Advika Nair
Chapter 1:
The morning bell rang with the familiar sharp clang that echoed across the corridors of St. Mary’s High School, announcing the beginning of another Wednesday, another series of classes, and another chance for students to shuffle into their assigned seats like the pieces of a living, breathing jigsaw puzzle. In Class 10-B, the usual rush was on—bags thudding onto desks, notebooks flipping open, and voices rising in a soft chaos of teenage chatter. Amid it all, Riya Sen hurried into the room, her hair tied in a slightly crooked ponytail, her blue-and-white uniform neatly ironed, and her eyes darting through the room in search of something that had slipped from her grasp—her favorite pen, the sky-blue Reynolds that her father had gifted her on her last birthday, with her name engraved just above the clip in delicate golden letters. It wasn’t just a pen; it was memory, comfort, and good luck wrapped into one. She knelt beside her desk, her brows furrowed, searching desperately under the bench while the rest of the class moved on. Just as she was about to give up, a hand appeared in front of her, holding the very pen she was looking for. “Your pen,” a quiet voice said, and as she looked up, her eyes met his for the very first time—Aarav Malhotra, the boy who always sat at the farthest corner by the window, lost in his sketchbook, rarely speaking unless someone addressed him directly. He didn’t smile, didn’t wait for a thank you. He simply walked back to his seat and picked up his pencil as though the world outside didn’t exist, as though this classroom was merely an interruption to the universe he carried within the pages of his notebook. Riya watched him for a second longer than necessary, her curiosity piqued by his stillness in a room full of noise.
From that day, something subtle changed. Riya began to notice things she hadn’t before—the way Aarav always sat sideways in his chair, his face tilted toward the sunlight streaming through the window, as if gathering warmth from it; the way he quietly observed the world around him, not with judgment but with the eye of someone who saw details others missed; the way he sketched—not with reckless lines, but with careful strokes, capturing the world in charcoal and pencil. She began finding excuses to talk to him—at first, about history notes or missing assignments, then about the books he read during lunch breaks or the strange, abstract drawings that peeked out from his files. Aarav, initially surprised by her interest, gradually started responding—not with exuberant words, but with short, meaningful sentences that always left her thinking. He wasn’t like the other boys who tried too hard to be noticed. Aarav seemed like he had nothing to prove. That mystery, that quiet, calm energy around him, began to draw her in like gravity.
Weeks passed, and so did seasons. One particular afternoon, during art class, Riya was asked to pair up with someone for a project. Before she could speak, the teacher smiled and said, “You’ll be with Aarav. He needs someone who can talk.” The class chuckled, and Riya gave a playful shrug as she turned toward him. That day, they sat together by the garden behind the auditorium, Aarav sketching, Riya painting backgrounds in watercolors, their conversation drifting from school gossip to childhood dreams. He told her about the hills where his grandparents lived, the way he loved watching clouds touch mountain tops, and how he often tried to draw what he couldn’t photograph. She told him about her dreams of becoming a writer, about the stories she started but never finished, and how she feared she’d never be good enough. “You will,” Aarav said softly, without lifting his gaze from the sketch. “You already are. You just don’t see it yet.” Riya didn’t reply. Her heart was too full, and her cheeks too warm. No one had said that to her before—not like that, not with such quiet conviction.
It was during the pre-annual day preparations that their bond deepened. Riya was anchoring the event, full of excitement and nerves, while Aarav was, to his quiet dismay, roped into painting the stage backdrop. Most days, they stayed after school—she rehearsing her lines on stage, he working silently at the back, his hands stained with poster paint. Sometimes, when the others had left, and the air was filled only with the sounds of distant birds and an occasional passing cycle rickshaw, they’d sit on the auditorium steps with a shared packet of samosas, talking about everything and nothing. One day, as clouds gathered above and a wind began to stir the trees, a sudden downpour trapped them on the school porch. They stood side by side, just watching the rain. It didn’t feel like waiting. It felt like arriving. “I like the rain,” Aarav said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Me too,” Riya replied, brushing a wet strand of hair behind her ear. “It makes the world look like one of your drawings.” Aarav turned to her then, just briefly, and for the first time, he smiled—soft, unsure, but real. That smile stayed with her long after the rain stopped.
