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It didn’t take long for Sambhavi to start noticing the little things about Rahul.
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He never brought a water bottle. Not once.
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Every day, he would ask either her or Rachel for water.
Sometimes he’d gulp it down gratefully and then say, “Thanks!”
Other times, he’d offer to refill their bottles at the cooler.
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Sambhavi started carrying an extra-cold bottle, just in case.
She’d silently offer it with a small smile, pretending not to care.
But inside, her heart always skipped a beat.
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Sambhavi also began to notice something new.
Rahul had this habit—he constantly played with his pen and notebook. Swirling the pen between his fingers, flipping the notebook like a toy, making it dance on the desk with swift, practiced moves.
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One day, fascinated, Sambhavi tried to copy him.
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She picked up her pen and tried twirling it like he did.
It slipped.
Again.
And again.
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She picked it up, tried again. Failed.
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Rahul noticed.
He smirked.
“Trying hard, huh?”
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She looked up, startled.
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“Let me help you,” he said, grinning.
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She blinked. “Are you sure you want to teach me?”
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“Why not?”
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He took her pen, placed it gently between her fingers, and then…
Held her hand.
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Her mind went completely blank.
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He was holding her hand.
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Trying to teach her how to swirl a pen. But all she could feel was her heart pounding in her ears, her cheeks warming up like fire, fingers trembling.
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He showed her slowly, patiently.
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Rachel, watching from beside them, said, “Teach me too!”
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But Sambhavi jumped in fast.
“I’ll teach you! He just showed me now.”
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Truth?
She just couldn’t bear the thought of him holding Rachel’s hand.
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From that day, pen twirling became her new obsession.
She’d sit and practice secretly, smiling every time she succeeded.
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Between all this, the trio of Sambhavi, Rahul, and Rachel played games during boring classes:
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Pen fights with loud smacks on the desk.
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Tic Tac Toe, scribbled on the last page of the notebook.
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The dots-and-boxes game, trying to trap each other and fill the page.
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Name, Place, Animal, Thing—where creativity met chaos.
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Atlas and Antakshari, songs whispered in turns.
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And of course, Bingo, Kurkure, and Lays games during tiffin breaks.
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Rahul even taught them a few special games:
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In one, he’d hide a tiny dot somewhere in a random page of a book, and the others had to find it.
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In another, he’d show just a corner of a page and they had to guess the exact page number.
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Each game. Each moment.
Sambhavi stored them all like treasures.
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She began to live for the in-betweens—the spaces between chapters, between classes, between words.
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Her love didn’t arrive like thunder.
It was in his pen swirling, in his smirk, in his shared chocolate,
and in the quietness of sitting beside him while pretending not to care.
And then, without fanfare, without warning—
Class 4 came to an end.
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But the memories… they were just beginning, not with a confession or a farewell, but with a collection of unsaid feelings— and a girl who had fallen, fully and deeply, in love with a boy who never knew.
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