We entered the station. Even at this hour, it pulsed with the restless rhythm of departure—families bundled in layers of hurry, vendors calling out to no one in particular, the overhead announcements crackling like distant memories you couldn’t fully grasp.

Platform No. 1. That’s where my train would be.

The Vande Bharat was already there, standing still in its white and blue silence. It looked like it had been waiting for years rather than minutes. I stepped inside to drop my luggage. The interior was calm, almost sterile. A 3/2 seat configuration. Mine was by the window—the kind of seat that always felt like a small escape hatch to the world outside. I lifted my bag into the overhead compartment and stepped out again. There were still twenty minutes before the train would leave. Twenty minutes always feels longer when you know it’s your last.

We stood near the edge of the platform. Not too close to the train, not too far from the noise. Just somewhere in between. We spoke in half-sentences, the kind that don’t really begin or end. About how fast time passed. About how it’s always like this—time folding over itself until you’re suddenly standing at the edge of it. We talked about meaningless things too. The weight of the tea we had that morning. The socks I forgot to pack. It wasn’t really about the words. It never is.

When the announcement came—five minutes to departure—it cut through the air like a gentle but unavoidable truth. I turned to him and smiled. Not the kind of smile that says “goodbye,” but the kind that says “we were here.”

I boarded. The doors slid shut behind me with that soft, futuristic hum, like the exhale of something mechanical trying to be human. I sat by the window, watching the platform blur just a little through the glass. He stood still. Not waving. Just existing in that moment, in that frame.

Sometimes, departures aren’t loud. Sometimes, they slip quietly into the night like a note tucked into the pages of a book—meant to be found only when you’re ready. And in that stillness, I thought: maybe that’s how some people stay with you. Not by holding on, but by letting go just right.