In-Yeun.
The word keeps replaying in her mind. She and he shared an In-Yeun—a thread tying them together for a moment. But the moment was too short; the longing was too long.
She is on her way to get her watch that she left at his place the other day. Finally, they both agreed on a time for him to return it and for her to take it back.
“All I want is the watch back. That’s all,” she tells herself, staring at the train’s bathroom mirror. “The watch is important. It was a gift from my father. I’ll just go, take my watch from him, and come back. Then it’s over. Done.” She exhales.
Coming out of the bathroom, she returns to her seat. Her phone pings—a text from her friend: Have you gotten your watch?
She types: On my way.
Take care, her friend replies.
Why? Do you think I might cry? she sends back.
Her friend doesn’t reply.
Looking out the window, she remembers their conversation the other day.
“Once I get the watch back, it’s sealed. I mean, I’m already over him,” she said.
“Are you sure you are over him? It’s been just two days since you wrote an entire story on him,” her friend replied.
She said nothing to that. She rummaged for words, but none came.
“Why don’t you just let it go?” her friend asked.
“What? The watch?”
“Yeah. Just let it go.”
“Why would I? It’s my watch, and it’s important to me,” she had said, irritation pricking at her tone.
The train crosses Guildwood Station—she spots the engraved signboard. She pulls out her phone and texts him: Hi! Two more stations to go. It might take me approximately fifteen minutes to reach.
He replies: Okay.
When the train finally pulls into Danforth Station, she steps onto the platform. A gust of wind brushes past her—cool yet tinged with leftover warmth, carrying a strange, unplaceable scent. An orange leaf drifts into her path. Fall is here. Summer has slipped away. A sickening feeling stirs in her chest—she is never going to see him again after today. With a pounding heart, she books an Uber and texts her friend: I’m nervous.
Her friend’s reply comes immediately: You can do it. Let me know what happens, okay?
It’s a fifteen-minute drive from Danforth Station to Broadview. She tries to keep her gaze fixed on the street outside at the moving cars, at the trees, but sometimes she fails. She scrolls through reels, then looks back out the car window. She fixes her hair, her ring, her breath.
The car turns the corner, and her heart sinks. There he is—standing there in a pale green shirt, her watch in one hand, his phone in the other. She pauses for a breath before stepping out. Shutting the car door, she walks toward him. He looks up from his phone.
She smiles. “Hey!”
He half-smiles. “Hi! How are you?”
“Yeah… good. How are you?”
“Just tired.” He hands her the watch. “Here.”
“Thanks for not selling it on Facebook Marketplace,” she teases.
“I don’t even know how much that’s worth.”
“It’s expensive,” she deadpans.
“Yeah.” He brushes his fingers through his hair. “Okay, I’ll go now.” He starts to turn, and her heart drops. Is he leaving? She scrambles for words, anything to keep him there.
“What are you gonna do?” she blurts.
He stops in the middle. “Oh, I’ll just walk around, then go home. What about you?”
She silently takes a breath, he stopped, “I’m going all the way back to Oshawa again, what else?” She pauses, “It was always me who came here to meet you. You never came to see me.”
“Yeah… It’s just I’m busy with work. How are you going back, by the way?”
“The same way I came. I need to take an Uber to Danforth Go,” she says, opening the app.
“Wait.” He pulls out his phone. “This is a subway station. You can take the train to Main Street and walk two minutes to Danforth Go Station.”
She laughs. “I’m terrible at navigating subways. I’d rather take the Uber.”
“Why? It’s so simple. Let me show you.” He explains patiently, pointing at his phone. She watches him talk, not taking in a single word.
He looks up, trailing off. He sees the glazed, helpless look in her eyes. He understands. The map on his screen is irrelevant. She is not here for directions.
A beat of silence hangs between them. “Okay,” he says, his voice softening. “Look. The station is right there.” He points to the Broadview entrance behind them. “But… I’m walking that way.” He gestures east, down the street. “There’s another station. Chester. It’s the next stop. I’ll show you. It’s a five-minute walk.”
Why is he doing this? The question screams in her mind, but her voice is a whisper. “Okay.”
