The house had grown too small.
Ananya used to love its quiet corners—the way the soft lamp in her room painted a golden patch on the wall, how the faint scent of incense clung to the curtains. But ever since that temple meeting, ever since whispers had turned to accusations, silence no longer felt like safety. It was suffocation.
Her parents' eyes were everywhere. Even when they weren't standing at her door, even when they didn't say a word, their presence pressed against her like an invisible guard. If she lingered at the window too long, her mother's voice would rise from the hall: "Why aren't you studying?" If she walked toward the balcony, her father's footsteps would follow until she turned back.
Every movement had become a negotiation. Every sigh felt monitored.
That evening was no different. She sat at her desk, the pile of sanctioned books stacked neatly in front of her. Her father had checked them earlier, flipping through pages as if equations might hide contraband. She had watched silently, heart pounding, as his fingers turned page after page. When he was satisfied, he placed them back and left her with a look sharp enough to slice.
Now the house was hushed again, broken only by the distant clatter of her mother in the kitchen and the occasional creak of furniture downstairs. Ananya dipped her pen into the blue ink, copied formulas onto a page she barely saw, and tried not to think about how her life had narrowed to lines and margins.
But then her hand brushed against something unusual.
It was subtle—a sliver of spine peeking out between the stack, as if the book had been slid in at a careless angle. She frowned. She hadn't left it like that. Her father was meticulous, her mother even more so. Everything on this desk had been aligned to perfection earlier.
Her chest tightened. Slowly, cautiously, she drew the book out. It was her economics text, thick and dry. Familiar. Harmless.
Until she noticed it.
At the very edge of the inside cover, half-hidden in the crease, there was a faint scrawl. Not hers. Not her father's neat strokes or her mother's rigid hand.
Her pulse stuttered.
It was sloppy, hurried, but unmistakably familiar. She knew that tilt of the letters, the way the pen had pressed too hard in some places and lifted too suddenly in others. She had watched him write like that, scribbling notes in class, his hand always moving faster than the ink could keep up.
Riyan.
The name didn't even form fully in her mind before her body reacted. Heat shot through her veins, her breath came shallow. She nearly dropped the book.
But fear surged up just as fast.
If her father had seen this—if her mother had even suspected—it would already be over. She could imagine it too clearly: the book snatched from her hands, the note ripped apart, questions like accusations raining down until she broke.
Her ears strained, desperate for any sound. The rattle of pots downstairs. Her mother humming softly under her breath. A faint gust against the window. Nothing else.
The silence of a trap waiting to spring.
Ananya swallowed. She should shove the book aside. Bury it under safe pages. Pretend she hadn't seen the scrawl. That was the obedient daughter's path, the one that meant no punishment, no confrontation.
But her eyes betrayed her. They clung to the page, to that impossible, dangerous evidence that he was still reaching for her. That even through these walls, he had found her.
Her fingers shook as she flipped the first page. Nothing. The second. Nothing. Her hands grew slick with sweat. By the fifth page, panic prickled down her spine. What if she was imagining it? What if it was nothing but coincidence—an old mark, a forgotten doodle?
Then she saw it.
Folded so carefully it blended with the margins, hidden between two pages of endless equations, lay a scrap of paper.
Her breath stopped.
The world narrowed to that small, fragile square. It pulsed against her vision like a heartbeat, like it was alive. She didn't touch it yet. She couldn't. If she unfolded it and someone walked in—if her father came upstairs right now—there would be no way to explain it away.
Her hands hovered over the book, trembling. The voices in her head argued in rapid whispers. Leave it. Hide it. Take it. Don't you dare. Open it now. Later. Never.
She pushed the book half-closed again, her heart hammering so loudly she was certain it could be heard downstairs. She turned her chair slightly, pretending to focus on another page. Then froze, waiting.
A floorboard creaked. She jolted, shoving the economics text farther from the edge of the desk. Her throat closed up.
But no one came.
The minutes stretched like hours. She forced her pen back into her hand, scrawled half a line of nonsense across the open notebook just to hear the sound of writing. Anything to mask the way her whole body quivered.
Then—slowly, deliberately—she slid her hand back. Fingers brushed the folded paper.
It was real.
She pinched it delicately between two fingers, as if it might crumble at her touch, and tugged it free.
For a breathless moment she only stared at it resting in her palm. It was nothing but a small slip, easily discarded, meaningless to anyone else. But to her—it was everything. Proof that he hadn't given up. Proof that she wasn't as alone as her parents wanted her to believe.
Her throat tightened. She pressed the note against her chest, eyes closing.
She didn't unfold it yet. She couldn't—not now, not with footsteps still moving downstairs and her father's shadow lingering over every sound. But she didn't need to read the words to feel their weight. The paper itself carried his pulse, his defiance, his stubborn, reckless promise that their story wasn't over.
For the first time in days, the air in the room loosened around her. The walls didn't feel as close. The silence didn't feel like a cage.
Her lips curved into the faintest, most forbidden smile.
Because he had found her. Again.
And as long as he kept finding her, she would endure whatever came next.