Chapter 1: First Glance
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📖 Chapter 1: First Glance
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Ananya
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
Not the uncomfortable kind, but the heavy, velvet sort that falls over a room when someone important walks in.
I turned my head, just a little, barely enough to glance past the curls that always fall annoyingly into my eyes. He stood near the entrance of the auditorium, all black suit and sharp lines, like he’d stepped out of a business magazine and into my messy, chaotic world.
He wasn’t part of my world. That much was obvious.
The name tag on his jacket read “Reyansh Malhotra – Alumni Sponsor.” The whispers around me confirmed it.
I didn’t know much about him—only that he was some young tech founder who had once walked these same marble hallways. Now he owned half the campus and apparently funded the internship program everyone was dying to get into.
He didn’t look much older than us. Mid-twenties, maybe. Still, there was something… detached about him. Like he knew things the rest of us hadn't lived through yet.
“That's him,” whispered Rhea, the girl sitting next to me. We’d met just an hour ago, bonding over the trauma of late hostel check-ins and cold orientation tea. “Reyansh Malhotra. The guy who turned down Google. Twice.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Impressive. Must be nice to have that kind of luxury.”
“Luxury is his last name,” she replied, not even blinking. “His dad owns a hospital chain. And a vineyard in Italy. Apparently, he only funds two interns a year through his company.”
I blinked. Of course he does.
And just like that, I filed him under People I’ll Never Interact With.
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Orientation droned on. Introductions, expectations, rules. “You are the chosen fifty,” they kept saying like we were part of some elite cult. And maybe we were. Fifty students from across the country, handpicked for the university’s special accelerated leadership program. Most of them arrived in chauffeur-driven sedans. I came with a rucksack and two books I couldn’t afford to lose.
I tried to focus. I really did.
But my eyes kept drifting back.
There was something about the way he stood. Like stillness was his weapon. Controlled. Calculated. He didn’t fidget like the rest of the faculty. He didn’t even check his phone.
Until his gaze swept the room… and paused.
On me.
It was brief. A flicker. Maybe a second too long to be coincidence.
I sat straighter in my seat.
He wasn’t looking at me. Don’t be stupid, Ananya.
But for that tiny, traitorous second, it felt like he was.
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We broke for lunch in the courtyard. Everything smelled expensive—polished tiles, linen napkins, and imported coffee.
Rhea chattered beside me, “We should mingle. Apparently, Reyansh personally selects the two interns. Based on interaction, confidence, vision, all that CEO crap.”
I sipped my water. “Let me guess. You plan on bumping into him casually?”
She grinned. “Obviously.”
I shook my head and excused myself, heading for the garden path. I needed a breather before my brain exploded from information overload and Rhea’s obsession with tall, dangerous men.
I found a quiet corner near the library steps. Sat down. Let the warm stone seep through my jeans.
That’s when I heard it.
Low footsteps. The soft thud of dress shoes on stone.
I turned, and for a wild, absurd moment, I thought please don’t let it be him.
It was him.
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He paused a few feet away. Looked surprised, but only mildly. Like he wasn’t used to people being where he expected silence.
“You’re not mingling,” he said.
His voice was deeper than I imagined. Calm. Slightly amused.
I stood up, brushing imaginary dust from my jeans. “Neither are you.”
He gave a short nod. “Touché.”
We stood in awkward silence. I should’ve left. I didn’t.
Maybe it was the sheer ridiculousness of the situation. Maybe it was the fact that he wasn’t pretending not to notice me. He saw me. And not in a student number 47 on the list kind of way.
He looked at the book I was holding. "Letters to a Young Poet."
“I read that here,” he said. “In this very garden.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Were you young and poetic too, once?”
His mouth twitched. “Something like that.”
Another beat passed.
“Do you always lurk around library gardens making awkward small talk?” I asked before I could stop myself.
His eyes met mine, and this time, they held. Not polite. Not amused. Just quiet interest. “Only when I see something… different.”
My breath caught.
He wasn’t flirting. It wasn’t smooth. It wasn’t even a compliment.
But something in my chest shifted. Like a weight I didn’t know I carried had tilted just slightly.
He checked his watch, like reality had come crashing back. “Enjoy your book, Miss...?”
“Ananya.”
Another nod. “Ananya.”
He walked away.
And just like that, the air around me felt colder.
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Later that night, in my dorm bed, I stared at the ceiling fan and thought about the way he said my name.
Slow. Careful. Like it meant something.
It didn’t, of course. It couldn’t.
He was a name in magazines. A face in headlines.
And I was just a scholarship girl from a two-bedroom flat in a forgotten part of town.
Still…
I couldn’t help but wonder:
Why me?
-End
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