Pranati's POV

The jasmine garland coiled around my suitcase strap like a noose. 

I should have thrown it away years ago. 

But there it lay brittle petals the color of old tea, still clinging to the faintest whisper of fragrance. The same garland I'd worn that afternoon in seventh grade, when I first realized love wasn't a fairy tale but a slow, suffocating drowning. 

Summer 2010 

The grandparents' courtyard swam in golden heat. At twelve, I was all knobby knees and scraped elbows, hiding behind the curry leaf plant as Shravan Reddy eighteen, already broad-shouldered, already beautiful demonstrated cricket strokes to the cousins. 

"Watch how I hold the bat," he'd said, not to me, never to me. 

But I'd watched anyway. 

When he abandoned the game to gulp down nannari sherbet, I'd crept to the abandoned bat. Pressed my small hands where his had been. The wood was warm. 

"Eww, Pranati's touching his stuff!" Mahesh's nasal whine shattered the moment. 

Shravan turned. Looked right through me. "Who?" 

The first cut. 

Summer 2012 

By fourteen, I'd learned strategy. 

I saved him the crispiest vada at breakfast (he fed it to the dog). 
I "accidentally" left my English notes in his room (they came back untouched). 
At Batukamma, I piled my flower stack tallest, brightest look at me, look at me, look— 

He danced with Anu instead. 

Summer 2015 

Seventeen. Old enough to know better. 

The monsoons had turned the village roads to rivers. I found Shravan stranded outside Satya akka’s house, his scooter buried in mud. 

"I'll help!" I'd waded in, my churidar soaked to the thighs, my hands slipping on the slick metal. He'd watched, amused, as I strained— 

"Just call the gardener," he'd said, and walked away. 

I'd stood there in the downpour, my hands caked in red clay, finally understanding: 

He doesn't hate you. You're just... nothing. 

Present Day 

The diary fell open to a warped page July 2018, the ink blotted by what might have been rain. Or tears. 

"Today Shravan smiled at me. Really smiled. I think— 

The rest was scratched out violently. 

I remembered that day too well. 

He'd been home from college, sprawled on the veranda swing with his engineering textbooks. I'd brought him badam milk, my hands shaking so badly the glass clinked. 

"Thanks..." His fingers brushed mine.  

"Now, in my Mumbai bedroom, I pressed the crumbling jasmine to my lips. 

Twelve years of this. 

Twelve years of being the afterthought, the what's-her-name, the girl who loved in silence while he gave his laughter away to everyone else. 

At 25, I had become everything a younger me once dreamed of a Chartered Accountant at one of Mumbai’s top firms, walking confidently into glass buildings with high heels and higher hopes. But even with all the numbers I could balance, my heart remained wildly uneven. 

My office window overlooked the sea restless and unknowable just like the thoughts I tried so hard to push away. Shravan. That name still hovered like a ghost. 

All those years Grade 7 till college watching him from across the courtyard, laughing when he did, blushing when he teased me. I thought maybe just maybe he’d seen it too. 

But real life isn’t a fairytale. And sometimes, the prince doesn’t even notice the girl at the ball. 

That’s when Sakshi stormed in. 

My best friend since school days. Tall, blunt, fiercely protective, and everything I was not. A practicing advocate, she walked with a fire in her step and never hesitated to speak her mind especially when it came to him. 

“I told you not to fall for Shravan,” she snapped over brunch one Sunday, swirling her coffee with the intensity of a courtroom cross-examination. 

I know,” I murmured, stirring my own drink, eyes cast down. 

“He’s a flirt, Pranati. Always has been. You think he didn’t know how you felt?” Her gaze softened. “You deserve someone who sees you. Who really sees you.” 

I smiled faintly, brushing my waist-length black hair over my shoulder. “Maybe I was just naive.” 

She reached across the table, squeezing my hand. “You’re not naive. You’re soft. There’s a difference. And honestly? It’s your grace that makes you glow.” 

I laughed, feeling lighter. She always had a way of putting my pieces back together. 

But no matter how many client files I filed, or audits I completed with precision, something inside me remained untouched, untouched and quietly aching. I had built a beautiful life for myself, but I couldn’t help wondering… 

When would someone choose me? 

Not because it was easy, or convenient, or arranged but because in a world of chaos, I was their peace. Their person. 

That night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling fan spinning shadows across my room, I thought about going to my home. It was Bathukamma season soon. Amma had called me twice that day, asking if I’d take a few days off work and visit the village. 

I hadn’t been back in a while. 
Not since the last time I saw him. 
Siddharth Reddy. 

My thoughts stalled, like a skipped heartbeat. 

He was Shravan’s older brother. My cousin too, of course. 
Seven years older than me. Tall 6’1”, brown-skinned, muscular, always straight-faced like the world owed him no explanations. He wasn’t the type to talk unnecessarily, and yet… his silence always said more than words. 

I hadn’t seen him in years. 
Not since he moved to Dubai to manage one of the luxury hotel chains. 
He barely spoke at family functions. And when he did, it was clipped, formal, guarded. 

But once just once I had caught him looking at me. 
Not like a cousin. 
Not like family. 
But like a man seeing a woman. And it terrified me. 

I closed my eyes. 

Bathukamma. A festival of flowers, music, color… and maybe, the place where things were about to change again. 

My phone buzzed. Sakshi's text glared up at me: 

"He's definitely coming for Batukamma." 

Attached was a photo of Shravan at a party, his arm around a girl whose lehenga cost more than my monthly rent. 

I should have felt something. Anger. Hurt. 

All I felt was tired. 

The train ticket on my dresser seemed to pulse tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. 

I packed the diary between my sarees, its pages heavy with pressed flowers that had never been gifts, just things I'd stolen when he wasn't looking. 

Like his attention. 

Like my own foolish heart. 

The suitcase clicked shut. Somewhere in Hyderabad, Shravan scrolled past Sakshi's story without stopping. And in a Dubai hotel room, a phone buzzed with a flight notification— 

"Arrival: Tomorrow."