The morning mist clung to the river like a shroud, curling around the bamboo and the low-hanging branches of the forested hills. Nil followed the narrow path that led from the homestay, his shoes sinking slightly in the wet earth. The air smelled of rain-soaked moss, tea leaves, and something indefinably sweet that seemed to rise from the river itself.
Roshni was already there, seated on a large flat rock at the water's edge, her reflection fractured by the ripples. She didn't rise to greet him, only offered a small, almost imperceptible smile.
"Good morning," Nil said, adjusting the strap of his bag.
"Morning," she replied, her voice low, carrying over the gentle hum of the river. "You came early."
"I couldn't sleep," he said, letting his gaze drift over the water. "Or maybe I just didn't want to."
They sat together in silence for a while, listening to the river, letting the world shrink to just them and the sound of flowing water. It was the kind of silence that didn't need filling—comfortable yet charged, intimate without words.
"Do you always come here?" Nil asked finally, breaking the quiet.
Roshni's eyes followed a bird skimming the water's surface. "Sometimes," she said. "When I need to think. Or when I need to remember not to think too much."
Nil watched her. There was a softness to her face in the morning light, but also a shadow, subtle and elusive. Something hidden, like the river concealing its depths beneath the calm surface.
"I like it here," Nil said. "It's… peaceful. And yet it feels alive, like it's watching me."
Roshni laughed quietly, a sound like wind in the bamboo. "It is alive. Everything here is. The river, the hills… even this rock." She tapped it gently with her fingers. "They all have memories. Some of them are kind. Some… less so."
Nil felt a shiver, not entirely from the morning chill. "Less kind?"
She shrugged, letting the question hang. "People come and go. Sometimes things are left behind. Things… unsaid." Her gaze drifted downstream, and for a moment, Nil saw a flicker of something he could not name—grief, maybe, or warning, or both.
He didn't ask more. Instead, he reached for his notebook, scribbling lines about the river, the mist, the way her hands rested lightly on her knees. He wrote of shadows and light, of quiet things waiting beneath the surface.
After a long pause, she spoke again. "You will write here," she said softly. "Not just about this place… about yourself. About things you might not even know you feel."
Nil looked at her, and the words struck him with unexpected clarity. In her presence, he felt something shift inside him. The fear of failure, of emptiness, of silence—it all seemed to melt, leaving only possibility.
They watched the river together as the sun began to break through the clouds, the mist lifting like a curtain. Nil felt drawn to her, irresistibly, yet the faint shadow of caution in her eyes reminded him that she was not easily claimed—not by him, not by anyone.
When they finally returned to the homestay, Nil realized that something had changed. The air between them held a tension that was neither fully romantic nor fully dangerous, but a delicate balance of both. And somewhere, beneath Roshni's calm composure, he sensed the faint outline of a secret—a story she was not yet ready to tell.
As he climbed the stairs to his room, Nil glanced back at her standing in the doorway, watching him leave. He wondered what memories the homestay had kept hidden, and whether he was about to uncover them—or be consumed by them.