TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS
Meera Sharma
Aarav Verma
CHAPTER ONE — TWO DIFFERENT WORLDS
Meera Sharma had learned something very early in life.
Sometimes, having a dream was easy.
Living it was the difficult part.
At seventeen, Meera was the kind of girl teachers remembered. She wasn’t always the loudest person in the classroom, and she wasn’t the student who raised her hand for every question. But whenever she became interested in something, she could spend hours trying to understand it.
She loved computers.
She loved designing things.
She loved the feeling of creating something from nothing.
Her biggest dream was to study computer science and, one day, build something of her own.
A company.
A product.
Something that would carry her name.
But whenever she spoke about her future at home, the conversation rarely lasted long.
“First focus on your studies.”
“You’re still too young to think about all this.”
“You don’t understand how the real world works.”
“Your family knows what is best for you.”
Meera usually stopped talking after that.
Not because she agreed.
Because arguing seemed useless.
Her parents loved her.
That was the complicated part.
They weren’t strangers who wanted to hurt her. They were her family. They had sacrificed things for her, worked hard for her, and wanted her to have a secure future.
But their idea of a secure future was different from hers.
They wanted stability.
Meera wanted possibility.
They wanted her to follow a safe path.
She wanted to discover her own.
And somewhere between those two ideas, Meera slowly began feeling like she was living two lives.
At school, she was Meera—the girl with dreams.
At home, she was Meera—the daughter who was expected to listen.
A few kilometers away lived Aarav Verma.
Aarav was eighteen and came from a middle-class family.
His father worked long hours.
His mother spent most of her day managing the house.
There was nothing extraordinary about their family from the outside.
But Aarav knew how hard his parents worked.
He had seen his father come home exhausted.
He had heard conversations about bills.
He understood that money wasn’t unlimited.
Because of that, Aarav carried a responsibility that most of his friends didn’t notice.
He wanted to succeed.
Not only for himself.
For his family.
His friends thought he was carefree.
He joked around during lunch.
He played games after school.
He sent ridiculous memes to the group chat.
He laughed when everyone else laughed.
But sometimes, after everyone went to sleep, Aarav would sit beside his window with his laptop open and wonder:
What if I fail?
What if he couldn’t get into the college he wanted?
What if he couldn’t get a good job?
What if his parents had sacrificed everything for a future he couldn’t build?
Those questions stayed inside his head.
He didn’t tell anyone.
Not even his closest friends.
Meera had her own group of friends.
Ananya was the practical one.
Riya was the dramatic one.
Kabir was the person who could turn almost any serious situation into a joke.
They had been together for years.
They studied together, complained about teachers together, shared notes, argued about stupid things and occasionally made plans that they knew would never happen.
Aarav had his own group.
Dev.
Sameer.
Yash.
Their conversations were completely different.
Football.
Games.
College.
Cars.
Money.
Girls.
Memes.
Future plans they hadn’t actually planned.
One Monday morning, their two groups were forced together because the school announced a technology project.
The teacher divided the students into mixed teams.
Meera looked at the list.
Then she saw his name.
Aarav Verma.
She didn’t know him.
Not really.
She had seen him around school, but they had never spoken.
Their first conversation wasn’t romantic.
It wasn’t magical.
It wasn’t even particularly nice.
It was an argument.
“You changed the whole presentation?” Meera asked, staring at his laptop.
Aarav looked up.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because it looked boring.”
Meera stared at him.
“Boring?”
“Yeah.”
“My presentation was not boring.”
Aarav smiled.
“It was a little boring.”
Kabir covered his mouth to hide his laughter.
Meera gave him a look.
“You’re going to regret saying that.”
Aarav laughed.
And somehow, that stupid argument became the beginning of everything.