The days that followed carried a gentle rhythm. They shared lunch sometimes—she always bringing extra aloo parathas, he occasionally surprising her with handmade bookmarks. When they walked through corridors, they didn’t hold hands, but something held them together nonetheless. They didn’t call it love. They were too young, too cautious, too unsure of what love even looked like. But when Aarav drew her sitting under the gulmohar tree, eyes closed, wind lifting her hair—and when Riya wrote a poem about a boy who painted the world but couldn’t find the words to paint himself—they both understood, without saying anything at all. Their friendship became a sanctuary, a space untouched by the chaos of adolescence and the pressure of board exams.
But exams loomed nonetheless, casting long shadows over their final year. Teachers spoke of future goals, parents discussed career options, and the once carefree days of sketches and samosas were replaced with tuitions and late-night study sessions. Yet even then, they found ways to stay connected—a scribbled message in the margin of a notebook, a shared glance in the exam hall, the comfort of presence when words failed. On the last day of school, after the final exam, students cheered and cried, some hugging, others taking selfies, the air buzzing with emotion. Aarav and Riya sat quietly under the gulmohar tree where it had all begun. “I’ll miss this,” Riya said, trying not to let her voice tremble. “We’ll meet again,” Aarav replied, handing her a rolled piece of paper tied with a red ribbon. She didn’t open it then. She just held it, knowing it meant something. They didn’t say goodbye. They just walked away in opposite directions, hearts full, hands empty, the moment stretching endlessly behind them.
That night, alone in her room, Riya finally unrolled the paper. It was a sketch—of the two of them standing under the school porch in the rain. The details were perfect—her tilted head, his sideways glance, the blurred rain streaking down the background like an unfinished sentence. At the bottom, in neat, deliberate handwriting, it said: “If first love had a face, it would be this moment.” Riya held the paper to her chest, closed her eyes, and smiled through the tears. Somewhere in another part of town, Aarav sat at his desk, sketchbook open, his fingers stained with pencil, drawing another memory he hoped would never fade.
Chapter 2:
The weeks following winter vacation ushered in a gentle transformation at St. Mary’s High School, not just in the timetable or the subtle shift of seasons, but in the delicate, growing bond between Riya and Aarav—a bond that had started with a lost pen and now quietly lived between moments, glances, and the in-between spaces of school life. The sun had softened by January, casting a mild golden hue over the morning assembly ground where rows of students stood murmuring through hymns, and it was here, amidst the fluttering pages of hymnbooks and yawns muffled behind hands, that Riya first noticed him again—standing in the middle row, a little taller than before, hair unkempt as always, and eyes already locked onto hers before she even turned. There was no wave, no nod, just the faintest curve of acknowledgment in his gaze, and that was enough to stir something quiet but certain in her chest. Back in class, their seats remained strategically apart—hers in the front where teachers could hurl questions, his by the window where light filtered through and kissed the edge of his sketchbook—but the gap between them had narrowed invisibly. Conversations no longer needed excuses; Riya would tap her pen on her desk twice if she needed his attention, and Aarav would place dog-eared magazine cutouts inside her textbook—poems, art, a quote here and there—all without signing his name, but always meant for her. In the chaos of board exam preparations, their connection became their calm. The art class became a quiet sanctuary, not just from studies but from the noise of adolescence; it smelled of old paint, dust, and wood, and felt more like a hideout than a classroom. Riya would sit cross-legged on the ground, doodling clouds or her name in swirly letters, sneaking peeks at Aarav as he stood by the back table, headphones on, sleeves rolled up, sketching as if he were mapping secret worlds. One day she caught sight of a charcoal sketch he’d left open while searching for a fresh sheet—a girl beneath a gulmohar tree, chin on knees, eyes half-closed in thought. Her breath caught. “That’s me?” she asked, unsure. Aarav looked up for a second, then down again, brushing his thumb across the shading. “Sort of,” he replied with his usual softness, “I don’t sketch people unless I’m sure I see them clearly.” That sentence landed on her like a hush, heavy and unforgettable. After that, their exchanges deepened—not louder, not longer, just layered with more of themselves. Riya shared her favorite old Hindi songs, writing down lyrics on sticky notes she slipped into his desk drawer, while Aarav began drawing bookmarks for her, each one personalized—one had a quill, another a rain cloud, and once, her name wrapped in falling leaves. Their friendship—if one could still call it that—began to live outside the definition of labels. They