Amrita Pandey
1
It was late evening in Karol Bagh, the streets buzzing with the usual chaos of cycle rickshaws, honking cars, and the smell of samosas frying at the corner shop. Ananya Sharma sat at her study table, biology notes spread across her desk, highlighter uncapped but idle. Her phone buzzed with the familiar chime of a WhatsApp message. Expecting it to be her best friend Neha, she unlocked the screen, only to find a text from an unknown number: “Bro, don’t forget tomorrow’s test.” She frowned. Her own mock test was scheduled two days later, so clearly this wasn’t meant for her. For a moment, she considered ignoring it, but curiosity got the better of her. With a small smile tugging at her lips, she typed back: “I think you’ve got the wrong number. Also, I’m not your bro.”
On the other side of the city, in a cramped study room above an electronics shop, Rohan Malhotra nearly dropped his pen when he read the reply. He had meant to text his friend Kabir, reminding him about the physics test at Genius Tutorials. Instead, he had messaged a stranger. Embarrassment flushed through him, but then he noticed the witty comeback. A grin spread across his face. Quickly, he typed back: “Oops, my bad! Definitely not my bro. Thanks for the correction.” What could have ended there suddenly stretched into something else, a conversation born out of accident. Ananya, still smiling, wrote: “No problem. Hope your test goes well. Which coaching is this for?” When he answered “Genius Tutorials,” she laughed out loud—her own center, Saraswati Coaching, was known to be their biggest rival, always trying to outdo them in ranks and results.
The discovery instantly added a playful spark to their exchange. Ananya teased: “Oh, Genius Tutorials? No wonder you’re messaging strangers for help. Saraswati students don’t need reminders—we’re too focused.” Rohan, never one to lose a banter, shot back: “Focused, huh? Then why are you wasting time chatting with a Genius student?” The messages bounced back and forth, carrying jokes, emojis, and a lighthearted competitiveness that neither of them expected. For Ananya, it was refreshing—most of her conversations revolved around exams, parental pressure, or Neha’s endless gossip. For Rohan, it was a break from equations and the constant lectures from his father downstairs. What started as an error was now something like a secret corridor of escape.
By the time their phones dimmed from inactivity, both found themselves strangely restless. Ananya lay back on her bed, staring at the ceiling fan, replaying the conversation in her head. She had spoken to boys before, but this was different—easy, unforced, almost as if they had known each other longer than a few exchanged texts. Rohan, on his side, closed his books but couldn’t focus; the words of a girl from the rival center danced in his thoughts. The idea that their connection had sprouted not in real life, but through a mistyped message, felt oddly cinematic. Neither of them said it aloud, but both knew: this wasn’t the last time they’d text. Somewhere between the neon lights of Karol Bagh and the shadows of their cramped study corners, a new story had just begun—one that would taste of chai, glow with WhatsApp pings, and unfold in the narrow lanes of Delhi’s coaching hub.
2
Karol Bagh in the early morning was already alive, the coaching hub buzzing like a second city within Delhi. Narrow lanes were plastered with posters of toppers grinning beside their impossible ranks—AIR 1, AIR 12, AIR 45—faces that loomed over the students rushing into tuition centers as though silently mocking or motivating them. Chai stalls steamed with early customers, serving cutting chai and half plates of bread pakoras to sleepy aspirants, while parents waited outside, whispering about results, fees, and “next year’s strategy.” In this crowded maze, Saraswati Coaching Centre and Genius Tutorials stood opposite each other like sworn rivals, their banners competing for dominance. Ananya, with her neatly tied braid and heavy backpack, navigated these streets daily, feeling the weight of her parents’ expectations press down on her shoulders. Biology was her strength, but hours of memorizing cell cycles and human anatomy had begun to blur her vision. Across the road, Rohan slouched in a worn-out classroom at Genius, squinting at complex physics problems that refused to make sense no matter how many times he rewrote them.