They start walking. The transaction is over—the watch is in her bag. This is something else. Borrowed time, to her. She doesn’t know what it is to him.
They pass a little park, a row of brick houses. The conversation stutters to life—safe, terrible topics. The weather. The people. The city. Work.
“I had the worst day at work today,” she says, keeping pace with him. They aren’t holding hands.
“Why? What happened?”
“The last time I cried in public was in 2017. Today I almost did again.”
He laughs. “What happened in 2017?”
“One of my professors yelled at me, and I cried. But today, when my boss yelled, I almost broke down. Then I told myself, Hey, you’re a big girl now, don’t cry. I kept my record intact—eight years without crying in public.”
He laughs. “Yeah, your boss is crap. Why was he yelling at you, anyway?”
“He is crap. No doubt. So, I—”
“There’s a… do you want a coffee? Before you go?” In the middle of a sentence about her boss, he stops her, gesturing vaguely to the left.
She looks at the café, then at him. The part of her that wants to be strong, the part that wrote the whole story in her head about getting the watch and leaving, tells her to say no. To get on the train and never look back. But she realizes that she has failed when she finds herself nodding and steps inside the cafe with him.
They sit by the window. He asks her to continue her story at work today. She tells him how hard a time her boss gave her today. Then they talk about this, talk about that. They sit there for twenty minutes and talk about everything but the heart matters.
Once the coffee is gone, the spell is broken. She curses herself in her mind to finish the coffee so fast.
They get up. Step outside.
The sun is gone.
Night has fallen.
The air is chillier.
Their borrowed time is up.
They walk until Chester Station.
“There you go,” he says softly.
She realizes this is it—there’s nothing left to stretch the minutes, no excuse to stay.
“This is it then,” she says, does her voice crack a little?
She doesn’t know if he notices that. The only thing she knows is that he pulls her into a hug the next second. It’s not the hug she remembers from their dates. This one is tighter. Stays a little longer. It feels like a final, desperate press of a memory into being. She buries her face in his chest, inhaling his scent one last time.
“Good luck,” he says, pulling away.
She stays silent, unable to utter a word, and only gives him a half-smile. He turns and walks off. She turns too only to look back again to watch him walking away. Her heart hurts, her vision gets blurry as she watches him disappear around the corner. She draws in a deep breath and looks skyward, throwing a question to God: Am I so unlovable?
The rest is a blur. She gets on the subway. Reaches Main Street. Crosses to Danforth Go. She quietly waits for the train to come under the warm golden light—the only girl on the platform. Her fingers brush the watch on her wrist, realizing—she is in love.
Her phone buzzes. It’s her friend. “Are you okay?”
“No,” she replies after a moment of silence. “I thought this would be the end. I thought that once I got the watch back, I’d have my closure—I’d be done. All this time, I was so fixated on getting the watch back that I forgot what it really meant: this is the end. I’ll never see him again.”
“Sometimes the closure you thought you wanted isn’t really the one you wanted,” her friend says.
“What should I do now? Why am I hurting so much? This is not fair,” her voice breaks.
“Nothing is fair in love and war,” her friend says, “Stay still for a while. Just stay still. Let it hurt. I’m here for you.”
And when she boards the train that night, she finally breaks—tears spilling after two long hours of brewing inside, shattering her eight-year record of never crying in public.
***
In-Yeun tied them for a moment; now it trails behind her like a thread she can’t untangle.
Want More From Umme Pritam?
Author Bio
Born and raised in the bustling capital of Bangladesh- Dhaka, Umme Pritam has been in love with reading since childhood, which eventually led her to write fiction. In 2022, she published her debut novel Eiliyah worldwide. The novel explored themes of love, loss, and self-discovery, and since its release, she has continued to write fiction that centers quiet emotional truths and complex interpersonal dynamics. She is currently working on her second novel: Far away from the maddening crowd.
Now based in Canada, she remains committed to writing stories that cross cultural and emotional borders. The enclosed story reflects her ongoing interest in characters navigating identity, vulnerability, and the intricate relationships that shape their lives.
When she is not writing, you’ll find her having deep, long conversations with her friends, reading books and watching movies, or simply taking a long walk on the trail behind her house.
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