It was an inside joke. I never fully understood it, but I liked to play along.

You’d say my love was like ice. That water was bland and boring—something you only drink to survive. But once you have ice, everything is different. It transforms everything it touches. It makes whiskey sweeter, pepsi less sweet, and, most importantly, took plain, lifeless water and turned it into salvation from the summer sun.

Anything you drank, you’d ask for extra ice—water, fresh-lime soda, whiskey. Then you’d glance at me with a side smile, waiting to see if I noticed. I always did. If we went somewhere that didn’t have ice, you’d look at me, feigning disappointment. “A day without you or an icey drink is no day at all,” you’d declare.

Our freezer was always stocked with ice cubes. You liked to pretend they were miniature versions of me – making a ritual of picking the cubes up from the tray, holding them gently, before letting them drop into your glass. “Enjoy your swim,” you’d chuckle, looking at me as they plunged into the water before bobbing back up for air. I never fully understood it, but I liked to play along.

You’d take a long sip, swallow, and sigh—as if, in that moment, all was right with the world. In the kitchen of our first home, watching you drink a cold glass of water always felt like you were paying me a compliment. As if all you needed was a glass of cold water and my company, to redeem the day.

As the years passed, these rituals faded. You’d order whiskey on the rocks, and I’d search your face for that familiar side smile. But it never came.

“Do you want ice with that?” I’d ask when you poured yourself a glass of water. You’d absentmindedly open the freezer, drop the cubes in and take a sip. And I’d hold my breath, waiting for your familiar sigh like an audience anticipating the climax of a magic trick. But it never came.

Most days you simply stopped by the kitchen, grabbed a bottle, and gulped down water with urgency— ignoring the ice cubes that were only steps away, and within arms reach. One day, I stopped refilling the ice tray. It dawned on me that ice no longer interested you. Maybe it was a matter of time. Ice can’t escape that it must eventually melt and shrink until all that remains is water – bland and boring.

You can only be bored by the things you take for granted. So I started using less water in everything. In my fish curry, your morning chai, the plants on our balcony. The bottles in the kitchen were always half-filled, the ice trays left empty.

You’d drink your chai and say something was missing. But you could never quite tell what.

“It needs more sugar.” “It’s too milky.” “Did you change the tea brand? I liked the old one.”

One afternoon, you asked me to make you a cup of chai. I filled a pot with water and set it on the stove to boil, watching as tiny bubbles lined the steel. They grew bigger, busier, until the water turned to steam, rising above the pot, disappearing as if it had never been there.

After a while, you called out for your tea. But there was no answer.

You wandered into the kitchen, calling my name but it was empty. Just a forgotten pot of water, left to boil until it had turned to vapor and vanished into thin air.