It touches the skin… but drowns the heart.

Aarohi hadn’t heard from Vivaan since the call.

Two days. No message. No explanation. Nothing.

She checked her phone a hundred times.

Hoped it was some network issue.

Hoped it was a mistake.

But deep down, she feared…

maybe this was just another goodbye.

---

That day, the skies turned gray.

Rain began falling, soft at first, then wild.

Aarohi didn’t carry an umbrella.

She didn’t care.

She walked into the school library — empty, silent, cold.

Maybe she came here to hide from the world.

Maybe from herself.

She drifted through the aisles, fingers brushing old books.

Then she paused.

A torn red notebook peeked out awkwardly from a shelf.

Something about it felt… familiar.

She pulled it out.

It wasn’t hers.

It wasn’t even from their syllabus.

She opened it slowly.

A page fluttered down.

And there it was…

Vivaan’s handwriting.

---

A drawing.

Pencil-sketched, unfinished… but clear.

Two figures under an umbrella.

One girl. One boy.

One holding on. The other about to walk away.

Tears mixed with rain on the page.

She turned it over.

Behind the drawing, a short note:

> “If I ever stop talking, it’s not because I’ve stopped feeling.”

“It’s because I don’t know how to say what I feel.”

> — V.

And below it… a small address.

“Chaitanya Art Gallery, Pune.”

---

Aarohi stood frozen.

It wasn’t just a memory.

It was a message.

And it was recent.

Vivaan was somewhere out there…

still painting her in pages, still thinking of her in sketches.

---

That night, she sat by her window again, heart pounding with something unfamiliar:

Hope.

> “Maybe it’s not over,” she whispered.

“Maybe the story still wants to be finished.”

---

End of Chapter 9