Strings And Beats

7.The Echo That Finds Its Way Home

Arjun’s POV

Her voice hits something deep in my chest.

I smile softly.

"I hope I do."

My hand tightens on the envelope in my bag.

Forty years.

This piece of paper has waited longer than I have lived.

My grandfather used to touch it like a wound and a blessing both.

I stand slowly.

This is it.

This is the moment where I either shatter a woman’s carefully built peace or return something stolen by time.

Lia slides the envelope across the table.

Meera looks down at it.

"What is this, kanna?"

"It is a bridge, Paati."

The room stills.

Meera opens the envelope slowly. Carefully.

The second her fingers touch the paper her breath changes.

Her eyes fall first to the title.

The Bridge.

Then the notes.

Then the handwriting.

And suddenly she is not seventy any longer.

She is nineteen.

Meera’s POV

My heart forgets how to beat.

I know this pen stroke.

I would recognize it anywhere.

The way he wrote his name was careless like the world did not scare him.

Samir.

My fingers curl into the paper like it will disappear if I release it.

"Where did you get this?" I whisper.

Arjun stands.

"My grandfather wrote it with you," he says. "He kept it for over forty years."

I close my eyes.

Forty years.

I tell myself I buried him.

But love does not listen.

"He never forgot?" I breathe.

Arjun swallows.

"He never moved on."

And the silence wraps around me like an old memory refusing to let me go.

They play.

Not on a stage.

Not for applause.

But for a woman who never got to mourn properly.

The first chord touches something inside Meera that has not been awake in decades.

Lia’s violin echoes through the living room like a forgotten voice returning home.

Meera’s POV

My hands move before my heart can stop them.
I play along on air.
Every note is a door opening.
Every chord is a face I never stopped seeing

I weep.
I do not try to stop it.
I have waited too long to allow myself this ache.
Music never leaves you.
It waits.
And tonight it found me.

The song ends.

The silence holds.

Then I whisper, "Tell your grandfather I kept the violin."

Lia and Arjun freeze.

I rise slowly.

Cross the hallway.

Open the cupboard that held my shame and love and memories all at once.

I lift her into the light.

My violin.

The one piece of my youth I could not throw away.

"I hid her," I say quietly. "Because I was angry. Because losing him hurt more than losing music."

My fingers brush the strings.

"But she never stopped singing to me at night."

I raise the violin.

Play.

Badly.

Imperfectly.

And beautifully.

Because grief still knows the music of love.

Arjun’s POV

I press my fist to my mouth.

I have never seen love look like this.

It is not loud.

It is not young.

It is not dramatic.

It is real.

It waited.

And now it breathes again through her.

Somewhere my grandfather will feel this.

I am certain.

Later Meera places her hand over Lia’s like she used to when correcting bow posture.

"This is why you and Arjun were paired," she says softly.
Fate is not science.

But it is not an accident either.

Lia looks at Arjun.

He smiles.

Not the careless grin.

Not the teasing charm.

Something quieter.

Something true.

Outside the jasmine still blooms.

Inside music lives again.

And love

after forty years of silence

finally speak

Some love stories do not end.

They wait.

They hide in ink and paper.

They echo in grandchildren's hands.

They choose strange and beautiful ways to return.

Meera and Samir were never truly separated.

They were only paused.

And Lia and Arjun are not just writing their own story.

They are finishing one that began long before them.

Chapter 8 will not bring goodbyes.

It will bring choices.

And love does not wait quietly anymore.

Writing this chapter felt like living inside it.

Meera’s tears, Samir’s silence, Lia’s hope, and Arjun’s love all felt real while I wrote. I paused many times, smiled, and even teared up, because this chapter touched my heart deeply.

This one is very special to me, and I truly hope it reaches yours too 🎻💔

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See you in the next chapter 📖💫