The rain was hammering the windows like it had personal issues with my apartment. The kind of rain that sounded like arguments—loud, relentless, refusing to stop until it had made its point.

It was 1:17 a.m.

I sat on the edge of my couch, the blue light from my phone painting half my face in ghostly color. Three words. That’s all it took to collapse every bit of composure I’d built over the past seven years.

“Can I come over?”

No explanation. No emoji. Just those four words carrying the weight of everything we’d never said out loud.

Forty minutes ago, I’d seen the message. I’d typed of course, then deleted it. Typed always, deleted that too. Finally, I just sent:

“Yeah. Door’s open.”

Seven minutes later, I heard the soft click of the latch. Then wet sneakers being kicked off, the rustle of a jacket, and finally, her voice—smaller than usual.

“You’re still awake.”

I turned slowly.

Arza stood in the hallway light, hair dripping, black hoodie clinging to her shoulders, mascara smudged just enough to betray that she’d been crying—or fighting not to. Maybe both.

“Couldn’t sleep,” I said.

Which was true. I hadn’t slept properly since the day I realized I was in love with my best friend.

Arza looked at the floor, then at me, then away again. “It’s stupid,” she whispered. “I just… I didn’t want to be alone tonight.”

I stood up. Not too fast, not too slow—the way you approach something fragile that might vanish if you breathe wrong.

“You don’t ever have to be alone,” I told her.

And that was the sentence I’d been holding inside my chest for two years.

She finally met my eyes. And something cracked inside both of us.

Then she asked the question that would rewrite everything between us.

“Is there space in your bed tonight?”

My heart slammed so hard I could feel the pulse in my fingertips. She was trembling, twisting the drawstring of her hoodie like it was an anchor.

I swallowed. Looked at her soaked hair, the soft curve of uncertainty in her shoulders, the history between us flickering like a film reel I’d watched too many times.

And then I said the line that had lived in the back of my throat for years.

“Only if you’re looking for a space in my life, Arza.”

Silence. Heavy. Terrifying. Beautiful.

Her eyes widened. Lips parted. No blink. No breath.

I thought I’d ruined it—seven years of friendship burned to ash.

Then she laughed. Small. Shaky. Almost crying. And she stepped forward until the toes of her socks brushed mine.

“I’ve been looking for that space,” she whispered, “since the day you let me steal your hoodie in twelfth grade and never asked for it back.”

My hands were shaking when I reached up and pushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek.

“I kept hoping you’d come back for it,” I admitted softly. “And maybe stay.”

She closed her eyes. The breath she took sounded like it hurt in the best way.

We didn’t kiss then. Not yet.

Instead, I took her freezing hand and led her to my room.

I gave her my softest sweatshirt—the gray one she always said smelled like home. She changed in the bathroom while I changed the pillowcases because somehow, I wanted everything to feel new for her.

When she came back, hair still damp, drowning in my sweatshirt, looking small and utterly mine in the dim light—I forgot how to breathe.

We slid under the covers. Not touching at first. Just close enough to feel each other’s warmth.

Then she turned toward me in the dark.

“Arman,” she whispered.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve been scared of this moment for so long.”

“Me too.”

Her fingers found my wrist beneath the blanket. “But I’m more scared of never having it.”

I turned my hand, laced our fingers together, and pulled her closer.

She fit perfectly—like she’d been carved for that exact space between my chest and arm.

We didn’t speak again for a long time. Just breathed. Just existed in the same heartbeat.

Right before sleep found her, she whispered against my collarbone, “Don’t let this be a one-night thing.”

I kissed her hair and murmured, “Never. This is the beginning of every night.”

For the next three weeks, life felt like learning how to walk again.

We moved carefully. Softly. Like people terrified of breaking something newly born.

We didn’t label it. Didn’t post pictures. Didn’t tell our friends.

We just existed differently.

She started leaving things at my place again—but this time on purpose. A hair tie on the nightstand. Her lip balm in my drawer. A scarf on the back of my chair like a quiet declaration.

I started waking earlier just to watch her sleep.

The way her lashes fluttered. The tiny frown when she dreamed. The way her fingers searched for me, even unconsciously.

I learned the geography of her silence. The rhythm of her sighs. The smell of rain in her hair.

And then, on a Tuesday, we had our first fight.

It started stupid. It ended raw.

She wanted to tell her sister. I wanted to wait.

“I don’t want to hide you,” she said, voice cracking. “I don’t want us to feel like a secret.”

“I’m not ashamed of us,” I told her. “I’m terrified of losing you if something goes wrong. I’ve seen what happens when people announce things too early. Everyone has opinions. Everyone waits for you to fail.”

She looked at me like I’d hit her.

“So you think we’re going to fail?”

“No,” I said, cupping her face. “I think the world is very good at making beautiful things feel fragile.”