didn’t hold hands or walk to school together, but they sat closer during group work, lingered longer at the back of the corridor when the bell rang, and found ways to speak without being heard. During a particularly boring history lecture, Riya tore a bit of notebook paper and passed it to him. In her loopy handwriting, it read: “Do you believe in past lives?” He took his time, turned the slip over, and wrote back: “I believe in this one first.” She didn’t show it then, but that sentence stayed with her longer than the syllabus ever could. That afternoon, while going home, she kept thinking about how simple his words were—how sincere, how still they made her feel inside. The rest of the school might have been tangled in class rankings, cricket trials, and social media drama, but the world between Aarav and Riya was quiet, honest, and blooming at its own pace. There were no declarations, no selfies, no pacts made over farewell cards—just glances that lingered a heartbeat too long, laughter shared during rainy lunch breaks, and the unspoken certainty that some people enter your life with the softest steps, yet leave the deepest prints.
Chapter 3:
The gulmohar tree behind the school auditorium had always stood there like a silent witness, its fiery red blossoms falling like whispers onto the ground below, marking seasons with their bloom and shedding, but to Aarav and Riya, it had become more than a tree—it was their corner of the universe, a private stage where their friendship unfolded away from class bells, scolding teachers, and noisy classmates who spoke too much about nothing at all. It had begun with one quiet afternoon when the power went out and the last two periods were cancelled, the campus buzzing with energy as students poured out like bees from a disturbed hive, but they had stayed behind, both too tired of the crowd and too comfortable in each other’s quiet company; Aarav had suggested they sit outside for a while before going home, and Riya, without asking why, followed him, settling under the wide arms of the gulmohar, their bags tossed carelessly beside them as they sat in easy silence. The ground was warm from the sun, and above them, the branches shifted lazily in the breeze, petals occasionally dropping onto Riya’s open notebook, where she was doodling clouds with no clear shape; Aarav, with his back against the tree trunk, had a small sketchpad balanced on one knee, drawing with light strokes, his fingers already smudged with graphite. “Do you ever draw with colors?” she asked, breaking the silence like one might tap a sleeping cat—softly, cautiously. “Sometimes,” he replied without looking up. “But I like shadows better. They say more than bright things do.” Riya thought about that for a moment, watching how his hand moved like it had its own thoughts. “You’re not as mysterious as everyone thinks, you know,” she said with a small smile. Aarav paused for just a second, then glanced at her sideways. “And you’re quieter than you let on.” She laughed, brushing a petal off her page. “Maybe we’re both hiding the wrong parts of ourselves.” The wind carried the scent of chalk dust and bougainvillea, and for a few moments, the world beyond that tree felt distant, irrelevant. As the days passed, they returned to the gulmohar more often—sometimes during free periods, sometimes when one of them needed a break from the classroom’s static pressure. It became a place for their unfinished conversations, for the laughter that needed no audience, for the kind of closeness that required no physical contact, just presence. Aarav would often bring scraps of his artwork to show her—unfinished portraits, surreal landscapes, dreamlike ink patterns that made her ask a hundred questions, all of which he answered with patience and shy pride. Riya, in return, started writing again—lines of poetry inspired by him, by the tree, by the odd feeling she couldn’t quite name that began to stir whenever their arms accidentally brushed or their eyes met longer than they should have. One particular afternoon, when the summer was just starting to arrive and the heat made the air shimmer faintly, Riya brought a tiffin box of mango slices, chilled in the fridge all morning; they ate quietly, the tangy sweetness mixing with the warmth of the day, and Aarav, in an uncharacteristic moment, wiped a smear of juice from the corner of her lip with his thumb before even realizing what he’d done. The silence that followed wasn’t awkward—it was charged, full, a moment suspended between childhood and something else, something older. Neither of them said anything, but when Riya handed him the last piece of mango, her fingers lingered in his palm for a second longer, and Aarav didn’t let go immediately. After that day, something subtle but irreversible had shifted; their jokes became softer, their silences deeper, and even in the middle of class, surrounded by noise and notebooks, they could find each other without looking. The gulmohar tree became the anchor of their final school months, a place not marked on any school map but known only to them, where memories were etched not in photographs but in smiles, shared snacks, and the soft rustle of red petals falling around them like promises.
