And then, quietly, I turned around.
Returned the umbrella to Krish with a soft thank-you, still half-soaked and half-lost in the moment.75Please respect copyright.PENANAyKucXU5fCx
After that, I didn’t rush. I didn’t need to.
I just wandered around the campus as the rain calmed, the sky grey but not cruel anymore.75Please respect copyright.PENANAGOdeRxBqXT
The kind of grey that feels… numb.
Eventually, the buses roared back to life — ready to take us back to our homes and our silences.
I climbed onto mine. Bus 495.75Please respect copyright.PENANAjciacE0spO
And sat by the window.
Cold.75Please respect copyright.PENANAGMXoWN8cEI
Yet somehow warm.75Please respect copyright.PENANAEt5ghJBUcj
Bittersweet, like holding hands in a dream just before waking up.
That evening —75Please respect copyright.PENANA0ODFvLn21J
she messaged me:75Please respect copyright.PENANAIwk4vJ0pL8
“It’s been a while since we talked like this…”
And my heart quietly broke.75Please respect copyright.PENANAHs8upNNvPN
Not from pain.75Please respect copyright.PENANAYewRioBXsp
But from the gentle ache of knowing that this — this fleeting, shared moment —75Please respect copyright.PENANAPjcyy6dSFb
was all I’d ever asked for.
The silences. The rain.75Please respect copyright.PENANAXpvl0wBUjL
The way we forgot the world together.75Please respect copyright.PENANAcQ6V0Tnrc6
Just for a little while.
And so, once again, I gave her a name.
Forevermore.
Not some name I pulled from the air.75Please respect copyright.PENANAMpN6qDtsN7
Not just for the poetry of it.75Please respect copyright.PENANATPLAHNVyks
But because I’ve been naming all the versions of her I’ve seen.
Not her, exactly.75Please respect copyright.PENANAzYpTewVLKD
But the her I’ve met at different crossroads.75Please respect copyright.PENANAq6sHGyUali
The her who felt like home in passing moments.
Each one of them…75Please respect copyright.PENANA0M4kbOttsB
so very different.75Please respect copyright.PENANADYmY1XuNim
And yet, so unmistakably her.
Days passed.75Please respect copyright.PENANAm5ymQXwvtR
The storm that was my heart calmed too.75Please respect copyright.PENANAwsxyJFSe8m
Life didn’t stop — it never does.
Semester 2 had begun.75Please respect copyright.PENANAaBRq5yjp6r
We were already halfway through our first year.75Please respect copyright.PENANAuD1RE4MGuJ
Funny. Five months vanished like mist in morning sunlight.
Thub remained the constant — our place to learn and forget ourselves.75Please respect copyright.PENANAkPHnjbEvQr
This time, they were teaching DSA.75Please respect copyright.PENANAzuHHSWTrbn
Classes now held at Ratan Tata Bhavan, a little more formal, a little less raw.
It felt the same as the first semester…75Please respect copyright.PENANA8fiJVEz1OI
Except now, Ren was often with us.75Please respect copyright.PENANABNN4lF1zUp
Or rather, with her.75Please respect copyright.PENANARstny8IVEF
And I?75Please respect copyright.PENANAD1ZK2qpKDK
I floated somewhere in between.
Still, I shared my world with her.
I introduced her to my seniors — people who meant something to me.75Please respect copyright.PENANACnxan80i6h
And among them, she grew fond of Ariel.75Please respect copyright.PENANAZY4vhgvGot
A not-so-innocent senior, playful and sharp,75Please respect copyright.PENANAcrUMLiTTJe
but with a charm that made her laugh in ways I hadn’t seen in a while.
And maybe that was okay.
As the semester unfolded, I met others too.75Please respect copyright.PENANArW00W4xKcF
People who walked up to me not for who I was,75Please respect copyright.PENANABxyTfpaWpz
but for what I could do.
They saw the coder.75Please respect copyright.PENANABqDOKbmws6
The guy who wins contests.75Please respect copyright.PENANATqOIqBYwj6
The guy who can explain recursion in five minutes.
But never me.75Please respect copyright.PENANAmB1mPDWOPc
Not the full picture.
I didn’t mind.75Please respect copyright.PENANATNj1AK0XH3
I had grown used to it.75Please respect copyright.PENANAASiANKAsBO
People don’t really care —75Please respect copyright.PENANAqWIhMO5e6M
they care about what’s useful.75Please respect copyright.PENANA2sXqqJpnse
What they can gain.
And honestly,75Please respect copyright.PENANAj6f4lIp5yJ
I never really cared about them either.
Because I had her.75Please respect copyright.PENANAlbxT4B9oT5
Forevermore.
And the name itself said everything I couldn’t.
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