Bruises & Butterflies

she was all soft edges. he was all sharp lines. neither of them meant to fall.

Celine Rebello never meant to notice Aarav Mehra, the brooding second-year student with stormy eyes, a smile that would peirce your heart, a smile that could ruin a girl in seconds. He had a girlfriend. He had a life too loud, too tangled, too far from hers. And yet... he kept looking.

At first, it was nothing. Just stolen glances across corridors, too-quick eye contact near the TT table, the kind of tension that made the air buzz even when they weren't speaking.
Then came the silence, the kind that said too much. And then that one moment.
Thirty seconds. Eyes locked. Like the world just... stopped.

Aarav wasn't supposed to notice her. Not the quiet girl with the soft voice and wide eyes. Not the one his gaze always found, even when she wasn't looking.
But he did. And once he did, it became harder to look away.

This is not a love story.
It's almost one.
It's bruises where there should've been hands held and butterflies that never landed.
It's dumb timing, loud hearts, and a thousand what-ifs.

And somewhere between the glances, the giggles she tried to hide, and the way he always looked back one last time, they both start to wonder:
what if?