Unfinished love

Sarah had always been a little too in love with the world.

Not the world as it really was—but the world as she imagined it.

In her head, life was a Bollywood movie.

Love came with perfect timing. People met when they were meant to. Strangers became soulmates. Rain fell at exactly the right moment. A song played somewhere in the background when two people finally looked at each other.

She had no idea what love actually looked like.

She had never been in love.

She didn’t even know what it felt like to have someone choose her.

But that never stopped her from imagining it.

She imagined the kind of love that made your heart race, the kind that made ordinary days feel cinematic. She imagined herself as the heroine of her own story—bright, dramatic, slightly chaotic, but always with a good heart.

Sarah was, in many ways, exactly that.

She cared too much.

Loved too loudly.

Laughed too freely.

And dreamed without asking the world for permission.

Then came university.

She had enrolled to study Media, and although she had dreamed about college for years, the reality of it terrified her.

She got her results.

The next day, she got her admission.

And somehow, the day after that—

she was starting university.

There was no time to prepare her heart.

So, naturally, she prepared her hair instead.

The day before university, Sarah went to the salon. She wanted to look different. Not because she wanted everyone to notice her—but because she wanted to feel like the version of herself she had always imagined.

She worked out regularly. She took care of herself. She dressed brightly.

And then there was her hair.

Brown, naturally, with a bright blue streak running through it.

She loved it.

She loved anything that felt a little too much.

Because Sarah had never understood the point of being ordinary.

On her first day, she walked into university wearing leather pants, boots, and that blue streak shining through her brown hair.

She looked like she had walked straight out of a movie.

And everyone noticed.

People looked at her.

Some smiled.

Some whispered.

Some simply stared.

Sarah noticed all of it.

And, secretly, she loved it.

School had never made her feel this seen.

University was different.

Here, she could be loud.

She could be funny.

She could be herself.

And for the first time, she felt like maybe the world had finally made a little space for her.

That was also the day she met Ahan.

Although, at the time, she didn’t really meet him.

Ahan approached her with a simple candy.

A toffee.

Sarah looked at him, looked at the candy, and politely refused.

She didn’t know him.

Why would she take candy from a stranger?

And then she walked away.

She didn’t think about him again.

At least, not then.

Ahan was different.

He had also come to the university, though it wasn’t exactly love at first sight for him.

He was quiet about things.

Mysterious, in a way.

He didn’t care much for unnecessary drama.

He didn’t like nonsense.

He liked his own company, his friends, his freedom.

And his guitar.

Music made more sense to him than most people did.

He had his little group, his jokes, his plans, his own world.

And then there was Sarah.

To Ahan, she was…

too much.

Too loud.

Too dramatic.

Too lost in her imaginary world.

He couldn’t understand her.

Sometimes he wondered if she was even being genuine.

How can someone actually be like that?

Maybe she was acting.

Maybe nobody could really be that carefree.

That kind.

That alive.

He didn’t dislike her exactly.

He simply didn’t understand her.

The first six months of university changed Sarah in ways she hadn’t expected.

She made friends everywhere.

She laughed through lectures.

Turned boring moments into stories.

And somehow, without even trying, she started getting attention.

A lot of it.

Proposals came.

One after another.

She refused them all.

Love wasn’t on her mind.

Not yet.

She was enjoying being seen.

She was enjoying becoming the girl she had always imagined herself to be.

Until October.

Until one particular boy.

He looked like the kind of Bollywood hero Sarah had spent years imagining.

The kind of face she would have written into one of her fantasies.

And this time, something felt different.

She didn’t just notice him.

She liked him.

They became good friends.

Sarah began to believe that maybe this was it.

Maybe this was the story she had been waiting for.

Maybe this was the person who was supposed to walk into her life.

For once, the girl who always lived inside her imagination allowed herself to believe that her imagination might actually become reality.

So she did something she rarely did.

She opened her heart.

Completely.

She told him how she felt.

And he said no.

There was no beautiful Bollywood ending.

No sudden realization.

No running through the rain.

Just rejection.

And it hurt more than Sarah had imagined it could.

She had never expected that the person who looked so perfectly placed inside her fantasy would be the one to break it.

She didn’t know what to do with the sadness.

She couldn’t laugh it away.

Couldn’t dress it up.