It was in these restless in-betweens—waiting for class to start, or dragging themselves home in the metro—that their WhatsApp chats became a secret refuge. What had begun with teasing banter over rival institutes now stretched into long exchanges about life beyond exams. Ananya admitted one night how she hated the pressure of being called “doctor beti” by relatives when she wasn’t even sure medicine was her dream. Rohan, tapping his thumbs against the screen in his dimly lit room, confessed how physics mocked him daily and how he sometimes wanted to throw the entire IIT-JEE syllabus into the Yamuna. Their jokes softened into empathy, emojis turning into late-night voice notes when words needed more than typing. It wasn’t dramatic—just the small honesty of two teenagers who had found someone who understood the madness of their world.
Day by day, the tension of their coaching rivalry melted, replaced by something warmer, unspoken. When Rohan teased about Saraswati students memorizing like parrots, Ananya shot back with pride in her diagrams—but there was no sting, only laughter. When Ananya complained about her strict biology teacher, Rohan replied with an exaggerated voice note imitating a “physics sadist” who lived to torture him. Slowly, the idea of “us versus them” shifted to a shared “we”—two students, trapped in the same grind, leaning on each other for relief. In crowded coaching corridors, surrounded by hundreds of faceless competitors, they had found a friend who made them feel seen. Every ping on their phones became less of a distraction and more of an anchor, pulling them out of their solitude.
Yet, they were careful. No one else knew about these exchanges—not Neha, not Kabir. Their friendship grew in the private space between messages, hidden from watchful eyes of teachers and parents. Ananya would catch herself smiling at her phone during chai breaks, quickly tucking it away before anyone noticed. Rohan, usually loud and joking with his group, now often slipped away to reply to her, feeling an odd warmth rise in his chest as he typed. Neither had said it aloud, but both sensed it: this was no longer just playful rivalry or exam chatter. Something fragile, delicate, and possibly dangerous was forming in the spaces between chai stalls, biology notes, and physics equations. A friendship—maybe even more—was beginning to quietly write itself, one WhatsApp message at a time.
3
It was a Saturday evening when the idea of meeting in person finally left the safety of their WhatsApp chats. Rohan had half-jokingly suggested, “We should debate this whole Genius vs Saraswati thing over chai someday.” To his surprise, Ananya replied with a hesitant but clear, “Fine. But only chai, no bunking classes.” After a couple of days of nervous planning, they chose the chai stall near Patel Nagar metro station, a familiar middle ground where students from both centers often stopped before heading home. The evening air carried the hum of traffic, the jingling bells of rickshaws, and the warm aroma of ginger brewing in boiling milk. Ananya arrived first, clutching her sling bag and trying not to look too nervous. She wondered if people could tell she was meeting someone for the first time. When Rohan walked up, taller than she had imagined, messy hair falling across his forehead, he grinned as though this was the most casual thing in the world. For a second, neither knew what to say, until the chaiwala interrupted with, “Bhaiya-bitiya, do cutting?” making them both laugh.
They sat on the makeshift wooden bench, sipping from steaming glasses of chai that fogged up their faces. At first, the conversation stumbled—half sentences, nervous laughter, questions about coaching, and awkward silences. But soon, like their chats, the rhythm returned. Rohan pulled out his phone and showed her a meme about students drowning under books, and she laughed louder than she had in weeks. Ananya shared her doodle of a biology cell turned into a cartoon superhero, which made Rohan nearly spill his chai. The world outside—the cars honking, the rush of students, the looming posters of toppers—faded for a while. They talked about small dreams, the ones they rarely admitted at home: Ananya confessed she wanted to write someday, maybe stories instead of prescriptions; Rohan revealed his love for films, admitting he sometimes imagined life as if it were a scene in a movie. Both laughed at their own confessions, but somewhere in the laughter was the relief of being honest, even if just for a moment.
The chaiwala, Ramesh, had been serving students for years, and nothing escaped his eye. Watching the two of them laugh over their phones and sip chai with a kind of shy ease, he smirked knowingly. As he handed them a plate of biscuits, he quipped, “Padhaai bhi karo beta, warna pyar ke sahare exam pass nahi hote.” Ananya flushed red, while Rohan nearly choked on his tea, both stammering that they were “just friends.” But the teasing lingered in the air, leaving behind a sweetness that chai alone could not explain. They changed the subject quickly, but every glance afterward carried the silent acknowledgment of what Ramesh had noticed—a spark that neither of them had named yet. For the first time, their rivalry as Saraswati and Genius students seemed distant, replaced by something warmer, easier, and far more personal.
