Home felt familiar.
That was the first problem.
Aanya had expected it to feel strange.
She had prepared herself for unfamiliar furniture, unfamiliar rooms, unfamiliar corners that belonged to a version of her she could no longer remember.
Instead, most things were exactly where she expected them to be.
The same curtains.
The same bookshelf.
The same little table near the window.
Even the faint mark on the wall near her old desk was still there.
She stood in the doorway of her room for a long moment.
Her mother remained behind her.
"You can take your time."
Aanya nodded.
She stepped inside.
Nothing moved.
Nothing announced that three years had passed.
Her old notebooks were still stacked in one corner.
A few photographs were pinned near the desk.
There were clothes in the wardrobe that she had completely forgotten owning.
She walked toward the shelf.
Ran her fingers over the spines of a few books.
Then stopped.
One of them had a small piece of paper sticking out of it.
She pulled it free.
A handwritten note.
Her own handwriting.
She stared at it.
The words were ordinary.
Something about remembering to buy something later.
Aanya smiled.
"I used to write everything down."
Her mother smiled.
"You still do."
Aanya looked at her.
"Do I?"
"You did."
There was a quiet correction in the way she said it.
Aanya noticed.
She didn't say anything.
She sat down on the edge of the bed.
Her mother came closer.
"You don't have to force yourself to remember."
"I know."
"You don't have to become who you were."
Aanya looked around the room.
"What if I want to?"
Her mother didn't answer immediately.
Then she sat beside her.
"You can remember her."
Aanya looked at her.
"But you don't have to become her again."
Aanya lowered her eyes.
That stayed with her.
Later that afternoon, Aditi came over.
She arrived carrying food and an unnecessarily large bag.
Aanya looked at it.
"What is that?"
"Your survival kit."
"I've been discharged from a hospital, not sent into a war."
"Same thing."
Aanya laughed.
Aditi began unpacking things.
Snacks.
Books.
A charger.
A notebook.
Two bottles of water.
And, for some reason, a packet of tissues.
Aanya picked it up.
"Why?"
Aditi shrugged.
"Preparedness."
"For what?"
"You."
Aanya threw a pillow at her.
Aditi caught it.
"Violence already. Good. You're recovering."
Aanya laughed.
It felt easy.
Almost too easy.
That evening, Sagnik came by.
He stood near the doorway for a moment before entering.
Aanya noticed.
"You can come in."
"I know."
"Then why are you standing there?"
He smiled.
"Just making sure."
"Of what?"
"That I'm not disturbing you."
Aanya looked at him.
"You've spent years sitting beside my hospital bed."
He went quiet.
She realized what she'd said.
Neither of them mentioned it.
Instead, Aanya pointed toward the chair.
"Sit."
He did.
A few minutes passed.
They talked about nothing.
Then Aanya suddenly looked at him.
"Tell me something."
"What?"
"What changed?"
He understood the question.
"Everything."
"That's not helpful."
He smiled faintly.
"You'll have to be more specific."
Aanya thought.
"Technology."
He laughed.
"Technology changed."
"How much?"
"Enough."
She frowned.
"That's not an answer."
"It's complicated."
"Show me."
He took out his phone.
Aanya stared at it.
"That's your phone?"
"Yes."
"It looks different."
"It's three years newer."
She stared.
"That's ridiculous."
He laughed.
"You'll get used to it."
Aanya took the phone from him.
She examined it suspiciously.
"Everything is faster."
"Pretty much."
"I hate it."
"You've had it for thirty seconds."
"Exactly."
He smiled.
Aanya handed it back.
Then she asked quietly,
"What else?"
Sagnik's smile faded slightly.
"People changed."
"Who?"
"Everyone."
She looked down.
"Did you?"
He didn't answer immediately.
"I think so."
"How?"
He looked at her.
"I don't know yet."
Aanya nodded.
She understood that answer.
Maybe that was the only honest answer anyone could give.
Over the next few days, she began discovering the world in pieces.
Not through dramatic explanations.
Through ordinary interruptions.
A song she remembered hearing everywhere was no longer popular.