Couldn’t pretend it didn’t matter.

Her heart was broken.

And perhaps the worst part was that she had no idea how to put it back together.

For the first time, Sarah began to wonder if maybe love wasn’t anything like the movies.

Maybe she had been dreaming about something that didn’t exist.

Maybe she had misunderstood the whole thing.

And while she was trying to make sense of her own broken heart…

Ahan was falling deeper in love with her.

Then came that Friday.

The university had a farewell.

There was excitement everywhere, except for one problem—the city was dealing with a strike.

No cabs.

No autos.

Everyone was struggling to figure out how they would get there.

Sarah found out that Ahan was having trouble getting a ride.

So she called him.

“How are you going?”

He explained the situation.

Without thinking twice, Sarah said,

“My dad can drop you.”

There was no hidden intention.

No romantic thought.

She wasn’t trying to impress him.

She wasn’t thinking about love at all.

She was simply helping a friend.

Ahan came over.

Sarah’s father dropped him.

And while Ahan sat there, he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Why would she do that?

She knew he thought she was too much.

She knew they weren’t particularly close.

And yet, she had helped him without expecting anything in return.

Something about that stayed with him.

Maybe it was the simplicity of it.

Maybe it was the fact that Sarah hadn’t even realized how meaningful her kindness was.

And perhaps that was when something inside him quietly changed.

He started noticing her.

Everywhere.

In the corridors.

Outside the classroom.

Laughing with her friends.

Walking into lectures.

Fixing her hair.

Being loud.

Being ridiculous.

Being Sarah.

And somehow…

seeing her made him smile.

He didn’t understand when it happened.

He just knew that she had become impossible to ignore.

Then came Sarah’s birthday.

She invited everyone.

Ahan came late.

Very late.

Sarah called him.

“Where are you?”

Because to Sarah, Ahan was a good friend.

When he finally arrived, she was genuinely happy to see him.

They laughed.

Clicked pictures.

Celebrated.

For Sarah, it was simply another beautiful memory with a friend.

For Ahan, it was becoming something else.

Something he could no longer hide.

Then, one Friday, he called her.

“I love you.”

Sarah froze.

For a moment, she didn’t know what to say.

What just happened?

The girl who had imagined love a thousand different ways had absolutely no idea what to do when someone actually said those three words to her.

She called him.

Once.

Twice.

Ten times.

He didn’t answer.

The next day, he finally called back.

Sarah was angry.

“I called you so many times! Why didn’t you pick up?”

Ahan tried to sound normal.

“Sorry. I fell asleep.”

But on the other side of the phone, he was laughing.

Because he had never expected Sarah to care enough to call him ten times.

And Sarah?

She still said no.

She had just had her heart broken.

She wasn’t ready to give someone else the pieces.

After the Diwali break, they returned to university.

Sarah entered the cab.

Ahan was there.

Nothing dramatic happened.

No movie moment.

No sudden realization.

No background music.

They simply talked.

Laughed.

And went back to being friends.

Until the final exam.

The last exam of the semester.

Ahan didn’t really need to be there.

But he came anyway.

Just to see her.

Sometimes, love makes you do unnecessary things.

Things that don’t make sense.

Things you wouldn’t admit to anyone.

That day, he sent Sarah another beautiful message.

A message filled with everything he couldn’t say out loud.

Sarah read it.

Then read it again.

And again.

Her heart felt confused.

She didn’t know what she was supposed to feel.

She didn’t know why his words stayed in her mind.

And yet, once again—

she said no.

Then the semester ended.

The university break began.

Everyone went their separate ways.

Sarah went for an internship.

And somehow, Ahan was there too.

She went for the interview.

He was there.

She got the internship.

Another coincidence.

Another little piece of the story neither of them knew how to name yet.

Then came Ahan’s birthday.

And this time, something was different.

He proposed to her again.

Perhaps he had been waiting.

Perhaps he had hoped.

Perhaps he simply couldn’t stop loving her.

Sarah looked at him.

And for the first time, she didn’t run from the feeling.

She didn’t laugh it away.

She didn’t say no.

She didn’t pretend she didn’t understand.

She simply said—

“Yes.”

And just like that, the girl who had spent her entire life imagining a Bollywood love story finally stepped into one.

Only…

she didn’t know yet what the next scene would bring.

To be continued.