STRINGS OF THE HEART

Chapter 22: Third Light

Outside the window, Amsterdam looked like it had been gently smudged.
Fog clung to the water like it had nowhere better to be.
The rooftops blurred into one another, the canal a quiet mirror for a sky still figuring itself out.

This city didn't perform its beauty. It let you come to it slowly.
It had taught me that silence wasn't absence—it was presence with boundaries.

I'd started a habit of opening old demo folders on mornings like this—scrolling through tracks I never finished, scribbled lyrics that had meant something once, even if I couldn't remember what. It wasn't nostalgia. It was... inventory. Quiet inventory of what I used to sound like.

My phone buzzed once. I almost ignored it.

Ayaan Ghosh:
Thought you'd want to know—I finally met Dr. Arpita Virani at a NYC panel. Fascinating woman. We're collaborating on a storytelling-healthcare crossover. Your Geneva piece came up. Small world, huh?

Her name.

It just sat there.

Right there in the middle of my screen like it never left.

I didn't move for a long moment.

Just stared at those words.

Dr. Arpita Virani.

It still hit soft.
Not like a punch.
More like a song you'd forgotten was yours to begin with.

I read the message again. Slower this time. Not for details—there weren't many—but for shape. For texture.

She was working with Ayaan. A collaboration. I should've been surprised.

I wasn't.

Of course she was still building things that mattered.

Of course her voice still reached the right people.

Of course someone like Ayaan—who saw systems and souls at the same time—would find her important.

I didn't reply.

Didn't need to.

Instead, I moved my cursor across the screen—instinct more than decision—and opened the old folder:
Echoes of Silence – Raw Cuts

Track 7.

No album art. No waveform preview. Just the title field blinking faintly.

Not really a title, though.

Just a note I'd typed in late one night and never changed:

For Her, If Ever

It was the only track I never played back.

Even now, I didn't hit play.

I just looked at it. Like you might look at a closed letter. One you've never opened—not because you're scared, but because you already know every word inside.

It had been recorded in one take.

One take.
One night.
One heartbeat before I knew what silence could really mean.

It wasn't a song I could give to the world.

It didn't ask to be heard.

It just was.

I leaned back, my fingers hovering near the play button but never pressing down.

Sometimes, you don't need to relive a moment.

Sometimes, just letting it exist—unplayed, unfinished, untouched—is the only way to honor it.

Like her.