Two weeks passed.
Nothing extraordinary happened—no long conversations, no confessions, no promises.
And yet, Arohi didn't feel any emptiness.
She didn't need words.
A glance…
a small smile…
that was enough.
Every day, without fail, she got that one moment. And for her, it meant everything.
But outside those moments—
Arohi was still Arohi.
A girl who carried things she never spoke about.
She struggled with insecurities that had been growing long before Zafar ever entered her life. She didn't like the way she looked. She compared herself constantly—to girls at college, to strangers, to versions of herself that didn't exist.
She felt out of place.
She didn't have many friends. Conversations felt forced. Laughter felt borrowed.
And some days, even getting out of bed felt heavier than it should.
Her thoughts were often unkind to her—
quieter than voices, but sharper.
But then—
there was Zafar.
He didn't fix everything.
He didn't even try to.
He just… existed.
And somehow, that presence made things a little quieter inside her.
A little softer.
A little more bearable.
Her nights changed first.
She stayed awake longer than she should have, staring at the ceiling, replaying moments that were barely even moments—
a look, a smile, the way his eyes lingered for just a second longer.
Sleep came late. Mornings came too soon.
She walked into college with tired eyes, pretending she was fine.
Ridhima noticed.
She always did.
Ridhima had been there long enough to understand Arohi without needing explanations. She didn't push too much, didn't ask questions Arohi wasn't ready to answer—but her presence was constant.
"You're not sleeping, are you?" she asked one day, half-serious, half-teasing.
Arohi just shrugged.
"I'm fine."
She always said that.
And Ridhima never fully believed it.
There was one place where Arohi didn't hide.
Her diary.
It was small, worn at the edges, filled with pages that carried pieces of her no one else saw.
She wrote everything.
Every feeling. Every insecurity. Every passing thought that stayed too long.
She wrote about how she saw herself—
and how she wished she didn't.
She wrote about days when she didn't feel like eating,
about moments when everything felt too much,
about the quiet heaviness she didn't have words for.
And then—
she wrote about Zafar.
Page after page.
How he made her feel without saying anything.
How one smile could shift her entire day.
How, for a few seconds, she didn't feel as invisible.
She didn't call it love.
She didn't even understand it.
But she knew this—
when he looked at her,
she didn't hate herself as much.
And for Arohi, that meant more than anything.
But something else was happening too.
Slowly. Quietly.
Almost unnoticed.
Her world was beginning to center around him.
Her mood depended on whether she saw him.
Her thoughts circled back to him, again and again.
Her peace… was starting to come from a place outside herself.
And she didn't realize—
how dangerous that could become.