By the time the metro lights flickered on and students rushed past them, Ananya realized she hadn’t once thought of her biology notes. Rohan, too, noticed the unusual lightness in his chest, a break from the heaviness of formulas and expectations. They stood awkwardly at the station gate, unsure of how to say goodbye, until Rohan casually said, “Same time, same chai, next week?” Ananya rolled her eyes, but her faint smile gave away the answer. As they parted ways, their phones buzzed almost instantly with a new chat—memes, jokes, and unspoken excitement. For the first time in months, the burden of exams didn’t feel like a mountain. It felt like something they could survive, as long as there was chai, a little laughter, and maybe each other.
4
The Delhi Metro had always been a blur for Ananya—crowded compartments, tired faces, and the rhythmic announcements of station names. But ever since Rohan began timing his exit from Genius Tutorials to match hers from Saraswati Coaching, the metro had become something else altogether. Their routine formed quietly: meet at Patel Nagar, climb the escalators together, and squeeze into whichever coach had a sliver of space. Sometimes they stood pressed against the doors, other times they managed to find two seats side by side, sharing the small relief of sitting after long classes. Between the chaos of elbows and backpacks, their conversations flowed easily. It was here, among strangers, that they carved out a private world—laughing at inside jokes, debating whose coaching teachers were stricter, or sharing snacks smuggled in from home. The rattle of the train became a familiar soundtrack to their growing bond.
One evening, as the train jolted forward, Rohan pulled out his phone and scrolled through his playlist. “You still listen to only Bollywood songs?” he teased, offering her one earbud. Ananya rolled her eyes but slipped it in, their shoulders brushing as a romantic track hummed between them. She tried to focus on the lyrics but felt her heart race with every accidental touch. A few stations later, when the train braked suddenly, her hand slipped and brushed against his. Neither pulled away immediately. It was just a second, a fleeting touch, but it lingered like a spark. Rohan laughed it off with a joke about the metro being the “best matchmaker in Delhi,” while Ananya pretended to check her messages, her cheeks warm with guilt. What am I doing? she thought. Papa and Mummy would never allow this. The weight of her family’s expectations clashed with the flutter she felt in her chest, leaving her unsettled even as she smiled at his jokes.
For Rohan, masking seriousness with humor had always been second nature. He cracked jokes about toppers, about the metro, even about his own messy handwriting, but inside, he was beginning to feel something deeper that he couldn’t quite laugh away. That night, back in his cramped study room above the electronics shop, he opened his notebook, intending to revise formulas. Instead, he found himself scribbling lines of poetry. The words came unplanned—about crowded metros, about chai stalls, about a girl whose laughter made even Delhi’s noise feel quiet. He wrote in metaphors, hiding behind the comfort of imagery, but he knew who every line was about. Folding the page quickly before Kabir could barge in, he shoved it under his physics book, telling himself it was nothing. Just words. Just another distraction. But the truth pressed against his chest: he was falling, whether or not he admitted it aloud.
Meanwhile, Ananya sat at her desk, textbooks open but her mind elsewhere. She replayed the metro ride—the shared earphones, the sudden touch, the warmth of being next to him—and immediately scolded herself. She had promised her parents that nothing would come between her and her NEET preparation. She was supposed to be the disciplined one, the “responsible daughter.” Yet, here she was, smiling into her pillow at midnight because of a boy from a rival coaching center. The guilt twisted inside her, but so did something new, something light and unexplainable. She didn’t name it yet, and maybe she wasn’t ready to. All she knew was that tomorrow evening, when the metro doors slid open at Patel Nagar, she would be looking for Rohan again. And that thought alone carried her through another long night of study, her heavy books suddenly feeling a little less heavy.
