Before we start:-
𝐑𝐨𝐡𝐚𝐧 𝐀𝐠𝐞 :- 8
𝐀𝐚𝐧𝐲𝐚 𝐀𝐠𝐞:- 7
𝙉𝙤𝙬 𝙡𝙚𝙩'𝙨 𝙨𝙩𝙖𝙧𝙩... ❤️
Author's POV.
The summer Aanya Sharma turned eight years old, her entire world fit into seventeen cardboard boxes and the back of a moving truck.
She sat on the front steps of a house she'd never seen before, hugging her stuffed elephant to her chest, watching strange men carry her life inside piece by piece. The house was bigger than their old apartment in Pune her mother had said so at least five times during the drive but it didn't feel like home. It smelled different. Looked different. Even the sunlight seemed wrong, filtering through unfamiliar trees in an unfamiliar yard.
"Aanya, beta, don't sit there," her mother called from somewhere inside. "You'll get your dress dirty."
Aanya didn't move. Her dress was already dirty from the six-hour car ride, wrinkled and damp with sweat despite the early morning hour. Mumbai in July was hot—hotter than Pune, hotter than anywhere she'd ever been. The air felt thick, heavy, like trying to breathe underwater.
She missed her old home. She missed her old room with the yellow walls and the window that looked out at the park. She missed her best friend payal who lived two floors down and knew all the words to their favorite songs. She missed everything about the life that fit into seventeen boxes and was now being unpacked in a place that would never, ever feel like home.
"Aanya!"
"Coming, Mumma," she called back, but she didn't move.
A bird sang somewhere overhead. A car horn honked in the distance. And then a sound that made her turn her head.
Laughter. A boy's laughter, bright and unrestrained, coming from the yard next door.
Aanya stood up slowly, elephant still clutched in one hand, and walked to the edge of her new property. A low fence separated their yard from the neighbors', wooden and weathered and easy to see through if you stood on your toes.
She stood on her toes.
In the yard next door, a boy was playing cricket by himself, hitting a ball against the side of his house and catching it on the rebound. He looked about her age, maybe a little older, with a mop of dark curly hair that fell into his eyes and a bright red t-shirt that had some kind of cartoon character on it. He was grinning as he played, completely absorbed, completely happy. Aanya watched him for a long moment. He made it look easy, that happiness. Like it was the simplest thing in the world to be content exactly where you were.
She wanted to ask him how he did it.
Instead, she turned away, heading back toward her new house that didn't feel like home, past the moving men and the boxes and her mother's cheerful voice trying to make everything seem like an adventure. It wasn't an adventure. It was just different. And different was terrifying when you were eight years old and everything you knew had been packed into seventeen boxes.
Inside, her father was directing the movers, his voice calm and patient as always. "That one goes upstairs, please. Yes, the pink room. Thank you."
"Papa," Aanya tugged on his sleeve.
He looked down, and his face softened immediately. Rajesh Sharma had a face that was made for smiling—round and warm and kind but right now, looking at his daughter, he looked concerned.
"What's wrong, baby?"
"I don't like it here."
He crouched down to her level, setting his clipboard aside. "You haven't even given it a chance yet."
"I miss home."
"This is home now." He brushed a strand of hair from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "I know it's scary. New places always are. But your mumma and I, we're here. That makes it home, doesn't it?"
Aanya wanted to say no. Wanted to say that home was where Meera was, where her school was, where everything made sense. But Papa looked so hopeful, so sure that this was the right decision, that she couldn't bring herself to disappoint him.
"I guess," she said instead.
He smiled and kissed her forehead. "That's my brave girl. Now, why don't you go explore? See your new room? The movers just took your boxes up."
Aanya nodded and headed for the stairs, each step feeling heavier than the last. Her new room was at the end of the hallway, painted a soft lavender that her mother had chosen without asking her opinion. It was bigger than her old room much bigger with a window that looked out over the backyard. She walked to that window now, pressing her forehead against the glass.