Chapter 4:
June came draped in the scent of wet soil and the rhythm of raindrops against old tin roofs, and with it came the chaos of the school’s Annual Cultural Fest preparations—a time when every corridor echoed with rehearsals, announcements, and the metallic drag of props being moved from room to room, but for Riya and Aarav, it was a time of excuses to stay after school, of umbrellas shared and shoes left muddy on classroom floors, of slow, accidental nearness beneath a sky that couldn’t decide whether to pour or hold back; this year, Riya had signed up for the street play on gender equality, her role small but powerful, and Aarav, usually content to work behind the scenes, found himself sketching the backdrops and helping paint the placards, which naturally meant hours spent together in the dusty auditorium where light came in through high windows in broken, golden stripes; rehearsals were messy, full of overacting and missed cues, but what Riya looked forward to the most were the moments in between—when Aarav would hand her a bottle of water without being asked, when he’d fix a crooked line on a placard she was painting without a word, their fingers brushing in the narrow space of shared tasks; one afternoon, the rain came in so heavy it drowned out the drama teacher’s voice, and the power blinked out with a sigh, leaving the hall dim and echoing; everyone scattered except a handful of them, too soaked to run or too lazy to care, and in that dim, echoing quiet, Aarav found Riya sitting cross-legged on the stage, looking up at the ceiling where drops were forming on the wooden beams like thoughts too shy to fall—he sat beside her without a word, offering half of the chocolate bar he kept in his pocket for late breaks, and for a while, they just sat, listening to the rain, not needing anything else; “If this were a movie,” Riya said softly, “this would be the part where the lead couple confesses something.” Aarav smiled faintly, eyes still on the curtain that swayed like breath. “I’m not great with scripts,” he murmured, and though it sounded like a joke, there was something else in his voice—something that made her heart press against her ribs like a soft knock; later that week, after a long rehearsal full of rewrites and frustration, Riya left her notebook backstage and Aarav found it, flipping through the pages absently before pausing at a short poem scribbled across the margin—it was about raindrops and old trees and someone whose smile made the storm quieter, and though she hadn’t written his name, the feeling in those lines felt like a mirror held up to everything he didn’t know how to say; he didn’t tell her he read it, just returned the notebook the next morning with a freshly sketched bookmark slipped inside—a gulmohar branch heavy with blossoms, its red petals falling into rain puddles—and she looked at it for a long time, her fingers tightening slightly on the edge as if holding her breath in paper form; after that, they didn’t need big gestures—their romance grew like monsoon moss, quietly, softly, holding on to walls no one noticed, and though neither of them used the word “love” out loud, it floated around them anyway, visible in the way Aarav always found her in the crowd, in the way Riya laughed more freely when he was nearby, in the way they waited for each other even when no one else saw.
