Ceasefire Of Senses (under editing)

Prologue

Love.

I never imagined I'd use that word with any real conviction—certainly not at seventeen. And yet, I did. I said it to someone I thought I loved. Someone I believed loved me in return. I was wrong.

Back then, I thought love was something out of films, novels, and songs. Grand declarations whispered under fairy lights, or confessed in the middle of the rain. The kind of love that made you believe in forever. I didn't think it was something real. I didn't think it was something that could happen to me. Not at seventeen. And certainly not with him.

But it did.

I thought it was love—the kind they write stories about. The kind that makes your chest ache in that quiet, beautiful way. When you see them and suddenly the world tilts, and everything makes sense. When their hand brushes against yours and it feels like you've been rewired. When you close your eyes and start imagining futures that look too perfect to be anything but real. You believe in impossible things. You believe love is simple. That two people can find each other and choose each other, every single day.

I was wrong.

What I had with him wasn't a fairytale. But it wasn't a tragedy either. We were just two kids who fell into something too big for us to understand. We called it love because we didn't know what else to call it. It wasn't perfect, but it mattered—because it was my first. And firsts, whether you like it or not, leave a mark.

Now, years later, I'm not seventeen anymore. And maybe some stories are meant to be unfinished.

Just like ours.

My editor sighed and flipped through the final page of the set of stapled sheets I had handed to her an hour ago. 

"There's something missing," she said finally. "This doesn't feel like you, Alisha."

I let out a slow breath. "Maybe it's time to change who I am."

She didn't smile at that. "After your last two books, people have been waiting for this one. They're obsessed with Aisha and Samrat. You can't just leave them hanging."

"But it's my book," I replied quietly. "Don't I get to decide what happens to the characters I created?"

"You absolutely do," she said, crossing her arms, steady and sure as ever. "But this... this isn't you. And people are going to feel that. I'm not asking you to rewrite the ending. I'm just asking you to think about how you can make it better."

I stared at her, trying to understand what better even meant anymore.

"You need a break, Alisha," she said softly, as if I might shatter if she spoke too loud. "I can see it. This book—it's taken a toll on you."

"I don't need—"

"You do," she cut in gently. "You really do. So here's the plan: take a break. Enjoy the wedding. Breathe. And when you come back in ten days, we'll sit down and figure this out. Together."

I didn't say anything. Just sat there, staring at the manuscript on the table between us. Pages of a story that had felt so personal, I wasn't sure where it ended and I began.

Maybe she was right. Somewhere along the way, this book had stopped being about Aisha and Samrat. Somewhere along the way, it had become about me and Sameer. And every word I wrote had dragged up pieces of a past I wasn't ready to face. I thought I was telling their story. But I wasn't. I was telling ours. And it had drained me in ways I hadn't expected.

Maybe I did need to step away. To stop holding so tightly to something that was already over. To remember what my life looked like beyond the pages of this book.

And maybe this wedding was exactly the kind of pause I needed. Not just to clear my head—but to let go.