She only cared about one thing:
Aarav.
The instructions led her hours away — through narrow roads, through small towns, through a dusty checkpoint guarded by men who eyed her letter carefully before letting her pass.
Then to a small village near the mountains.
Women carrying jugs paused. Children stared at her like she was a character that stepped out of a storybook.
A man approached.
Thin. Elderly. Wearing a white kurta. His voice calm and oddly familiar.
“Are you… Anya?”
She nodded nervously. “I came because—”
“I know.”
He smiled softly. “Come with me.”
He led her through a narrow path toward a school building with peeling blue paint.
And there — on a bench under a neem tree — sat a boy reading a book.
Her heart stopped.
The world slowed.
Tilted.
Collapsed inward.
His hair was longer.
His face older.
But those eyes — those bright, curious, warm eyes…
“Aarav…”
Her voice was a breath, a prayer, a wound reopening.
The boy looked up.
He froze.
The book fell from his hands.
He stared, disbelief flooding his face, his chest rising like he couldn’t breathe.
“M… Ma…?” he whispered.
Her knees buckled, but she somehow ran — stumbling, crying out uncontrollably — reaching him like her entire soul was being pulled toward him.
Aarav stood.
And in the next second —
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