The wind was colder than usual that evening.
Iraaya sat on the stone ledge near the riverbank, knees pulled to her chest, forehead resting against them. She wasn't crying. Just thinking. That dangerous kind of thinking that loops in circles, about pain that refuses to leave and futures that don't seem to come.
The river flowed quietly beneath the hanging bridge near Dhabaleswar Temple. Wide, grey, and relentless. The Mahanadi always had this eerie calm before nightfall, as if hiding stories of all those who'd come to her banks searching for something—peace, pain, prayers. Or endings.
A sudden splash cut through the stillness like a slap.
Voices rose instantly.
"Arrey! Someone jumped!"
"Call the police!"
"Dekho koi gaya paani mein!"
Iraaya's head snapped up.
In the fading light, she saw ripples breaking across the current, and something, someone, flailing once before going under.
Time froze.
Then her body moved before her mind caught up.
She dropped her shawl. Slipped off her sandals. Heart racing. Arms trembling. The water was too strong. Too fast. She barely knew how to swim. Her trainer had warned her never to attempt deep dives alone. She had no idea what lay below.
But her feet didn't stop.
She took two running steps toward the edge of the bank and shouted:
"Har Har Mahadev!"
And jumped.
The water slapped her hard. Cold. Brutal. A chaos of waves and mud and silence that swallowed every sound. Her chest squeezed tight. Her eyes stung. She kicked, once, twice, until her head broke the surface.
"Where is he?" she gasped.
The current was stronger than anything she'd felt in the pool. It pulled at her limbs, her hair, like greedy fingers. She turned in frantic circles until she saw something—an arm, maybe ten feet away, just beneath the water.
She didn't think.
She dove.
Underwater, she reached for the shape, felt cloth, skin, dead weight, and pulled. His body was heavy. He wasn't moving. Panic rose like bile in her throat. Don't let go, she told herself. Don't you dare.
Her lungs screamed for air as she kicked upward, dragging him with her.
They surfaced.
She coughed, choked, wrapped an arm around his chest from behind, and began kicking back toward the edge.
People had gathered now. Shouting instructions. One man climbed down to help. Someone threw a rope. Hands reached out. Pulled.
They collapsed onto the grass together, soaked and gasping.
She rolled to the side, chest heaving, water dripping from her hair and eyelashes. For a moment, there was only silence. Then:
"Is he... is he breathing?" she asked, voice shaking.
The man who'd helped pull him out checked his pulse. "He's alive. Barely. But he is."
Relief punched her in the stomach.
The boy—man, she now realized, coughed weakly and turned his face toward the sky, blinking like he couldn't believe he was still here.
His lips moved. Just barely.
"I didn't want... to be saved."
Iraaya stared at him, panting. Her throat felt raw.
"Then jump where no one sees you," she snapped.
His eyes met hers—dark, stunned, and painfully human.
"You should've let me go."
"You don't get to decide that," she said, voice trembling. "Not when I was standing right there."
The crowd was thinning now. Someone had called an ambulance. Red lights approached from a distance.
Iraaya looked down at herself. Her wet kurti clung to her frame. Her legs were shaking. Her hands wouldn't stop twitching.
And suddenly, the weight of what she had just done hit her.
She had jumped into a river.
To save a stranger.
A man.
Her heart pounded in her ears. Somewhere deep inside, memories flared—dark corridors, breath she didn't want near her, touches that made her skin crawl. Her throat tightened.
But this man, he hadn't tried to touch her. He hadn't even thanked her.
He just lay there. Like a ghost dragged back into a world he didn't ask for.
"Why?" she asked quietly.
He turned to her again. "Why what?" "Why did you jump?"
Ehan stared at the sky. His voice came out quieter this time, like something breaking inside him.
"Because there's nothing left."
Iraaya sat back on her heels, her wet clothes sticking to her skin, her breaths uneven.
"Then maybe you were looking in the wrong direction."
Their gazes locked. Just for a second.
And in that second, something ancient and aching passed between them — not love, not yet, but something raw and unfinished. A recognition. A knowing. Two strangers who had both tried to survive things they couldn't name aloud.
Then, as if his body couldn't carry the weight anymore, Ehan's eyes slowly drifted shut.
His chest rose with a shaky breath.
And he let it go, exhaling like a man who didn't know whether he'd been rescued... or interrupted.
The ambulance finally reached the edge of the road above the temple path. Footsteps ran toward them. Voices blurred in the distance.
Iraaya didn't move.
She just sat there beside him, watching a man who had wanted to disappear, and hadn't.