From this angle, she could see the yard next door even better. The boy with the cricket ball was still playing, but now he wasn't alone. A girl had joined him older, maybe fourteen or fifteen, with long dark hair in a braid. She was saying something that made the boy laugh, that same bright, easy laugh Aanya had heard earlier
.
They looked happy. They looked like they belonged exactly where they were.
Aanya pulled back from the window and looked around her new room. Boxes everywhere. Her bed frame leaning against the wall, waiting to be assembled. Her stuffed animals packed away in a box labeled "AANYA'S ROOM" in her mother's neat handwriting.
Nothing felt right.
She sat down on the floor, pulled her elephant into her lap, and tried very hard not to cry. She didn't want to be here. Didn't want this new house or this new neighborhood or this new life that her parents seemed so excited about. She wanted to go back to Pune, back to her old apartment, back to when everything made sense. But eight-year-olds didn't get to make those decisions.
So instead, she sat on the floor of her new room and made herself a promise: she wouldn't like it here. She wouldn't make friends. She wouldn't let this place become home.
It was a good plan. A solid plan.
It lasted exactly one day.
The next morning, Aanya woke up to unfamiliar sounds birds she didn't recognize, traffic from streets she didn't know, her parents moving around downstairs in a kitchen that was laid out all wrong. She got dressed slowly, pulling on shorts and a t-shirt, braiding her hair the way payal had taught her. Her fingers fumbled with the plait she wasn't as good at it as payal was but eventually, she managed something that looked decent enough.
Downstairs, her mother was unpacking kitchen boxes, pulling out pots and pans and arranging them in cabinets. Her father had already left for his new office, his first day at the new job that had brought them to Mumbai in the first place.
"Good morning, sleepyhead," her mother said when she saw her. Dr. Meera Sharma was still in her pajamas, her hair pulled into a messy bun, but she was smiling. She was always smiling. "Hungry? I can make parathas."
"Not hungry," Aanya mumbled.
"Aanya—"
"Can I go outside?"
Her mother hesitated, glancing toward the back door. "I don't know, beta. We don't know the neighborhood yet—"
"Just in the backyard. Please?"
Another hesitation, then a sigh. "Fine. But stay where I can see you from the window. And don't wander off."
Aanya nodded and slipped out the back door before her mother could change her mind.
The backyard was smaller than it had looked from her window, bordered by that same low wooden fence on one side and a taller hedge on the other. There was a small patio, a patch of grass that needed mowing, and a tree, a big, sturdy tree with branches that looked perfect for climbing.
Aanya loved climbing trees. She was good at it, too. Back in Pune, she and payal had spent countless afternoons in the park, seeing who could climb the highest, who could hang upside down the longest, who could jump from the farthest branch without falling. This tree looked even better than the ones in the park. She walked over to it, studying the trunk, planning her route up. The lowest branch was high—higher than she was used to but there was a knot in the bark that could work as a foothold if she—
"You're doing it wrong."
Aanya jumped, spinning around.
On the other side of the fence, the boy from yesterday was standing there, hands in his pockets, head tilted as he watched her. Up close, she could see he had brown eyes and a small scar on his chin and that his hair was even messier than she'd thought.
"I'm not doing it wrong," Aanya said, defensive. "I haven't even started yet."
"You're going to try to use that knot as a step," the boy said, pointing. "It's too high. You won't reach. You need to use the lower branch first." He gestured to a branch Aanya hadn't even noticed, hidden partially by leaves.
She crossed her arms. "How do you know?"
"Because I've climbed that tree a million times." He grinned. "We used to live in this house. Before you."
"Oh."
"I'm Rohan," he said. "Rohan Kapoor. I live there." He jerked his thumb toward the house next door. "We've lived there forever."
"I'm Aanya," she said quietly. "Aanya Sharma."
"I know. My mom told me. She saw your family moving in yesterday." He paused. "Do you want help? With the tree?"
"I can do it myself."
"I know you can. But it's easier if someone shows you the first time."
Aanya hesitated. She didn't want help. Didn't want to need help. Didn't want to admit that she didn't know everything about this new place.
But the tree was really tall. And the boy, Rohan, seemed nice. And maybe, just maybe, it wouldn't hurt to accept help just this once.
