Some stories don’t fall apart because of red flags or bad timing. Some fall apart because the universe decides to play a cosmic joke on you.
Because only in New York do you meet someone you want so intensely… only to find out he’s leaving back to his home in Australia in two days. And if that wasn’t ridiculous enough, the other man you feel the same pull toward, … he’s a literal prince in India.
It’s the kind of romance that belongs in the back car of the L train at midnight, where everything is too loud, too close, too temporary to last. But it still hits you like truth. Blame it on the immediacy. That electric feeling of meeting someone whose energy matches yours perfectly, the kind of chemistry that makes hours feel like minutes, and you want to push the sun back under the earth. You try not to think about the countdown sitting between you. About the flight he’s taking back to a life already built on the other side of the world. You want him. He wants you. But desire can’t fight geography.
Then there’s the other one, the one from India. Not just long-distance impossible… fairy-tale impossible. He looks at you like he’d choose you in another life. And maybe he would. There’s a particular heartbreak that comes with wanting people who live in worlds you can’t walk into. A heartbreak that isn’t dramatic, just deeply unfair. No villain. No mistakes. Just reality.
So what do you do when you want someone you can’t have?
You let yourself feel the absurdity of it. The ridiculous beauty of what could be, the haunting of the “what ifs”. You let the connection matter, even if the story can’t. You cry. A lot. You hold onto the truth that some people aren’t meant to stay, they’re meant to remind you you’re still capable of feeling something powerful, something rare. They’re the spark that proves you’re not numb. Not closed off. Not done with love.
Or maybe they’re here to remind you that there will be others who are capable of loving you just as intensely. Even if the universe sends them wrapped in complications you could never compete with…
an ocean,
a throne,
a life you can’t follow them into.
Maybe in another timeline, one of them would’ve been yours. Maybe in another version of your life, things wouldn’t be this complicated. But here, in this city, in this moment? You let the story be what it is: A beautiful impossibility. A reminder that love doesn’t always need an ending, sometimes the wanting alone is enough to change you.
And as the train slows at your stop, you step off knowing this:
Some people aren’t meant to be your future.
They’re meant to be your awakening.
