Prologue

I never meant to get attached.

He was just a guy on a balcony. A stranger with a guitar and sad eyes, who played like the world was ending and he was the last one left to sing.

But night after night, I found myself standing by the window. Waiting. Watching. Listening.

It wasn’t love. Not even infatuation. It was something quieter. Stranger. Like he was a lighthouse, and I was the ship that didn’t want to be rescued—but couldn’t help looking for the light.

Then one night, he was gone.

No sound. No song. No reason.

I told myself it didn’t matter. That I’d imagined all of it.

Until the day I walked into Ishaan Multispeciality Hospital and saw him again.

Only this time…

He wasn’t a silhouette behind glass.

He was real. Too real.

And the way he looked at me?

It was like he’d been

watching too.