Tears welled in her eyes.

“I don’t care about the world, Arman. I care about you. About us. About finally being allowed to love you loudly.”

That was the first time she said love.

The word hit me like a wave I didn’t see coming.

I pulled her against me, hard enough that she gasped.

“Then love me loudly,” I whispered into her hair. “I’m done being careful.”

The next morning, she posted a photo.

Nothing dramatic. Just our hands intertwined on the steering wheel as I drove her to work—my silver ring beside her thin gold one.

Caption: “Found my favorite place to hold on.”

Comments exploded. Friends freaked out. My mother called crying happy tears.

And Arza—she just smiled at me across the breakfast table like she’d won the entire universe.

That night, she crawled into bed in my old t-shirt, hair loose, eyes soft.

“Still space for me?” she asked, teasing—but her voice carried that echo from the first night.

I pulled her close until there was no space left between us.

“There’s space for you in every version of my life,” I said. “Past, present, every tomorrow I get to dream about.”

She kissed me—slow, deep, like she was memorizing the taste of safety.

When we finally pulled apart, she whispered, “I used to think home was a place.”

I brushed her cheek. “And now?”

She smiled, small and devastating. “Now I know it’s a person.”

The universe, being what it is, didn’t let us keep our perfect bubble forever.

It started subtly. Missed calls. Canceled plans. Deadlines creeping like shadows under doors.

Then one Friday, I came home to find her sitting on the couch, her face pale, her laptop open.

“You got the job,” I said immediately when I saw the email on her screen. “New York. Arza, that’s incredible.”

She didn’t smile.

“Six months,” she said. “They want me in the city next week.”

The words hung between us like an approaching storm.

“Six months isn’t forever,” I said.

She looked at me. “You don’t believe that.”

I didn’t.

Long-distance wasn’t built for people who already spent years dancing around what they wanted.

But I wasn’t about to lose her again.

“We’ll make it work,” I said firmly.

“Don’t promise me things you can’t keep,” she whispered.

“I’m not,” I said. “I’m promising that I’ll try.”

Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I’m scared, Arman. We just found each other. I don’t want to watch it fade.”

I knelt in front of her. “Then don’t. We’ll keep finding each other, no matter the distance.”

She nodded, but the fear didn’t leave her face.

Those six months were both everything and nothing.

We texted constantly. Called whenever we could. Video chats became our new dinner table.

But some nights, the silence between calls grew longer.

One evening, she sent a photo of the skyline. “Wish you were here.”

I replied, “Always am, just offscreen.”

Her response came slower now. “It’s not the same.”

It wasn’t.

By the fourth month, visits felt like borrowed time. Airports became confession booths where we kept saying soon like it was a prayer that would hold the distance together.

The fifth month, she called crying.

“I’m drowning here, Arman. The job’s everything I wanted—but I feel like I left my lungs behind with you.”

“You’re doing incredible,” I said, even though part of me hated the world that required her to choose.

“Do you still love me?” she asked.

“Every version of me does,” I said quietly. “Even the ones that haven’t happened yet.”

She didn’t answer.

The night before her final presentation—the one that would decide if her contract became permanent—she texted again.

“Can I come over?”

It was 1:10 a.m. The same words as before. Same weight.

Only this time, she was 1,200 miles away.

I stared at the message until the rain began again outside my window.

Then I typed back, “You’re already here.”

I didn’t delete it this time.

Two days later, I woke up to her voice on the phone, crying and laughing all at once.

“They offered me a permanent position,” she said. “But I told them no.”

My heart stuttered. “You what?”

“I told them no,” she repeated. “Because I finally realized I was building a future that didn’t have space for the person who made me want one.”

“Arza…”

“I’m coming home, Arman,” she said. “If you still have space for me.”

I laughed through the tears. “There’s space for you in every version of my life.”

She arrived on a Tuesday. Same rain. Same hoodie. Same look in her eyes—the mix of exhaustion and certainty that made her the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

We didn’t talk much. We didn’t need to.

She dropped her bag by the door, walked across the room, and kissed me like every word we hadn’t said was already understood.

“This time,” she whispered, forehead against mine, “I’m not leaving.”

And I believed her.

Now, every time it rains, I find her watching the windows.

Sometimes she says, “Remember that night?”

And I nod. Because I remember everything.

The text. The tremble in her voice. The silence before she said yes to the space we’d both been pretending not to want.

The rain isn’t angry anymore. It’s familiar.

Like the sound of her laughter when she burns toast. Or the way she hums while brushing her teeth. Or the quiet sigh she makes before falling asleep against me.

Home, I’ve learned, isn’t a place you find.

It’s a person who shows up at 1:17 a.m. in the rain and asks, “Can I come over?”

And it’s saying yes—every time.

THE END