Page 16 of Scars and Crowns

Just thirty seconds. That's all I allow myself. Thirty seconds to stop pretending. Thirty seconds to feel everything instead of pushing it back down where it belongs. Because if I'm being completely honest . . . Isn't this exactly what I'd secretly wanted? Some tiny, foolish part of me—the part I thought life had beaten out of me years ago—had wished for this.

Not for him to love me.

Not even for him to speak to me.

Just . . . To know me. To look past the extra weight. Past the brown hair. Past the years that have left exhaustion where confidence used to live. To somehow see the girl underneath all of it and think—There you are.

He did. And now I don't know what to do with that. A laugh threatens somewhere inside me. It never reaches my lips.

Funny.

You spend years convincing yourself you've stopped hoping . . . until hope suddenly looks you in the eyes and says your childhood nickname.

I tighten my arms around my knees until the ache in my shoulders gives me something else to focus on. A memory slips in anyway.

I was almost sixteen, hiding on the palace ramparts after escaping another unbearably dull and frustrating scolding session. Yuvaan was supposed to be studying. His economics notebook was open in front of him, though I don't think he read a single page because I kept stealing it every five minutes.

"Stop," he complained, trying to pull it back.

"I just need one page."

"You've said that about six pages."

"I'll become famous one day, and you'll sell this notebook for crores because it has my original sketches."

He had snorted. "I'd rather frame it to remind myself how much of a menace you were."

I stuck my tongue out at him and continued drawing anyway. A crooked little shop. Books spilling from wooden shelves. A window seat buried beneath cushions. Potted plants hanging near the entrance.

Nothing extravagant.

Just . . . peaceful.

He watched me for a long time before quietly asking, "You already have the whole place planned, don't you?"

Every tiny detail. Down to the smell of coffee near the entrance and the cat that would absolutely ignore customers. I remember smiling so hard my cheeks hurt. Back then, dreaming had been effortless.

I didn't stop to wonder whether life would allow it. I simply assumed it would. The memory fades, leaving behind an ache that's difficult to name.

Maybe that's what I miss the most. Not the bookshop. Not Mumbai. Not even the future I'd imagined.

I miss the girl who believed the world was something she could shape with nothing more than stubbornness and hard work.

She never stopped to calculate what things would cost her. She never looked over her shoulder before laughing. She never measured every decision against survival.

Somewhere along the way . . . that girl became someone I only meet in memories. I draw in a slow breath and look at the blank stone wall opposite me.

For a strange, painful moment, it feels as though Yuvaan had recognised her before I could. And I don't know whether that thought comforts me . . . or breaks my heart a little more.

My breathing has steadied. My thoughts haven't.

He recognised me.

That thought keeps returning no matter how many times I push it away.

How?

I don't even recognise myself some mornings. There are days I catch my reflection unexpectedly and have to look twice. Life has a way of changing you in places mirrors can't explain.