It was 2019. My hardest year, yet the most unforgettable one. I was seventeen, caught between schoolbooks, strict parents, and a heart that was learning what love meant for the first time.
Scrolling through Instagram one ordinary evening, I saw it.One notification that would change my life. A message request. The username read Rao. My eyes lingered on it longer than I expected. In our community, Rao was a name tied to our roots—Telugu. My parents always reminded me, "If you marry, it must be a Telugu boy." They said it with pride, sometimes even with prejudice. My heart whispered, Maybe this is safe. Maybe he is the one my parents would accept, if they ever knew.
I hesitated, but curiosity won. I opened his message.
"Hi," it read. Simple, ordinary, yet my heart skipped.
I replied cautiously, "Hello. Do I know you?"
It wasn't him who replied next, but his best friend, Hari. He had his friend's phone and teased shamelessly.
"Do you know my friend? He likes you. He talks about you all the time. He won't admit it, but he's shy."
My cheeks warmed though no one was there to see it. I smiled at the screen, trying to brush it off.
"Don't talk nonsense."
But deep inside, something stirred.
Days turned into nights filled with little conversations, laughter through texts, shy emojis that meant more than words. Slowly, I began to know him by his kindness, his clumsy jokes, his warmth. He lived just an hour away from my house, yet it felt like he belonged in a different world. A world where my parents' rules and my brother's warnings couldn't reach us.