The monsoon came early that year.
In Nandipur, that meant everything changed overnight. The dusty lanes of the small town turned to winding, muddy streams. Children floated paper boats outside their homes. The scent of petrichor—the heady perfume of the first rains on parched soil—hung thick in the air. For some, the rain meant inconvenience. But for Purvi, it meant a season of quiet moments and lingering glances, of dripping umbrellas and footsteps that squelched through soaked playgrounds.
It was the last week of school before the term ended. Exams were done. Teachers grew lenient. Uniforms stayed damp all day, and no one really minded. Everything felt suspended—like the world was holding its breath before something changed.
Purvi and Ayaan had carved out their own world in that in-between time. Their haven was the back of the old library, a building no one used anymore since the school got Wi-Fi and e-books. Its musty shelves gathered dust, and the reading tables were cracked, their varnish peeling. But the window—wide, rusted at the corners—overlooked the town's lake, and on rainy days, the view was a blur of silver ripples and mist.
That's where they met almost every afternoon.
Sometimes they talked about their dreams. Sometimes they said nothing at all, just shared space and silence, their elbows brushing, breathing in sync. There was a comfort in it, like the world didn't need to be figured out just yet.
But that afternoon, everything was different.
Ayaan sat by the window first, a folded letter in his hand, fingers turning it over and over. He wasn't smiling, and that was the first thing Purvi noticed as she walked in, shaking water from her dupatta and tugging at the ends of her braid.
"What's that?" she asked lightly, trying to catch his eye.
He didn't look at her immediately. His gaze was fixed outside, on the lake that was now swelling at the edges with the new rain.
When he finally turned, he extended the letter silently.
Purvi took it, wiping her fingers on her skirt before carefully unfolding the damp page. At the top, in crisp black print, were the words: St. James International, London. Her eyes scanned quickly—scholarship, fully funded, science and technology program, top three in Europe.
She felt her breath catch.
"Oh my God," she whispered, her eyes wide. "Ayaan… this is huge."
He nodded but still didn't smile.
"You worked so hard for this. You deserve this," she said, trying to meet his gaze.
"I know," he said, almost too quietly. "But… I don't want to leave you."
That stopped her. The room felt suddenly too still.
Purvi looked down at the letter again, then back at him. His face was unreadable—tension behind the eyes, a tightness around the jaw.
"You're not leaving me," she said slowly. "You're… following your dream. Like we always talked about."
He shook his head. "We talked about following our dreams together."
She swallowed hard. "We still can. I'll finish school. Maybe I can apply for a program near you. Or even something online. There are so many options now. It'll just take some time, that's all."
Ayaan turned away, running a hand through his damp hair. "Maybe," he repeated, his tone laced with uncertainty. "But you don't know. I don't know. What if… what if we grow apart? What if it stops feeling like this?"
Purvi stared at him. The question echoed in her chest louder than she wanted to admit.
"Is that what you want?" she asked.
"No," he said instantly. "No. I want you. I want this. But I also want… this future. This chance. My dad looked like he was going to cry when he read the letter. He's never looked at me like that before."
She looked down, the edges of the paper still clutched in her hands. The words blurred slightly, though she couldn't tell if it was the rain outside or her own eyes welling up.
"I get it," she said after a pause. "I really do."
"I know," he said softly. "But…"
"But?" she prompted, though she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the rest.
"But I don't want to make promises I can't keep. I don't want to say forever when I don't even know who I'll be a year from now."
That broke something in her. Not in a loud, crashing way, but like the quiet split of wood under pressure—silent, but irreversible.
They had never said the word forever out loud before. It had always lived between them, assumed, like the soft rhythm of their hands brushing on walks home or the way they always waited for each other after class. It had always just been there.
And now he was saying he couldn't promise it.
She nodded, slowly. Her voice, when it came, was small. "Okay."
Ayaan looked at her then, really looked. His eyes held something like grief. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," she said. "You're doing what you're meant to do."
The rain outside grew heavier, sheets of it hammering the old windows, blurring the lake and the world beyond. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The sounds of the rain, the distant hum of voices from the school corridor, the ticking of the library's old wall clock—everything seemed to stretch and fold into the silence between them.
Purvi wanted to say a hundred things—I love you, I'm scared too, What if we try anyway? But all of them felt like trying to hold water in her hands. Slippery, impossible.
She took his hand.
And for a little while, that was enough.
When the bell rang, and they knew it was time to go, Ayaan stood first. He looked down at her, his bag slung over one shoulder, the scholarship letter folded and safe again.
He didn't say goodbye.
He just said, "See you soon."
And then he walked away, out into the rain.
Purvi stayed by the window long after he'd gone, watching as the lake blurred further into the greyness of the afternoon.
She didn't know if she'd see him soon. She didn't know what the next year would bring. But she knew this: some people don't need forever to leave a mark. Sometimes, all it takes is one monsoon, one summer, and a single sentence that wasn't quite a goodbye.