5
The nights before exams in Delhi’s coaching hub carried a strange kind of silence. Streets that were noisy and chaotic by day turned almost ghostly, save for the distant hum of metro trains and the occasional barking of stray dogs. Inside her room, Ananya sat at her desk, highlighters and sticky notes scattered like battlefield weapons. She had promised herself she would finish revising human physiology before sleeping, but her phone screen kept lighting up with that familiar green glow. “Still awake, Miss Saraswati Topper?” Rohan’s message blinked across her screen, pulling a smile out of her no matter how hard she tried to resist. She typed back, “Obviously. Some of us actually study at night. Unlike certain Genius boys who only make memes.” And so it began, another round of back-and-forth texts that stretched into the small hours, keeping both of them tethered to each other despite the looming storm of exams.
At first, their late-night chats were lighthearted distractions—funny GIFs, exaggerated complaints about homework, or mock fights about whose syllabus was harder. But slowly, the walls between them began to soften. One night, Rohan admitted how suffocated he felt under his father’s expectations. “Every time I look at him, I know he doesn’t see me. He only sees IIT,” he typed, pausing before hitting send. Ananya stared at the message for a long time, her heart tugging, before replying, “I get it. At my place, I’ve already been nicknamed ‘Doctor Ananya.’ Sometimes I feel like I’m not allowed to dream anything else.” Their words spilled into each other, peeling away the layers of performance they carried in daylight. It was as if the night gave them permission to be honest, to share not just their stress but their secret selves.
One particular night, the conversation turned softer, almost dangerously so. Rohan sent a voice note after a long pause. His voice was quieter than usual, stripped of the teasing bravado he wore like armor: “You know, talking to you is the only part of this whole mess that feels easy.” Ananya’s heart raced as she listened, fingers hovering over the keyboard. She wanted to reply with something equally raw, but fear of saying too much held her back. Instead, she sent a single heart sticker, small and silly, yet loaded with meaning. Rohan saw it, smiled to himself in the dim light of his desk lamp, and replied with a string of laughing emojis—as if to cover up the intimacy that had just slipped through. Still, both of them knew what had been left unsaid. The silence between their messages that night carried more weight than any declaration could.
Their midnight conversations became a ritual, even as exams loomed closer and books piled higher. Ananya would lie under her blanket, the blue light of her phone illuminating her face, while Rohan leaned against the wall of his room, earphones plugged in to muffle his father’s snores from the next room. They never said the three forbidden words, but everything around their chats pulsed with it—the playful arguments, the way they lingered online long after messages stopped, the way an emoji or a sticker could make them smile into the emptiness of the night. For them, these exchanges were not just procrastination; they were lifelines, reminders that beyond formulas and diagrams, beyond pressure and expectations, they had found someone who truly understood. And though their hearts beat with unspoken words, neither dared to break the fragile bubble of midnight messages—because in silence, they already knew.
6
The tension began quietly, like a crack in a wall that nobody notices until it spreads. For Ananya, it was her biology teacher’s raised eyebrow when she scored just below her usual in a weekly test. “What happened, beta? Distractions?” he asked, his tone sharp enough to sting. At home, the disappointment was louder. Her mother sighed, muttering about “losing focus,” while her father reminded her of the sacrifices they were making—coaching fees, books, endless hours of waiting. Every word felt heavier than the last. For the first time, Ananya’s secret WhatsApp chats with Rohan carried the weight of guilt. Was she really losing track of her goals? The chai-fueled laughter and late-night conversations that had once felt like relief now echoed in her mind as dangerous indulgences. She stared at her phone, his messages lighting up the screen, but hesitated before replying. The joy was still there, but so was the fear of being caught between love and duty.
Rohan wasn’t spared either. At Genius Tutorials, a mock test came and went without his name on the attendance sheet. Kabir tried covering for him, but his father found out soon enough. The storm that followed shook the walls of their small home. “Do you think life is a joke?” his father roared, slamming a half-written practice sheet onto the table. “You want to make films? Poems? Useless things! IIT is the only path for you, Rohan. Do you understand? Or should I stop wasting money on you?” Rohan clenched his fists, swallowing down the anger burning inside. He wanted to shout that he wasn’t useless, that he had dreams of his own, but the words remained locked behind his teeth. Instead, he nodded silently, while his heart raged. Later that night, he typed furiously to Ananya, venting out his frustration. “Sometimes I feel like I’m suffocating in my own house.” But this time, his message wasn’t met with the usual instant reply.
