The sunlight spilled into Anim's room like warm honey, touching the faded posters on her wall and the piles of notebooks stacked like miniature skyscrapers on her desk. She blinked awake, a strange lightness in her chest. For the first time in weeks, she hadn't woken to the feeling of an invisible hand pressing on her lungs.
She lay there for a moment, staring at the ceiling. The night before still floated in her mind — the tears, her mother's gentle words, the glowing door in her dream. Something about that door had changed. It was no longer a desperate escape; it was a quiet promise. A promise that she could walk through her days without losing herself.
Downstairs, the sound of clinking cups and the faint smell of cardamom tea drew her from her bed. She slipped into her slippers and padded down the hallway, rubbing her eyes.
"Morning, sweetheart," her mother greeted as she placed a steaming cup on the table. "You look… rested."
Anim smiled, a little shyly. "I feel rested." She hesitated, then added, "Thank you… for last night."
Her mother reached over and brushed a strand of hair from Anim's face. "You don't have to thank me for listening."
Anim wrapped her hands around the warm cup, the ceramic almost burning her palms. She held onto the heat anyway, grounding herself. She glanced at the clock — 8:30 a.m. — and at her phone. A message blinked on the screen from Ayera:
Ayera:Park today? Bring just one subject. We'll study a little and chill a lot.
Anim's lips curled into a smile. She hadn't realized how much she missed sunlight and open space. "I'm going out for a bit later," she said to her mother. "With Ayera. We'll study at the park."
Her mother's eyebrows arched but she only nodded. "Good. Balance, Anim. That's the key."
Balance. The word stuck to Anim's ribs like a seed.
She met Ayera at their usual spot, a wooden bench under a banyan tree at the edge of the park. Children were darting around on scooters; a vendor sold roasted peanuts wrapped in paper cones. The air was full of movement, of life.
"You made it," Ayera said, pushing a spare cone of peanuts toward her. "I was ready to drag you out myself."
Anim laughed, taking the cone. "I almost stayed in. But… I don't know. Today feels different."
Ayera tilted her head. "You look different. Like you've been crying but in a good way?"
Anim chuckled, cracking a peanut shell between her fingers. "Maybe. Last night I… finally told my mom everything. About the pressure. About how scared I feel."
Ayera's expression softened. "That's huge."
"It was." Anim glanced up at the sky, where clouds were gathering in playful swirls. "I think I'm tired of being so hard on myself."
"About time," Ayera teased, bumping her shoulder. "You're allowed to be human."
They spread their books out on the bench but only half-heartedly. The pages fluttered in the breeze, but Anim found herself more interested in the sound of the leaves, the way the sunlight broke through the branches.
For a while they worked — math problems scribbled in notebooks, silent nods of encouragement. But then Ayera closed her book with a snap. "Break," she announced. "Tell me a secret dream."
Anim blinked. "What?"
"Come on," Ayera said. "Something you've never told anyone. A dream that's yours, not your parents', not your teachers'. Yours."
Anim hesitated. She'd always kept that part of herself hidden, tucked under test scores and schedules. But something about the park, about the warmth of Ayera's presence, loosened her tongue.
"I want to travel," she said quietly. "To write. To see places and tell their stories. Not just in a diary. In a real book. One with my name on it."
Ayera's eyes widened, then she grinned. "That's so you. You'd be amazing at it."
Anim felt a small, fierce flutter in her chest. "It's stupid, though. Everyone wants me to become a doctor or an engineer."
"It's not stupid," Ayera said firmly. "It's a dream. It matters."
For a moment Anim could almost see it — a future version of herself standing on a train platform with a notebook in hand, the world wide open. It felt impossible and yet… alive.
The sky darkened as a soft drizzle began to fall. They gathered their things and ran laughing to a covered pavilion nearby. Anim felt the raindrops cool on her cheeks like tiny blessings.
They sat cross-legged on the concrete floor, the smell of wet earth curling around them. "Do you ever feel," Anim said slowly, "like you're living two lives? The one people expect and the one you secretly want?"
"All the time," Ayera said without hesitation. "But maybe that's what being a teenager is. Figuring out how to bring them closer together."
Anim thought about the glowing door again. Maybe Ayera was right. Maybe the door wasn't about escape but about integration — taking pieces of her dream life and slipping them into her real one, until the two weren't so far apart.
When she got home later, the house smelled of fried onions and coriander. Her father was in the living room, scrolling through his phone. "Study session?" he asked, glancing at her bag.
"Yeah," she said, kicking off her shoes. "It went well."
He nodded and went back to his phone. Anim climbed the stairs to her room, heart still buzzing from the conversation with Ayera. She sat at her desk and opened her journal, pen hovering.
She wrote: Today I remembered who I am. Today I felt the world outside my books. Maybe I can do both.
She underlined the last sentence twice, then added a tiny sketch of a door. Not glowing. Just open.