No werewolves.
No billionaire boyfriends.
No magical powers.
Just a girl trying to survive family, memory, guilt, and life.
If you want to understand how things went so weirdly sideways, we have to go back.
Back to when it all started.
Summer break. Just after Class 11.
It was a Usual day but I was very unusual not in a bad sense actually I was excited.That day I was going to meet someone.Numerology said that day would be special...
The horoscope promised it. And I believed it.
Grandmother was flying across the house like a cyclone in a sari. Muttering about someone important coming over... again and again.
I stepped out with a heartbeat louder than my footsteps. He had asked to meet. After all these years.
Wait, don't get confused - The person whom i am going to meet and my grandma is waiting for, are different.
I am meeting my classmate?
no, bench mate?
no, may be a friend?
no,
I didn’t want him to be just a friend. I thought—maybe after meeting him—I’d finally understand what he meant to me.
Ah! There he is But wait he wasn’t waiting to confess...(as i thought)
He wanted advice — about her.
The “famous girl” who laughed like attention and walked like applause.
At that moment, my tears wanted to fall. Relentlessly.But somehow,
somehow, I held them back. My mind was a storm. A thousand questions chasing each other, but all that came out was...
“Your wish,”
-in a voice that trembled like a leaf in wind.
He spoke many things after that. I heard them like a distant song, nodded silently. All I wanted was to go home.
He wasn’t surprised.
As if two hours of talking were nothing to him. "Let’s go," he said softly._But for me, time had frozen the moment he said, he wanted to date that famous girl...
At the bus stand, he helped me board the bus. Said goodbye without a word. I nodded, waved, and sat down,
but the pain I had fought so hard to hide flooded back, too loud to hold inside.
So I closed my eyes,
surrendered to the storm inside, and let the world fade to silence.
In the Bus after I closed my eyes. Window beside me blurred. A soft hum of engine, distant thunder was rumbling. Suddenly, I remembered
Memory: The first time I met him—
No… not met. I only saw him.
It was when, i was in 2nd class, a boy was getting scolded by the teacher for talking in the middle of class.
Like the rest of the class, I looked at him.
And for my surprise…
we made eye contact.
It was an age when I didn’t even know what “eye contact” meant.
Funny, isn’t it?
How time moved from that innocent moment
to this—
the last day before our summer holidays in 11th class.
It suddenly rained that day.
The school rushed us all to the gates.
March rain—utter nonsense.
But real enough to drench the sky
and shift the rhythm of our routine.
I was standing in that tiny shed,
where we waited for our guardians.
My mind wandered.
And then—a voice reached me.
Familiar.
Not in tone. But in effect.
Like the second glance at a stranger
who once passed through a dream.
It said, softly—
“Anveshna...”
A soft voice...shy... barely louder than the sound of rain hitting the tin roof.
He said—“Let’s meet tomorrow.”
Just that. In my mind, I was already building confessions.
Maybe it was imagination.
Maybe hope.
But it felt like the echo of that same glance
from years ago—finally finding its voice.
And then, as if nature was listening—
The rain slowed.
All the children in the shed ran toward home. He ran too.
“Surya!” I called out.
He looked back. I shouted,
“Okay!” with the biggest smile I’ve ever worn,
then the last rain drop fell on my hand and rain stopped completely
He laughed... and kept running, Like it was just another day.
But for me—it was everything.
Present: outside the Bus, Thunder from before stopped and The Rain drops were ready to lightly tap the window. Inside, I opened my eyes slowly— A teardrop fell on my hand. Outside—clouds broke and rain began.
The last time I saw him — in rain, at school, asking me to meet.
The same rain now returned... not from the sky, but from my eyes.
Everyone on the bus were busy being somewhere else. Except a small girl behind me...She poked my shoulder gently and said "Your stop.” That’s when I realised I had reached the place I didn’t want to go. I got down. The Heavy rain followed.
The alley to home felt longer, wetter, emptier.
No vehicles. Just me, the puddles, and a flood of thoughts.
What is love?
A moment? A misunderstanding? A lie we tell ourselves?
If it’s real... why does it slip away so quietly?
By the time I reached home, my heart had soaked more than my clothes.
There was someone sitting on the sofa.
I couldn’t see clearly through the blur... but I knew who it was.
I slammed the door of my room.
“Hey, Anveshna, you brat!” Grandma shouted. “That’s the third time I’ve cleaned this house
today, and you brought the storm in again!”
I smiled... in pain.
My face was a monsoon of tears.
The horoscope was right. That day was special. A memory etched forever — just not the kind I prayed for.
That day, I felt like I lost the only reason I looked forward to tomorrow, And from today... I have to face the one I never wanted to remember - The woman on the sofa..., MY MOTHER.
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