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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAm6MDs6353z
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANA49aJD4PeNi
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 495.56Please respect copyright.PENANASy7KMRNSpk
And sat by the window.
Cold.56Please respect copyright.PENANAoJPwW1KxcZ
Yet somehow warm.56Please respect copyright.PENANAR06UzFwAJi
Bittersweet, like holding hands in a dream just before waking up.
That evening —56Please respect copyright.PENANA3nN9CfNcTB
she messaged me:56Please respect copyright.PENANARxP2i1IC33
“It’s been a while since we talked like this…”
And my heart quietly broke.56Please respect copyright.PENANAI6MlR1KgOQ
Not from pain.56Please respect copyright.PENANAVmfZVX5cXg
But from the gentle ache of knowing that this — this fleeting, shared moment —56Please respect copyright.PENANAywHMXExBek
was all I’d ever asked for.
The silences. The rain.56Please respect copyright.PENANArwOuCZ8eng
The way we forgot the world together.56Please respect copyright.PENANAW9gsF10BH0
Just for a little while.
And so, once again, I gave her a name.
Forevermore.
Not some name I pulled from the air.56Please respect copyright.PENANAVEGxchXWZN
Not just for the poetry of it.56Please respect copyright.PENANAHvXlyROjvT
But because I’ve been naming all the versions of her I’ve seen.
Not her, exactly.56Please respect copyright.PENANAde7nMw8vxG
But the her I’ve met at different crossroads.56Please respect copyright.PENANA8YlBWkDYOt
The her who felt like home in passing moments.
Each one of them…56Please respect copyright.PENANAGxAKNosPlh
so very different.56Please respect copyright.PENANApduH3vLCyr
And yet, so unmistakably her.
Days passed.56Please respect copyright.PENANAhElWNdvULW
The storm that was my heart calmed too.56Please respect copyright.PENANABUhyV7L8fs
Life didn’t stop — it never does.
Semester 2 had begun.56Please respect copyright.PENANA48cEwm6pWe
We were already halfway through our first year.56Please respect copyright.PENANAs6W0JEC3VF
Funny. Five months vanished like mist in morning sunlight.
Thub remained the constant — our place to learn and forget ourselves.56Please respect copyright.PENANA8go7YnEzAm
This time, they were teaching DSA.56Please respect copyright.PENANAJ0uCEDJEbE
Classes now held at Ratan Tata Bhavan, a little more formal, a little less raw.
It felt the same as the first semester…56Please respect copyright.PENANAOWzv9R9AJn
Except now, Ren was often with us.56Please respect copyright.PENANAbtYrVrnffz
Or rather, with her.56Please respect copyright.PENANAtKr9PyGM0d
And I?56Please respect copyright.PENANABdcUu33v8R
I floated somewhere in between.
Still, I shared my world with her.
I introduced her to my seniors — people who meant something to me.56Please respect copyright.PENANAxn0PtF5uCQ
And among them, she grew fond of Ariel.56Please respect copyright.PENANAJkSK3qz6ZP
A not-so-innocent senior, playful and sharp,56Please respect copyright.PENANAeByAIkpA9e
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.56Please respect copyright.PENANAqdGgGGiw5J
People who walked up to me not for who I was,56Please respect copyright.PENANA2F1EEmhhVu
but for what I could do.
They saw the coder.56Please respect copyright.PENANAXJcelf5PCY
The guy who wins contests.56Please respect copyright.PENANAA22KR7vgb5
The guy who can explain recursion in five minutes.
But never me.56Please respect copyright.PENANAnLWj1WPOh3
Not the full picture.
I didn’t mind.56Please respect copyright.PENANADBPqE0j1MZ
I had grown used to it.56Please respect copyright.PENANA50BJQTlQlS
People don’t really care —56Please respect copyright.PENANA37aqNMQ4El
they care about what’s useful.56Please respect copyright.PENANAMhId3GniUH
What they can gain.
And honestly,56Please respect copyright.PENANAQJMul6mXua
I never really cared about them either.
Because I had her.56Please respect copyright.PENANAw8rBrRykcg
Forevermore.
And the name itself said everything I couldn’t.
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