Chapter 1 -THE PROLOGUE
Four Years Earlier
Some people leave your life quietly.
No goodbye.
No promises.
No reason to remember them.
And yet, somehow, years later, their name can still make you pause.
Aditya Sachdeva had never understood why some memories stayed when they had never really meant anything.
The Sachdeva house was louder than usual that afternoon.
Riya's laughter echoed down the hallway, followed by the familiar sound of someone arguing with her over a game they had been playing for nearly an hour.
Aditya barely looked up from his book.
He was used to it.
Riya and her best friend were almost always around.
He knew her only as Shruti.
Riya's school friend.
The girl who came over after classes.
The girl whose shoes were often left near the entrance.
The girl whose voice occasionally drifted from Riya's room.
Nothing more.
At least, that was what Aditya told himself.
He closed his book and glanced toward the hallway when Riya suddenly appeared.
"Adi!"
"What?"
"Don't be annoying."
"I wasn't."
"You were about to be."
He rolled his eyes.
Behind her, Shruti appeared for only a moment.
She was holding a volleyball beneath one arm, still wearing her school uniform, her hair slightly messy from practice.
Riya grabbed her hand.
"Come on."
Shruti laughed and disappeared upstairs with her.
Aditya looked back at his book.
For some reason, he didn't immediately start reading again.
He couldn't explain why.
So he didn't try.
Four years later, he would remember that afternoon.
Not because anything happened.
Nothing did.
They never spoke.
Not then.
Not after.
Not once.
And perhaps that was why, when Riya called him from Dehradun and said a name he hadn't heard in years, Aditya found himself staring at the wall in silence.
"Adi, I need a favor."
"No."
"You don't even know what it is."
"Still no."
"Please."
"I'm busy."
"It's just I have said to shruti".
His fingers stopped moving.
A pause.
A strange, inexplicable pause.
"Shruti?"
Riya laughed.
"Yes, Shruti. My the only friend? Remember?"
Of course he remembered.
He just didn't know why the name suddenly felt different.
Riya continued talking.
"She's in Hansraj now."
Silence.
"First year. Life Sciences."
Another pause.
"And guess what? She somehow got herself appointed captain of the women's volleyball team, that she always wanted to be".
"I'm so glad that she did it so fast. "
Aditya leaned back in his chair.
For the first time that morning, he wasn't thinking about his own practice.
He wasn't thinking about his classes.
He wasn't thinking about the match coming up that weekend.
He was thinking about a girl he hadn't spoken to in four years.
A girl he had only ever known from a distance.
A girl whose name had somehow survived the years without his permission.
"Just deliver the thing, Bhai."
"I said I'm not—"
"Please."
He sighed.
"Fine."
Riya cheered.
"Thank you!"
He ended the call.
For several seconds, he remained where he was.
Then, almost without realizing it, he smiled.
Just slightly.
And somewhere between an old memory and a new beginning, something shifted.
He didn't know it yet.
But he would finally speak to Shruti Mehra.
And nothing would be quite the same after that.
