My Secret Crush

Reena had always believed that the world was much bigger and more beautiful than the little place she had grown up in.

She was the kind of girl who could spend an entire afternoon staring out of a window, imagining what life looked like in places she had never visited. She loved food, loved travelling, and loved listening to stories about places that sounded almost magical.

Her favourite stories were about hill stations.

She had heard that there were places where clouds floated right outside bedroom windows, where the mornings smelled of wet earth, and where the stars looked close enough to touch.

“Imagine waking up and finding a cloud sitting outside your window!” she once told her mother.

Her mother laughed. “And what would you do then?”

“Invite it inside, obviously.”

“And where would you seat it?”

Reena thought for a moment. “On Papa’s chair. He can sit somewhere else.”

Her father shook his head from behind his newspaper. “Wonderful. I work all day, and now even the clouds get my chair.”

Reena burst into laughter.

She had another dream, too. She wanted to visit a beach where tiny fish swam close enough to tickle her feet. She wanted to taste unfamiliar food, walk through unfamiliar streets, and collect memories from places that existed beyond her imagination.

But for now, her world was small: her family, her friends, her school, and the stories she made up in her head.

She didn’t know that soon, her world would change completely.

And that, somewhere in that new world, there would be a boy whose eyes would become her favourite thing to remember.