The Heart's Unexpected Twist

•||CHAPTER 1||•

Shruti sat by her window, the soft glow of twilight washing over her face, lost in thoughts she couldn't quite untangle. The worn book in her hands was less a companion now and more a reminder of something she couldn’t grasp—something elusive, just out of reach. She had once sought comfort in stories of love, but lately, even that felt distant, almost like an echo of a dream she no longer understood.

As the morning sun crept into her room, Shruti sighed and set the book aside. She moved through her daily routine with a quiet efficiency: brushing her teeth, preparing a simple breakfast, and settling down in for another day of online classes. Yet, as the hours passed, a familiar weight pressed down on her—a heavy mix of expectations and a sense of being adrift. Each lecture felt like just another wave pushing her further away from shore, deeper into a sea of uncertainty.

It was during one of these lectures, her mind wandering far from the professor’s words, that a notification popped up on her screen. A LinkedIn message. Shruti blinked, drawn back to reality by the unexpected distraction. The message was from someone named Sahil—someone she’d never met but recognized through a mutual friend.

“Hey, hi! Congratulations on your new internship,” it read. The simplicity of the words made her smile, just a little. She hesitated, then replied, “Hey, hi! I heard about you once from my friend. Thanks!”

Their conversation began with the ease of two strangers who shared a connection, however tenuous. Sahil was polite, a little shy even, as they exchanged pleasantries. Shruti found herself curious, intrigued by the easy rhythm of their words. They talked a bit about her internship, his love for gaming, and the books she liked to read.

But as the conversation flowed, there was an undercurrent of something more—something neither could name. The exchanges were brief, just moments stolen between the busyness of their lives, yet they lingered in her thoughts like a melody she couldn’t forget.

When they finally said their goodbyes, it felt less like an ending and more like the beginning of a story yet to be written. Shruti closed her laptop and glanced out the window again, the twilight now replaced by a soft night sky. There was a feeling there, in the quiet, that hadn’t been there before—a whisper of hope, of something waiting just beyond the horizon.

As she returned to her book, her mind wandered not to the pages in front of her, but to the conversation she’d just had, and the thought of Sahil, somewhere out there, perhaps thinking of her too.