Sometime early in 10th standard, I stepped into the world of tuition classes for the first time.

It was overwhelming, new faces, unfamiliar teachers, a schedule that moved too fast for my comfort. I was trying to find my rhythm in this new setting when one day, in the middle of solving a math problem, something just clicked. I was in the zone, cruising through the question when she turned around.

She sat up front, loud, tomboyish, unapologetically herself. She didn’t talk much, kept mostly to her circle, and I couldn’t tell if she was introverted or just selectively open. But that day, she asked me, in front of everyone, how I’d solved the question so quickly. I fumbled some generic explanation, but it wasn’t the answer that stayed with me. It was her approach, her curiosity, her confidence.

Weeks passed. We ended up sitting near each other, her in the front, me a bench behind with my friend, A. Eventually, she became close to another girl, S, and the four of us became an odd little group. But the real story would come to be between her and A, long, tangled, and not mine to tell. As for S…she drifted away.

I don’t remember the exact day, probably a Saturday or Sunday, when we had our weekly test—but I do remember how, by sheer coincidence, she sat beside me. That day changed something. We both laughed over being left-handed, joked around during the test, and it just…clicked. The comfort was effortless. She told me she’d like us to sit together more often, if only others didn’t make it awkward.

Later, I found out she travelled across half the city for class. One day, she invited me to walk with her to the station after class. That became our thing. We’d walk, talk, sometimes just share silence. The kind that isn’t uncomfortable, just… quiet.

The more I got to know her, the more my assumptions unraveled. She wasn’t arrogant. She wasn’t putting on airs. She was real, grounded, and carried herself like someone who didn’t need to explain herself to anyone. She could hold space with words or without. I started falling for that—the grace in her silence, the strength in how she moved through the world.

We’d share music through a pair of tangled earphones, our steps syncing on the pavement as I slowly lost myself in her.

Then the year passed. On the last day of classes, she asked to take a selfie, our first and only photo together for years. That walk to the station was heavier than usual. The uncertainty of board exams loomed, but more than that, there was the quiet ache of knowing we might not see each other again for a long time. We talked about our future plans, our goals, our dreams. As we reached the station and prepared to split paths, she reached out her hand, palm open.

I froze. I wasn’t sure what she meant. Was it a handshake? A high five? I gently patted her palm with mine, unsure. She laughed at my cluelessness.

And then, almost teasingly, she said just one word.

“Veda…”