A restaurant she loved had closed.
A friend had moved to another city.
Someone she had once known had a child.
Another had gotten married.
One of her old professors had retired.
A neighbourhood shop had become something completely different.
Three years had not changed the world all at once.
It had changed it one small thing at a time.
And somehow that was harder to process.
There was no single moment when she could point and say—
There.
That's what I lost.
It was everywhere.
In conversations.
In photographs.
In people's faces.
In the way they sometimes paused before telling her something.
She began noticing that pause.
The hesitation.
The carefulness.
People were constantly deciding how much of the present she could handle.
Aanya hated it.
One afternoon, she finally said it.
"You don't have to do that."
Aditi looked up from her phone.
"Do what?"
"Look at me like I'm going to break."
Aditi's expression softened.
"I don't."
"You do."
A pause.
"Maybe sometimes."
"I don't want that."
"I know."
Aditi put her phone down.
"Then tell me when I'm doing it."
Aanya nodded.
"I will."
"And you tell me when I'm being annoying."
"You already do that yourself."
Aditi smiled.
Aanya smiled too.
It was becoming easier.
Not normal.
Not yet.
But easier.
One evening, Araadhya came over again.
This time without Sagnik.
She brought little Aanya with her.
The baby was awake this time.
Aanya sat on the floor while Araadhya placed her daughter beside her.
"She's getting stronger."
Aanya looked at the tiny girl.
"She looks different already."
"She changes every week."
Aanya smiled.
"I missed everything."
Araadhya sat beside her.
"You didn't miss her."
Aanya looked at her.
"What?"
"You met her now."
The simplicity of it made Aanya smile.
They spent the afternoon talking.
Araadhya told her ridiculous stories about Sagnik.
Things Aanya had never known.
How he hated being woken up.
How he forgot where he left his keys.
How he pretended not to care about birthdays but secretly remembered everyone's.
How he could spend twenty minutes arguing about something completely pointless and then forget what the argument had been about.
Aanya laughed.
"You're telling me he was always like this?"
"Worse."
"Good."
Araadhya smiled.
There was no awkwardness between them.
Not anymore.
Perhaps there never needed to be.
Aanya looked at the baby in her arms.
"She really has my name."
Araadhya nodded.
"She does."
"Does that ever feel strange?"
Araadhya thought about it.
"Sometimes."
Aanya looked at her.
"But not in a bad way."
She smiled.
"I like that she carries something that existed before either of us knew her."
Aanya looked down.
The little girl had fallen asleep against her.
Her tiny fingers were curled into the fabric of Aanya's sleeve.
Aanya smiled.
"She'll grow up hearing stories about me."
Araadhya smiled.
"Probably."
"Terrible stories?"
"Mostly."
Aanya laughed.
"Good."
That night, after everyone had gone, Aanya returned to her room.
She sat at her desk.
The notebook Aditi had given her was still there.
She opened it.
The first two sentences remained.
I woke up three years late.
And somehow, the world was still here.
She looked at them.
Then turned the page.
For the first time, she didn't write about the accident.
She didn't write about Sagnik.
She didn't write about the hospital.
She wrote about the baby.
About a little girl who had been given her name before she had even returned to the world.
She wrote about Araadhya.
About how strange it was to meet the woman who had lived the years Aanya had lost.
She wrote about Aditi.
About how some friendships could survive even when time itself seemed determined to pull everything apart.
And then she stopped.
She stared at the blank space beneath it.
There was still so much she didn't understand.
But perhaps that was okay.
She didn't need to understand everything tonight.
For the first time, she was beginning to realize something.
Those three years weren't only a gap in her life.
They were part of her story now.
She couldn't erase them.
She couldn't go back and live them.
She couldn't become the girl who had driven away from that wedding again.
That girl was gone.
And maybe—
that wasn't entirely tragic.
Aanya closed the notebook.
Then looked around her room once more.
The same walls.
The same window.
The same little mark near the desk.
But she was different.
She had lost three years.
And yet, somehow, she was still here.
Maybe the next part of her life didn't have to be about getting anything back.
Maybe it could simply be about finding out what came next.