Chapter 5:
The final school trip was announced with little fanfare but received with wild enthusiasm, a weekend excursion to a quiet hill station—part farewell, part tradition—meant to be one last shared memory before boards took over and the school corridors became quieter, more serious; Riya hadn’t planned on going, too anxious about revisions and the weight of expectations, but Aarav had looked at her during lunch break, his fingers idly spinning a pen between them, and said, “You’ll regret it if you don’t,” not as a tease but as a quiet invitation, and that was all it took—two days later, they were on the same bus, seated diagonally behind one another, her head resting against the window while he sketched people sleeping, laughing, eating chips, the pages of his sketchbook slowly filling with fleeting details of a journey that felt both ordinary and sacred; the hill station, wrapped in mist and eucalyptus trees, welcomed them with chilly winds and chirping birds, and the hotel was nothing special—shared rooms with creaky beds and water heaters that didn’t work—but everything seemed softer, lighter, when Riya and Aarav found themselves standing side by side more often than not, their conversations now so effortless that even their silences hummed with meaning; on the second evening, after a tiring trek and a badly coordinated bonfire, most students gathered around to sing loud, off-key songs and roast imaginary marshmallows, but Riya slipped away, needing a moment to breathe, and Aarav, without speaking, followed her up the slope to a clearing that overlooked the distant valley, the sky above them scattered with more stars than either had ever seen; they sat on a large rock, their jackets pulled close, their knees almost touching, and for the first time in weeks, there was no background noise—not even rain—just wind and starlight and a fragile, unspoken question between them; Riya looked at the stars, then at him, then away again, unsure whether what she was feeling had a name, or whether naming it would ruin the quietness of it; Aarav finally broke the silence, his voice low, like a confession wrapped in a whisper: “Sometimes I draw you even when I don’t mean to,” and Riya’s breath caught, not because she hadn’t guessed it, but because hearing it out loud made it real in a way she hadn’t prepared for; she turned toward him, her voice trembling just enough to be human: “Sometimes I write about you even when I’m not writing about you,” and there it was, not a love confession in the traditional sense, but something gentler, deeper—an acknowledgment of how deeply they had begun to live in each other’s minds without ever needing permission; Aarav reached for her hand then, not suddenly, but slowly, as if giving her a chance to pull away, but she didn’t, and their fingers laced together like it had always been meant to happen this way—not dramatic, not loud, just right; that night, lying in her bunk bed, listening to the soft hum of her roommates’ snores, Riya clutched the sketch Aarav had torn from his pad and handed her before they’d walked back down—a drawing of the same valley view, with two figures sitting under a sky full of stars—and knew that no matter what happened after this year ended, no matter where life scattered them, she would always remember this trip not for the hills or the bonfire or the silly group selfies, but for the moment when two quiet teenagers finally said what they’d been feeling all along, without ever needing to say the word “love.”
