Every love story deserves to be told.

It helps someone else. A reader who is waiting, or doubting, or missing someone, finds their own feeling in your words.

It keeps the moment. Most of us never write down the small things. A few lines today will still be here years from now.

It joins the book. Every story we publish appears on the Reader Stories page, with your name and city, next to the book's own.

We separated for two years. It was my decision and I was sure about it. I moved into a small flat in Andheri and learned to cook for one person. I thought I was fine. Then one evening I made too much dal out of habit, and I sat there looking at the second plate. I called him and said, I made too much. There was a long silence. He said, I am coming. That was all. We have been back together for three years now. We are slower with each other, more careful. I do not think love always means you never leave. Sometimes it means you came back and he opened the door.

Nobody in my family said I love you. My father showed it by checking the tyre pressure on my mother's scooter every Sunday for thirty years. I did not understand it until I got married. My wife told me I never say the words. So I started doing what my father did. I check her phone charger before she leaves, I keep her side of the fridge stocked with the curd she likes, I wait at the gate when she is late. Last month she said, you know you do this every day. I said, do what. She said, say it. I think I finally learned the language.

My husband passed away four years ago. I was sixty-one. I thought my love story was over and I said so to my daughter. Last year a neighbour started bringing me the newspaper every morning, just leaving it at the door. After a month I opened the door and asked him in for tea. He is sixty-eight, a retired teacher, and he does not like sugar. We are not getting married. We have not told anyone the right word for it. But he fixed my gate, I taught him to make dal, and on Sundays we both sit and complain about the crossword. At this age, that is a love story too.

We lived in different cities for three years after marriage because of our jobs. Every night at ten we talked on the phone, even if it was only five minutes. Some nights we said nothing, he would be eating dinner and I would be folding clothes and the call would just stay on. My friends said this was not a real marriage. I did not argue. When I finally moved to his city, I cried in the taxi because I realised I did not know how to fall asleep without hearing him chew. Now I hear it every night and I would not change one bite.

We were fixed up by our families. The first meeting was twenty minutes in my aunt's living room, with tea and too many relatives listening. He asked me one question, what do you do when you are upset. I said I clean the kitchen. He laughed and said he goes for a long walk. After the wedding, whenever I started scrubbing the stove, he put on his shoes and went out, and came back an hour later with two cups of chai. Nobody told us how to do this. We found out by being upset at each other for eleven years. The stove has never been cleaner and he has never walked more.

I met her in a college bus in 2009. She sat next to me because it was the only free seat, and she was annoyed about it. We did not speak for two months. Then one day it rained and the bus broke down, and we shared one umbrella for forty minutes. She said her name. I said mine. That was the whole conversation. Today she is my wife and we have two kids, and she still tells people she only sat next to me because of the seat. I let her say it. I know she waited at that bus stop every morning for two months.