Nysa's POV

It had only been seven days.

Seven days of a ridiculous rollercoaster that played entirely inside my chest.

I wasn’t proud of it.

Of how many times I’d opened Instagram in those seven days.

How many times I’d refreshed my story views, checked my DMs, stared at that little green dot near his name like it was some divine sign.

Notifications buzzed.

Stories got views.

People reacted.

But none of them… were him.

Each time I’d hear the faint ping, a tiny storm would rise inside me.

Maybe this one’s from him.

But it never was.

And each time, that storm would settle into something heavier than before.

I wasn’t even sure what I wanted from him.

A like? A reply? A message? A mistake?

Maybe even a disappointment — at least then I could let go.

But no. He was just there.

Quiet. Present. Distant.

Like a ghost that hadn’t decided if it wanted to haunt me or not.

And then came that night.

The one where I got tired of pretending I didn’t care.

Tired of feeling like my mind was a broken tape repeating “stop checking, stop caring, stop hoping”.

I had just read yet another story from a girl ranting about boys asking for pictures.

And without overthinking — without giving my fingers time to stop me — I typed.

“Why do boys even ask girls for their photos anyway?”

And sent it.

To him.

Apurv Sharma.

The boy I had made a world out of without ever really having a conversation.

As soon as I hit send, panic set in.

What. The. Hell.

Why him? Why now?

It wasn’t even a real question — more like my frustration looking for a crack to spill through.

I stared at the screen.

Typing...?

No. Nothing.

I held my breath. Waited.

Then — guilt. Embarrassment.

I deleted the message.

Just vanished it like a coward.

He probably didn’t even see it, I told myself, trying to calm my racing heart.

Maybe I got lucky.

But the next morning? My luck ran out.

His message sat there like a quiet knock on a locked door.

“What was that message about last night?”

My hands froze.

My pulse pounded in my ears.

He saw it.

He saw it and… he noticed.

He could’ve ignored it. Brushed it off. Left me to stew in my own awkwardness.

But he didn’t.

He asked. Calm. Direct. Like he actually wanted to know.

I had imagined this moment a hundred different ways — our first real interaction.

But never like this.

Now I had to choose:

Pretend it was nothing?

Lie and say it was for someone else?

Or… be the version of myself I always am with him — the raw, impulsive, heart-first girl?

So I did the only thing I could.

I replied.

“Nothing serious. Just something I read. Felt irritated. Sent it. Regretted it. Deleted it.”

A minute passed.

Then came his reply:

“Fair. Happens.”

“You’re different from most people on here.”

And just like that — the ache shifted.

Not gone. Not soothed.

But noticed.

For the first time, I wasn’t invisible to him.

He had seen me.

Not just the message. But me — the messy, impulsive, overthinking, quiet girl who had been silently loving him through silence.

And maybe this wasn’t love yet.

Maybe it was still ache. Still loneliness. Still illusion.

But tonight… it felt less lonely.

Because he had replied.

Not flirted. Not ghosted. Not mocked.

Just replied. Like a boy who listens.

And suddenly, seven days of silence felt worth it —

for this one small, undeniable beginning.

A rhythm. A conversation.

Slow. Uneven. Not romantic. Not friendly either. Something in-between — that quiet space where two people begin to see the world through each other’s eyes.

We hadn’t talked the whole day, and yet something kept pulling me back to our last words.

“You’re different from most people on here.”

Was that a compliment? A warning? A soft goodbye?

By evening, I couldn't keep it in anymore.

So I texted him again.

“Don’t you think it’s sad? How normal it’s become for boys to ask girls for their photos?”

“Not just selfies. But those weird, vague ‘send a nice one’ kind of texts.”

“It makes me hate being online some days.”

I sent it before I could stop myself.

Again. Impulsive.

That’s the thing about me — I pretend to be composed. Silent. Calm.

But in my chest?

There’s a riot.

Apurv replied quicker this time.

“It’s messed up. I agree. But also — not all guys are like that.”

I could feel his words pausing after each sentence. As if he was trying not to say the wrong thing.

“And it’s brave that you notice it. Most people just… go with it.”

I smiled faintly. My fingers trembled slightly as I kept typing.

“Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one who wants things to mean something. Like, why is that so hard?”

There was a long pause.

I almost regretted it.

Then his message popped up:

“You’re not the only one. But yeah… it’s rare.”

“Most people confuse connection with attention.”

And I don’t know why, but that one sentence broke something soft inside me.

Because he understood.

The very thing I had been silently shouting into my pillow, into my diary, into my own head for months.

I wrote again. This time longer.

“I try to be disciplined. In life. In emotions. I hate being chaotic. But the more I try to control it, the more it spirals. Especially with overthinking.”

“Like right now, I’m overthinking even this conversation. I’m already imagining how weird I’ll sound. I want to stop. But I also don’t.”

This time, he didn’t reply right away.

When he did, it was just one line:

“Then stop thinking. Start writing.”

I blinked.

“What?” I sent back.

“When your brain goes in loops, don’t fight it. Let it out. Write it down. All of it. You’ll find the end of the thread somewhere. That’s what I do.”

Wait.

He writes?

Somehow that changed everything.

In my head, he was always this reckless, confident, untouchable boy — not someone who writes to survive his thoughts.

So I asked.

“You really write?”

“Yeah. Not poetry or anything. Just… thoughts. Chaos. Whatever. Doesn’t even have to be good.”

“Sometimes the point isn’t to say something beautiful. It’s just to get it out of your system.”

And that’s when something inside me cracked.

Because for the first time in a long time, I didn’t feel crazy.

Didn’t feel dramatic. Or clingy. Or ridiculous.

I just felt… seen.

Like someone out there understood what it meant to have a mind that feels too much and says too little.

“I always thought discipline was about silence,” I texted him.

“But maybe it’s about knowing where to put the noise.”

And he replied:

“Exactly.”

That night, I opened a blank page in my diary.

And I wrote.

Not about him. Not about heartbreak. Not even about love.

I wrote about boundaries. About the ache of being misunderstood.

About how difficult it is to protect yourself without building walls too high.

And with every word, the tension in my chest melted just a little.

He didn’t know it, but tonight… he saved me from myself.

Not with promises. Not with attention.

But with something rarer — understanding.

And maybe, just maybe… that’s how the best stories begin.