Aditya & Pooja

Aditya and I took our first trip together to Goa four years ago, back when we were still figuring out whether long weekends away were 'too soon' for a new relationship. Spoiler: they weren't. We've been back almost every year since, and it quietly became our anniversary trip without either of us officially deciding that.

This year's trip felt different from the moment we landed — he kept 'forgetting' small things and seemed unusually nervous for someone just going on vacation. On our last evening, he arranged a private dinner directly on the sand, lit entirely by candles, with the tide close enough to hear over the music.

Midway through dessert, he reached into his jacket instead of his fork, and I genuinely thought he was checking his phone. Instead, there was a small velvet box, and a marquise-cut diamond that caught every flicker of candlelight as he opened it.

He chose the marquise cut with a pavé shank because he said it reminded him of the shape of the moon reflecting on water that first night we ever walked this same beach together. I don't think I said yes so much as I just started crying and nodding at the same time.

"The same beach, four years later, and somehow it still felt like the very beginning of something. I'll never be able to look at moonlight on water the same way again."

— Pooja