Chapter 6:
The last day of school came wrapped in the kind of nostalgia that makes everything feel slower, heavier, and oddly brighter—as if the sun itself knew it was shining on the final page of a story that had been quietly unfolding in notebooks, corridors, and gulmohar petals for years; the morning assembly was longer than usual, filled with parting speeches, thank-you notes, and teachers blinking faster than usual to hide the shine in their eyes, and even the class clowns sat unusually still, their usual restlessness replaced by a nervous awareness that something permanent was ending; Riya wore her uniform with unusual care that morning, ironing every pleat, pinning her name badge just right, while Aarav arrived with a half-full sketchbook tucked under his arm and a folded note in his wallet he hadn’t decided whether to give; the day was a blur of group photographs, signatures scrawled on sleeves, and tearful laughter in stairwells that had once echoed with footsteps and reprimands, and in the middle of it all, Riya and Aarav kept finding each other—between farewell cards and shared chocolate bars, their eyes meeting again and again like the pause in a familiar song; in the final hour, when the last bell rang—once for tradition, and a second time for farewell—there was a stillness that settled like mist across the old classrooms and the fading blackboards, and it was then, after the crowd began to thin and the corridors emptied of their noise, that Riya found Aarav near the gulmohar tree, sitting exactly where they had once shared mango slices and unsaid feelings; she walked over quietly, her shoes crunching on the dried petals, and sat beside him without asking, because by now, their silences needed no translation; he didn’t look at her immediately, just opened his sketchbook and turned it to the final page—a portrait of her, unfinished but unmistakably her, eyes closed, a faint smile, her hair caught mid-movement like wind had passed through it—and beneath it, in his neat, careful handwriting, three words: You changed me; Riya stared at it, her throat tight, her voice nowhere near steady, but when she looked up at him, eyes shimmering just slightly, she said, “Then maybe we’re both different people now,” and took his hand without hesitation, holding it not like something fragile but like something real; they sat that way as the wind rustled above them and a few last petals drifted down, each one landing like punctuation at the end of a memory, and neither of them said goodbye because goodbye was too small, too final for what they had built between glances, bookmarks, and brushes of the hand—what they had was not ending, only changing form, folding itself into the corners of their growing lives like a pressed flower between pages, quiet and lasting; and when they finally stood, walking back toward the gate, away from the red-bricked building that had been their universe, Riya slipped something into Aarav’s hand—a folded poem that began with the line “Love doesn’t always knock. Sometimes it sketches quietly in the back row and leaves gulmohar petals in its wake”—and Aarav smiled, knowing they were both walking into different futures, but carrying the same story in their hearts, one that would always begin with the day the bell rang twice.
Years had passed like trains leaving familiar platforms, loud and unstoppable, and Riya, now seated by the window of a Kolkata café tucked between bookstores and rain-washed sidewalks, found herself pausing mid-email as the first raindrop slid down the glass pane, tracing a path that pulled something loose from memory—not sharp, not painful, just soft, like the smell of old school corridors or the creak of wooden benches beneath restless hands; outside, the world was greyer, older, filled with grown-up worries and half-finished dreams, but inside her chest, the rain still drummed like it had on that school auditorium roof years ago, when they had both been younger, braver in quieter ways; she hadn’t seen Aarav in years—not since the day they waved one last time outside the exam hall gates, both pretending not to notice how long that wave lingered—but he had written to her once, a short letter mailed from a hostel room in Mumbai, enclosing a torn page from his sketchbook with a single line scribbled in the corner: “Some people are not meant to stay, but they’re never really gone.” She had replied, not in words, but by placing his bookmark inside her journal, carrying it through colleges, cities, relationships that faded like chalk on wet boards; she had loved again, perhaps more deeply, perhaps not—but no one else had ever drawn her without asking, or understood her silence the way he had beneath that gulmohar tree; now, as the rain picked up tempo, a gust of wind blew the café door open briefly, and in walked a man with a sketchbook tucked under his arm and hair damp at the edges—he looked older, leaner, with a softness in his eyes that matched the storm outside, and when their eyes met, the world paused just enough for recognition to arrive like an old song on a forgotten playlist; Aarav smiled, not surprised, not searching, just… arriving, as if the years had meant only to delay this moment, not erase it; he walked over without speaking, sat opposite her, opened his sketchbook, and revealed a new drawing—a woman by a window, half-turned, watching rain fall beyond a glass pane, her expression unreadable but familiar—and Riya laughed, quiet and full, like monsoon thunder tucked inside her ribcage, and said, “You haven’t changed,” and Aarav, looking out at the rain-soaked city, replied, “Only the seasons did”; and as the city breathed around them and the café filled with the scent of chai and paper, they sat once more in the comfortable silence of people who had known each other in a language no one else spoke, and outside, beneath the now-blooming gulmohar tree across the street, the petals began to fall—slowly, red and soft, like everything that had once begun with a sketch, a poem, and the day the bell rang twice.
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