Ananya sat with her phone in her hand, reading his words over and over, feeling her chest tighten. She wanted to respond, to tell him she understood, that she too felt suffocated by expectations. Yet the voices of her parents from earlier in the evening echoed louder: “This is your future. Don’t ruin it with distractions. Once exams are done, life will be easier. Focus, Ananya, focus.” She placed her phone face down on the desk, forcing herself to pick up her notes. Rohan’s typing dots blinked and vanished, then appeared again, but still she didn’t reply. For the first time since that wrong WhatsApp ping brought them together, silence stretched between them—not the comfortable silence of midnight messages, but a sharp, suffocating one that neither knew how to break.
In the days that followed, their worlds felt heavier. Rohan lingered at the chai stall after class, half-hoping to catch a glimpse of her, but she walked past quickly, eyes downcast, pretending not to notice. Ananya buried herself in her books, yet the words blurred, her mind replaying his unread message like a wound she couldn’t heal. The coaching hub, once a backdrop to their laughter and secret chats, now felt like a pressure cooker, the walls closing in with every reminder of marks, ranks, and futures already planned out for them. Both felt the ache of absence, but neither dared to reach out. For the first time, the bond that had carried them through chai breaks and metro rides was under real strain, threatened not by rivalry or teasing, but by the crushing weight of expectation—a weight heavy enough to silence even love.
7
The silence between Ananya and Rohan began like a thin crack on glass—barely visible at first, but widening with every passing day. It started with something as trivial as a misinterpreted glance. Rohan had spotted Ananya in the coaching library, laughing at something a senior from her center said. The senior, tall and confident, leaned a little closer than necessary, his casual friendliness feeding an insecurity that Rohan couldn’t quite admit. He didn’t confront her, not directly, but his replies that night were clipped, delayed, punctuated with dots that said more than his words. Ananya noticed instantly—his jokes were absent, his usual warmth missing. When she asked what was wrong, his curt “Nothing, just busy” felt heavier than any argument. She wanted to brush it off, but the irritation simmered inside her chest. Was she supposed to explain every conversation she had? Was friendship suddenly possession?
The next day, when Rohan finally brought up his unease—roundabout, through a teasing jab—it snapped something inside Ananya. “If you can’t trust me talking to people from my own coaching, then what exactly are we doing?” she asked, her voice sharper than she intended. Rohan, taken aback, fumbled for words, but instead of explaining his own vulnerability, he blurted out something careless: “Maybe I was wrong thinking you actually cared beyond chatting.” The sentence struck Ananya like a slap. The countless late-night talks, the chai stall laughter, the metro rides—all dismissed in a second as something shallow. Hurt, she decided not to reply. The WhatsApp window remained unopened, her finger hovering over the notification before she forced herself to swipe it away. For the first time since that wrong ping had connected them, silence filled the space where words used to flow effortlessly.
Days slipped into each other, crowded with notes and exam anxiety, but the absence of their chat gnawed at both of them. Rohan, restless and guilt-ridden, found himself walking back to their chai stall near Patel Nagar, hoping against hope that she might show up out of habit. Instead, he sat alone, staring at the steam rising from his untouched cup. The chaiwala bhaiya, who had grown fond of their banter, noticed Rohan’s brooding silence. With the casual wisdom only tea-sellers on Delhi streets seemed to possess, he leaned in and muttered, “Exams pass ho ya fail, dosti ke paper har roz hote hain.” Rohan managed a faint smile, but the words cut deep. He realized that what they shared wasn’t some exam distraction, nor was it a childish fling. It was real enough to hurt, real enough to matter, and his jealousy had placed it on fragile ground.
Meanwhile, Ananya too struggled with her own turmoil. Between biology diagrams and her mother’s constant reminders about future prospects, her mind kept circling back to Rohan. His absence felt like an ache, but so did his words. She wanted to believe he respected her dreams, her independence, the years of effort she was pouring into her studies. Yet that flicker of doubt he cast still lingered. Late one night, staring at the blinking cursor of a half-written message, she almost typed, “You’re being stupid, Rohan.” But her pride, mixed with the weight of family expectations, held her back. The unspoken emotions between them, once playful and tender, had hardened into something brittle. For the first time, she wondered if this connection was strong enough to survive the pressures not just of exams, but of their own insecurities.
