Time moved on, as it always does.
The classrooms emptied, the corridors fell silent, and chalk dust settled like quiet snow over lessons now past. Desks once shared by strangers had become places of warmth, jokes, secrets, and the fragile beginnings of something not yet named.
Vansh never told anyone how it felt—her kiss on his cheek, the echo of her voice saying his name, or the way her eyes stayed in his mind long after the bus had taken that turn. He kept it tucked away, like a note written and folded but never sent.
Aanya had come into his life with no grand entrance. No destiny. Just a girl with a smile, an extra pen, and a strange courage to say what he couldn't. She had made him feel seen when he was hiding in plain sight.
And though the exams had ended, the real tests were only beginning.
Friendship, distance, time... all waiting quietly beyond summer's reach.
He didn't know when he'd see her again. Or if.
But something had shifted.
Because now, somewhere deep inside him, he was waiting for someone.
Someone who knew the sound of his silence.
Someone who could walk beside him—not ahead, not behind.
Just close enough.
And even if they'd met too early,
even if life had drawn their lines askew—
some people, after all,
are not just meant to meet.
They are meant to return.