you."

I blinked. "Oh."

He didn't stay long. Just nodded once and went back to his seat.

I didn't open the gift until later that night, after the cake was gone and the restaurant smells still clung to my hair. It was a silver bookmark with a crescent moon at the top and stars scattered down the spine. Simple. Beautiful.

Inside the box was a card, folded once. His handwriting was clean, almost careful:

**Happy Birthday, Diya. Keep writing your stories. -Z**

My heart didn't leap. It didn't flutter. It did something deeper. It settled.

And I had something for him, too.