8
Ananya’s room, usually cluttered with biology notes and sticky reminders, felt like a suffocating cell that night. Her mother had just walked out after yet another emotional plea, her voice cracking with tears: “You’re our only hope, beta. Don’t forget how much we’ve sacrificed for you.” The words hit like arrows, reopening wounds that hadn’t yet healed. Ananya stared at her half-finished diagrams of the human heart, but her own heart was pounding with confusion and fear. For weeks she had been losing focus—her marks showed it, and the disappointment in her parents’ eyes was becoming unbearable. She felt like she was being crushed between her own dreams of a more colorful, independent life and the heavy expectations of a family who wanted nothing but the certainty of success. Curling up on her bed, she scrolled past Rohan’s name in WhatsApp, fingers trembling, but she didn’t open the chat. For the first time, she realized the silence between them was louder than any fight.
Meanwhile, Rohan sat at his study table, staring at pages of physics problems that seemed like a foreign language. His father’s voice still echoed in his ears—sharp, booming, full of anger: “Don’t waste your life on daydreams. I didn’t work this hard for you to throw it all away.” The sting of those words burned deeper than he let on. His mother had tried to intervene, but the disappointment in his father’s eyes was enough to shatter his already fragile confidence. Rohan wanted to tell them that he was trying, that he wasn’t giving up—but somewhere deep inside, he knew his heart wasn’t entirely in it. His escape had always been his late-night chats with Ananya, the one person who seemed to understand the storm inside him. Now, with her silence, even that lifeline was cut. He picked up his pen, unable to focus on formulas, and instead began scribbling words that poured out raw from his chest.
The poem came like a flood—hesitant at first, then unstoppable. It wasn’t about physics or marks or even the weight of expectations. It was about her—about the girl who laughed over cutting chai, who filled dull metro rides with shared headphones and quiet smiles, who listened when no one else did. Line after line, Rohan wrote of her presence, how it softened the rough edges of his days and how her absence now felt like an ache no equations could solve. His handwriting grew messy, ink smudged with the sweat of his palm, but he didn’t stop until the page was filled with his unspoken confession. When he finally leaned back, the clock read 2:30 AM. He stared at the poem, tempted to send a photo of it to her on WhatsApp. But something held him back—fear of rejection, fear of making her life harder, fear of giving her one more burden when she was already drowning. With a heavy sigh, he folded the page and tucked it inside his notebook.
Alone in their separate rooms, miles apart but bound by an unspoken connection, both Ananya and Rohan broke down in their own ways. Ananya pressed her pillow to her face to muffle her sobs, overwhelmed by the image of her mother’s tear-streaked face. Rohan sat in silence, staring at the ceiling, wondering if dreams always had to come at the cost of love. In that crushing loneliness, they both realized how much the other had meant—not as distraction, not as rebellion, but as support, as comfort, as the one place where they could be themselves. Yet neither picked up the phone, neither typed a message. The silence grew heavier, and though their hearts screamed for each other, their voices remained locked behind fear and duty. The breaking point had come, but neither knew if it was the end—or the beginning of something deeper.
9
The metro screeched into Patel Nagar, its doors sliding open with the usual rush of footsteps and announcements. Ananya clutched her biology notes close to her chest, her tired eyes half hidden under the burden of sleepless nights. She hadn’t expected to see him, yet fate had its own timing. Across the crowded compartment, Rohan stood with his backpack slung carelessly on one shoulder, trying to balance as the train jerked forward. Their eyes met for a brief moment—hesitation, longing, and a flood of unsaid words mixing in the silence. Neither moved for a while, but when the train stopped again, the choice was simple—they both got down at the same station, without planning, without excuses.
