Chapter 1
I was sitting cross-legged at my study table, a half-finished notebook in front of me, my pen idle in my hand. Homework wasn’t going anywhere tonight; my mind had wandered somewhere else entirely. I opened my phone to scroll through the camera roll, and just like that, I was back – not here, not now, but there.
I remembered my first day at a new school. Walking into that classroom, nerves tangled in my stomach, not expecting anyone to notice me, not wanting anyone to. Clumsy, quiet, introverted – that was me. Just trying to survive without making a fool of myself.
And then he came along.
“Hey… can I sit beside you?”
I froze, my fingers gripping the zipper of my bag. I looked up. Tall, broad-shouldered, confident, smiling like it was completely normal to sit next to a stranger. Riddhan Dutta.
The first thing he said after introducing himself? “First bench is kind of suffocating for me, so… come on, man, shift.”
I blinked. And then, without thinking, I slid over. He sat down like we’d been friends forever.
It wasn’t a single moment. It was weeks of small, endless ones.
Homework sessions where he explained things I couldn’t figure out, patiently, without a hint of condescension. I dozed off once on his shoulder while he was scribbling notes – he didn’t even move. Just let me rest. Lunches he carried for me when my hands were too full with books. Moments so tiny, so ordinary, but they stuck in my chest like soft, warm weights.
He had this way of laughing that made people naturally gather around him. Boys, girls, teachers – everyone seemed drawn to him. I noticed, quietly, how effortlessly he made
friends. And I hated myself for noticing too much.
Then there were the teasing moments. We’d sit in the library together, I’d be struggling with a problem in Accounts, and he’d lean over, smirk, and say something sarcastic in that tone that made me both irritated and oddly comforted.
I remember muttering once during lunch, “Damn, man, you’re famous,” noticing the girls sneaking glances at him.
“Shut up,” he said, that self-explanatory smile spreading across his face. “There’s nothing. I don’t know what they even see in me.”
If only he knew, I thought bitterly. If only he knew how fast my heart jumped when he laughed at something I said, how much I noticed when he brushed past my arm accidentally, how much those tiny gestures mattered.
Every memory was slow, like watching a flower bloom. That first spark of something I couldn’t name, quietly growing, the way a lotus bud opens one petal at a time. I hated myself for liking it, for letting it affect me at all.
And then reality snapped me back.
“Kiaan! What are you doing? Ten minutes late! Pack up, you have school!”
Shit. First day of Class 12. My last year. The year that would end everything I’d known and maybe start something else entirely.
I scrambled, stuffing notebooks into my bag, grabbing my pens, muttering to myself, Yeah, memories are nice, but reality’s calling. I ran out the door, the soft morning air hitting me, carrying the weight of every memory and the irony that nothing had really changed – except me, and maybe, just maybe, everything else waiting to.
