An Inconvenient Flame

Chapter 54

Heyy Readers...

new chapter is here.

But a warning, this chapter is of 9000n words. I have written every intricate moment of this trip. And this chapter is just Day 1. Hope you'll enjoy it.

Well I think it's time i put targets here and there since the book is coming closer to it's end.

So next update will be when I'll have +400 votes. And +80 comments.

It's an easy one.

Abhiraj's POV (Flashback – One Month Ago)

It's nearly midnight.

Everything is quiet, just a distant shuffle of Ishika flipping pages, her books are spread around her. Ivaan's asleep.

I am in the study, having just finished reviewing a case file. As I rise to fetch the project file Neil asked me to cross-check, my eyes catch on the black diary. It's still there where I left, wedged between a law journal and an old economics binder. She still thinks she lost it. I didn't plan to keep it. But since I have opened the first page, I couldn't stop.

My fingers drift, and I pull it out.

Months later, and I still open it like a habit I never admit out loud.

The paper has that softness from being handled too much. Some corners are folded, ink smudged where she's scribbled too fast. She writes like she talks to herself.

My fingers slow down on a slightly thicker page, there's something tucked inside. Cluster of pages sticking together. 

I open the page. I pause.

Photos.

A younger Ishika smiling from the top bunk of a hostel bed. Her hair wet, holding a ceramic mug and grinning like the world hadn't touched her yet.

There's one of her on a hilltop, wind in her hair, half-laughing as the camera caught her mid-step. Behind her—Rishikesh in full view. 

Kyarki. Oh how it still holds my heart.

A small arrow points to her in the picture: "That's me, trying to look cool but couldn't stop grinning."

Next to it- another photo. Her with two girls, arms flung around each other's shoulders, in life jacket and paddles near river Ganges , grinning. Taped to it is a train ticket on the corner: Delhi to Haridwar. And another ticket of Beatles Ashram.

Then I turn the page.

The handwriting softens here. 

"Rishikesh – The first time I felt home again."

And below that:

"One day, I want to come back here. Alone or with someone I love- I don't know. But I want to come back."

I keep staring at the pictures.

Not because I'm surprised. I've read enough by now to know Tinkerbells' world runs deeper than she ever lets on.

I flip the page. Then flip back. Then just close the diary softly.

I've told myself I'll return it someday. That I'm only holding on to it by accident. But the truth?

Sometimes, I need to see her like this.
Undeniably herself.

Maybe that's selfish. But maybe it's also the only way I've come to know the pieces of her she doesn't show. And every now and then, I find something that stays with me longer than it should.