The familiar lane near Patel Nagar chai stalls welcomed them back like an old friend. The chaiwala bhaiya’s eyes lit up as he noticed the two walking side by side, a little awkward yet unmistakably connected. “Arrey, dono phir saath?” he teased while pouring steaming tea into kulhads, his voice carrying a warmth that made the silence between them softer. They sat on the bench, hands wrapped around hot clay cups, the steam rising like a curtain between them. For a long while, they only sipped, listening to the buzz of scooters, the calls of vendors, the clinking of glasses—the world moving on as if nothing had changed, even though inside them, everything had.
Finally, Ananya broke the silence. “Rohan… I can’t promise anything. You know my parents, my family. Their expectations are like… this mountain I can’t move.” Her voice cracked, and she bit her lip, afraid to sound weaker than she wanted to. Rohan looked at her for a long time, his usual mischievous grin replaced with a rare seriousness. “And you know my father. He thinks life is just one race after another. Sometimes I feel like I’m not running towards something—I’m just running away from myself.” His words lingered, heavy but honest. Yet within that heaviness lay something comforting: the realization that neither of them was truly alone in the storm.
By the time the chai in their cups had cooled, they had made a pact—not a declaration, not a rebellion, but a quiet promise. “Let’s not run away,” Rohan said softly, his eyes holding hers with rare steadiness. “First, we fight these exams. After that, we’ll see where life takes us. Together or apart, at least we’ll know we tried.” Ananya smiled faintly, a tear escaping before she could stop it. “Hope,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. As they stood to leave, the chaiwala bhaiya waved them off with a grin, muttering, “Bas, padhai bhi karo, pyar bhi bacha lo.” Walking back towards the metro, their shoulders brushed once, lightly, like a promise without words. For the first time in weeks, neither felt afraid of tomorrow.
10
Exams finally ended, leaving behind a strange quietness in Delhi’s coaching lanes. The posters of toppers still stared down, but for Ananya and Rohan, it was no longer about comparison or rivalry. Their results were not perfect—her biology still had cracks, his physics still had missing links—but they had survived the storm together. Ananya’s eyes no longer carried only the weight of her parents’ expectations; they carried a secret strength born from enduring. Rohan too, though scolded for not reaching the IIT dream exactly as expected, felt something new inside him—an urge to create, to express. In the aftermath of marks and rankings, they found themselves not broken, but oddly freer, as if the pressure cooker had finally released some steam.
It was Ananya who made the first bold choice. Sitting with her phone, staring at university application forms, she clicked on English Literature alongside Medicine. For the first time, she acknowledged a dream that was her own, not entirely her family’s. She confessed it to Rohan in a late-night chat, her fingers hesitant but steady: “Maybe I can love stories as much as science. Maybe I can be both.” Rohan, instead of teasing, surprised her. He admitted he had submitted a short film to a youth festival—an experimental piece he had shot on his phone, with scribbled poetry as voiceover. Their conversation that night was different—not about formulas or mnemonics, but about choices, courage, and the possibility of building futures that were not mirrors of their parents’ desires.
Through all of it, WhatsApp remained their lifeline. The green ping no longer felt like a guilty distraction but a thread of support. Their chats were filled with silly memes, motivational quotes, half-serious debates about art versus science, and unspoken encouragement that carried them forward. Sometimes silence between messages spoke louder than words, assuring each other of presence. The chaiwala bhaiya, too, noticed when they returned to his stall after the results—still shy, still smiling, but lighter. He served them their usual cutting chai, shaking his head with a smile: “Lagta hai tum dono abhi bhi syllabus se bhaari ho, par ek dusre ke bagair adhure bhi.” The stall became their safe corner once again, the one place where books and parental expectations didn’t intrude.
The closing scene belonged to that evening: Delhi’s chaos buzzing around, metro trains screeching in the distance, their phones vibrating with new messages, and two cups of steaming chai in their hands. Ananya leaned against the stall, Rohan tapped on his phone, and between laughter, shared glances, and comfortable silences, their love existed—fragile, yet persistent. They weren’t rebels running away, nor toppers celebrated on banners. They were simply two young hearts in a crowded city, learning to balance duty and desire, dreams and love. In that ordinary stall, with chai and WhatsApp as their witnesses, their story carried forward—not with grand declarations, but with the quiet certainty that sometimes love survives not in big promises, but in stolen moments.
End
