Ananya stared out of the tall French windows of the Raichand mansion, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of tea that had long since gone cold. The morning sun filtered through the sheer curtains, painting golden stripes across the marble floor. But the warmth failed to touch her heart.
Aarav had been gone since dawn, some emergency at the company. Or so he said.
She hadn't asked.
She didn't need to.
Since their accidental wedding, the space between them had been filled with polite words and heavy silences. The kind that made her chest ache. And yet, every time his hand brushed hers, her heart betrayed her—stumbling, fluttering, hoping.
The house was too big, too quiet, and far too elegant for a girl who once lived in a tiny two-bedroom flat with a leaky tap and a rusty balcony. She missed the chaos of her mother's cooking, the sound of the local vegetable vendor screaming prices from the street below, and the comfort of knowing exactly who she was and what tomorrow would bring.
Now, she didn't even know who Aarav really was.
Or what she was to him.
Last night, she'd seen him on the phone. His voice had been low, urgent. His back was to her, but she caught the words: "No, I can't lose this contract. Not because of her." The tone was sharp, almost angry. It had sent a chill crawling down her spine.
Her.
Was that… her?
She hadn't asked.
She didn't need to.
---
Downstairs, Aarav sat in the backseat of his car as it sped through the city toward the Raichand Towers. But his mind wasn't on the business meeting that awaited him. It was back in the mansion. With Ananya.
With her soft eyes, full of unspoken questions. With her silence, more deafening than any shouting match.
He hadn't meant for things to turn out like this. The wedding had been a mistake—at least, that's what he told everyone. But the truth was more complicated. The truth had layers, buried under years of pain and a past he tried to forget.
Every time he looked at Ananya, a memory clawed its way back.
A different girl.
A different time.
Same eyes.
---
It was a rainy afternoon twelve years ago. Aarav, then a lanky seventeen-year-old with too many bruises on his knuckles and too much fire in his heart, had taken shelter in an old railway station shed. He'd just walked away from a brutal fight—one he didn't start, but definitely finished.
And that's when he saw her.
A girl in a torn school uniform, clutching a geometry box and a soggy book.
She offered him half her vada pav and sat beside him without a word.
That was Ananya.
Back when life was simple and heartbreak was only a word.
She'd talked about dreams—about becoming something, someone. He never said a word, but listened like her voice was the only thing that mattered in the world.
He never thought he'd see her again after that monsoon.
But fate has a twisted sense of humor.
---
Back in the present, Aarav clenched his jaw. He hadn't told her he remembered.
Because if she remembered too, and knew what he had become… would she still sit beside him in a rain-drenched shed and offer him half her world?
---
Ananya wandered into the library. The housekeeper had mentioned a room full of books, and it felt like a refuge. She trailed her fingers along the mahogany shelves, pulling out a dusty, forgotten volume. As she flipped through its yellowed pages, something fluttered out and landed at her feet.
A photograph.
Old. Faded.
A teenage boy with bruised knuckles and eyes filled with defiance. And next to him—a girl with a geometry box and a shy smile.
Her breath caught.
Her fingers trembled.
It was her.
And him.
Twelve years ago.
The station. The vada pav. The rain.
Everything came crashing back.
The ache in her chest bloomed into something sharper. He remembered. He must have. But he said nothing.
Why?
Did he regret it?
Did he regret her?
---
That evening, as twilight settled over the city, Aarav returned. He found Ananya standing in the garden, barefoot on the dewy grass, holding the old photograph.
She didn't speak.
She didn't need to.
The hurt in her eyes said it all.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice was quiet, but it cut through him like a blade.
He looked at her, his face unreadable. "Because I didn't want you to see what I've become."
"I already have," she said. "And I'm still here."
He didn't respond. Couldn't.
But something broke inside him.
And something healed inside her.
---
Moral: Sometimes, the people meant to be in our future are the ones we met when we were too young to understand love—but old enough to feel it. And when fate brings them back, it's never by accident.