"Okay," she said finally.
Rohan's grin widened. He vaulted over the fence with an ease that said he'd done it a thousand times before, landing lightly on her side. "Okay. So first, you want to get a running start—"
"A running start?"
"Trust me."
He demonstrated, backing up a few steps, then running at the tree and using his momentum to grab the lower branch and pull himself up. He made it look effortless, swinging his legs up and settling onto the branch like it was the most natural thing in the world.
"See?" he called down. "Easy."
"That's not easy," Aanya said. "That's showing off."
He laughed. "Maybe a little. Your turn."
Aanya took a deep breath. She'd climbed dozens of trees. Hundreds, probably. This was no different. Just because she was in a new place didn't mean she'd forgotten how to do the things she was good at. She backed up, just like Rohan had, then ran. Her hands caught the branch barely and for one terrifying second, she thought she was going to fall. But then her fingers tightened, and she was pulling herself up, legs swinging, bark scraping her knees, and then—
She was up.
She was sitting on the branch, breathless and triumphant, next to a boy she'd met exactly two minutes ago.
"See?" Rohan said, still grinning. "Easy."
"Okay, maybe a little easy," Aanya admitted.
They sat there for a moment, side by side on the branch, legs dangling. From up here, Aanya could see over the fence into Rohan's yard, could see the cricket ball abandoned in the grass, could see both their houses standing side by side like old friends.
"So," Rohan said. "You're new."
"Yeah."
"Where are you from?"
"Pune."
"That's far."
"Yeah."
"Do you like it here?"
Aanya was quiet for a moment. She'd promised herself she wouldn't like it. Promised herself she wouldn't let this place become home. But sitting in this tree with a boy who'd shown her kindness for no reason other than that she needed it—
Maybe promises didn't have to be forever.
"I don't know yet," she said honestly.
Rohan nodded like that made perfect sense. "That's okay. It takes time. But this is a good neighborhood. Good trees for climbing. Good place for riding bikes. And my mom makes the best samosas in the whole city. She always makes too many, so she'll probably bring some over to your family."
"Really?"
"Really. She does that for all new neighbors. Says it's important to be welcoming." He looked at her with those warm brown eyes. "I think you'll like it here. Eventually."
"Maybe," Aanya said.
But for the first time since the moving truck had pulled up to her new house, she thought he might be right. They sat in the tree for another twenty minutes, talking about nothing important—favorite foods, favorite colors, whether cricket or football was better (Rohan said cricket, Aanya said football, they agreed to disagree). When Aanya's mother finally called her inside for lunch, Rohan helped her climb down, making sure she didn't slip on the tricky branch near the bottom.
"See you around?" he said when they were both back on solid ground.
"Yeah," Aanya said. "See you around."
She watched him vault back over the fence, easy as breathing, then headed inside where her mother was waiting with questions about the boy next door.
But Aanya barely heard them. She was thinking about the tree, about the branch, about the way Rohan had helped her without making her feel small for needing help.
Maybe this place wouldn't be so bad.
Maybe—just maybe—she could be happy here.
The thought felt like a betrayal to her old life, to payal, to everything she'd left behind. But it also felt like hope. Small and fragile, but real.
That night, lying in her still-mostly-empty room, Aanya looked out the window at the tree in the backyard. The moon was bright enough that she could see the branch where she'd sat with Rohan, could imagine climbing it again tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that.
She fell asleep thinking about brown eyes and easy grins and a boy who'd shown her that maybe, just maybe, new didn't have to mean scary.
Outside, in the yard next door, Rohan Kapoor lay in his own bed, looking out his own window at that same tree, and wondered if the new girl would want to climb it again tomorrow.
He hoped she would.
Something about her, the way she'd tried to climb the tree alone first, the way she'd admitted she didn't know if she liked it here yet, the way she'd smiled when she finally made it onto the branch, made him want to be her friend. And Rohan Kapoor was very good at making friends. He fell asleep planning adventures they could have, places he could show her, ways he could make her smile like that again.
Neither of them knew it yet, but this was the beginning.
The beginning of everything.