LOGINThe next morning, Elara woke with the memory still painfully clear. Charlie.Lily.The kiss beneath the gulmohar tree. For a while, she remained still, staring at the ceiling. She had expected the morning to feel unbearable.Instead...She felt tired.She was tired of hoping and giving meaning to every glance, every smile, every moment that had never truly belonged to her.She reached for the notebook on her desk.For months, she had been writing about herself. Earlier, the previous diary's every page had somehow led back to Charlie. She felt too lethargic to move her body. She could vividly remembered the kiss. They look so full of love. Happy together. But what about her? Her eyes were swollen due to crying over the whole night as she could do nothing about except for accepting things the way they were. Her determination to move on somewhere shaked yesterday. She still feel the pain. The agony of loving someone who loves someone else. What else could be greater misery than this.
Three months later...Elara had learned, time was a peculiar thing. It refused to stop even for broken hearts. It never slowed because someone was grieving a future they had never been given. It never looked back to ask whether they had healed. Instead, it marched forward with quiet indifference, carrying everyone else along with it.Soon enough... Everything had changed except the ache she carried.The campus had shed its gloomy silence, replacing it with the cheerful restlessness that always arrived before the mid-semester examinations.Now the college gates no longer frightened her. She crossed them every morning without hesitation, her footsteps steady against the familiar stone pathway. Because it had became a routine. Her days had begun following the same quiet rhythm.Attend lectures, Take notes.Answer when a professor asked her a question.Leave before the corridors became crowded.Go home.Write, Sleep, Wake up.And Repeat.Life had become predictable. She wondered if that
The bell rang. Elara remained seated.She watched the classroom empty one desk at a time. One by one, they left. Everyone went away and only silence remained.Elara lowered her eyes to the notebook resting on her desk. The ordinary class notebook she had barely managed to write in. The page contained little more than scattered words and unfinished sentences.She couldn't remember writing any of them.Her mind had been somewhere else all morning. She was imagining lots of things before arriving school and now everything felt different and strange. Noone asked her anything, as if everyone is busy in their own life. She realized it was the time to go home. She felt a strange feeling of returning to a place that had once felt like home, only to discover that she no longer knew where she belonged.She slipped the notebook into her bag before her fingers instinctively brushed against the familiar cloth cover hidden beneath her books.A quiet smile touched her lips. It was a feeling of grat
The gates stood open before her. Almost waiting for her to enter inside. Elara remained frozen where she was.Some students walked past her without hesitation, their footsteps blending into the familiar rhythm of another ordinary morning. Some hurried toward their lectures with notebooks clutched tightly against their chests, while others lingered beneath the tree, laughing over conversations that had probably begun long before the first bell.Elara drew a slow breath.The cool morning air filled her lungs, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and freshly cut grass. Everything looked exactly the way she remembered. The stone pathway stretching toward the academic block.The weathered notice board crowded with colourful posters announcing debates, workshops and cultural events.The fountain at the centre of the courtyard, its gentle stream of water rising and falling with quiet consistency, untouched by the storms that had come and gone.Nothing had changed.Only she had.Her fing
Elara dressed slowly. Each button felt heavier than it should have. She smoothed invisible wrinkles from her sleeves before taking one last look at herself. The reflection staring back no longer belonged to the girl who had walked into the junior college weeks ago. She couldn't explain why. Perhaps pain had a way of changing people in places mirrors could never capture. She picked up the new notebook and slipped it carefully into her bag, not because she planned to write. Because it reminded her that somewhere beyond heartbreak... She still existed. Her existences should be more important for her than other’s. It was her life though. When she stepped into the dining room, she gazed at the dining table. Victoria was already finishing her tea. A newspaper lay unfolded beside her plate. She didn't look up immediately at Elara. Instead she kept on reading her newspaper. "You've got a call yesterday," she said flatly, turning another page although she already knew the answer. "
The call came just before the sunset and, she realized that she was called back to school. The thought itself made her anxious. Elara had been sitting by her bedroom window, absentmindedly tracing circles on the fogged glass with her fingertip. Outside, the sky had turned a pale shade of orange as the evening slowly settled over the neighborhood. The new notebook rested beside her, still open to the page where she had written only a single sentence that morning. She had her all attention towards the world outside when her phone vibrated against the wooden desk. It kept on vibrating until Elara's focus shifted toward it. She descended from her bed and picked up her mobile phone. It was an unknown number. She didn’t remember anyone with such phone number. Confusion laid on her features until she decided to pick up the call. She hesitated before answering. "...Hello?" Elara said on the line, just to confirm who was calling her. People rarely called her these days, even Suzza
The Gala preparation was still going on hurriedly as it has nearly approached. But, there was a pause from this chaotic schedule because it was Charlie’s birthday. It was 20th November, the day he was born. It was nearly Winter. The Winter arrived too quick this year with small changes people not
The Gala was just few days away It was Friday morning and the entire committee members had been called up for promotional photographs. The school administration had suddenly decided that promotional photographs were necessary for advertisements, sponsorship presentations, social media posts, and
By the time Elara reached the Hughes residence, the sky had cleared into a pale blue, as if the storm from the night before had never existed. Each step she took up the stone pathway sent a quiet ache through her ankle, sharper than it had been earlier, but she forced herself to walk carefully mask
The rain did not softened. If anything, it grew heavier. Water gathered in uneven pools along the roadside, rushing past Elara where she had fallen, soaking through her clothes, her skin and hair until there was nothing left untouched by the cold. For a moment, she simply stayed there. Her palms







