The words from Priya's lips kept echoing in Aarya's head, long after the school bell rang.
South gate. Last week. Night.
She had tried to focus on what Priya said afterward something about the canteen samosas being extra oily—but her mind had already drifted miles away.
A flash. A shadow. That metallic glint. The flutter of wings.
Her pen hovered over her notebook, forgotten. The teacher's voice faded into a low hum in the background, like the sound of a ceiling fan you only notice when it stops.
Was it connected to the locket? Or the diary scrap? Or was she just forcing patterns onto random events like one of those conspiracy meme boards?
By the time the final period ended, her head was buzzing with more questions than answers. And still, she didn't have anything concrete. Just pieces. Just edges of a puzzle.
Her phone buzzed.
It was the class group chat.
Priyanka: Hey Aarya, you've done the History notes, right?
Aarya: Yeah… why?
Aayush: Great! Just send me pics, yaar. Didn't even touch mine.
Priyanka: Me too. You're fast at writing, so yours are the neatest.
Aarya stared at the screen.
The familiar rhythm began. She could almost see it play out she'd offer to send pictures, everyone would thank her with emojis, and by tomorrow, half the class would have copied her work.
That's how it always went.
She started typing: I can send mine if -
Aarya: …I can't.
Priyanka: What? Why not?
Aayush: Don't be like that, it'll take you two minutes.
Aarya: I know. But I need to keep them for myself this time.
Priyanka: Seriously?
Aayush: Wow, you've changed.
Aarya: Maybe. I just… need to focus on my own work right now.
Priyanka: Fine, whatever.
Aayush: Yeah, forget it.
In her head, Aarya could already hear the shift in their tone. She'd given them her work before again and again because she thought they were her friends. But in class, they barely acknowledged her. Outside, they forgot she existed… until homework deadlines loomed. Maybe they were never really friends. Her stomach knotted saying no wasn't easy. She had spent years being the girl who just gave in, afraid of being disliked. But change had to start somewhere, even if her voice trembled when she said it.
Aarya keeps her eyes on her notebook, heart thumping. A week ago, she would have smiled awkwardly and handed it over like always. They only ever remembered her when they needed something, and in class they barely even noticed her. Friends, she had thought. But were they? Maybe not. This "no" felt small, but feel so good and relaxing.
She didn't owe everyone her work just to be liked.
She exhaled slowly, feeling a strange mix of relief and guilt settle in her chest. Opening her notebook again, she tried to focus on the equations, letting the scratch of her pen fill the silence.
Minutes slipped by in a blur of scribbles and underlined formulas. She paused only to rub her eyes, the weight of the afternoon pressing on her shoulders.
Her gaze wandered for a moment, drifting to the bare cream wall in front of her until the dull tick-tick-tick of the clock drew her eyes upward.
3:00 p.m.Her stomach sank.
Her class at the centre started at four.
Which meant she had exactly one hour to change, grab her notes, and make it there without looking like she'd sprinted through a marathon.
She packed in a blur, biting into a cold sandwich on her way out. The diary scrap burned like a secret in her bag.
By the time she reached the lane outside the centre, she spotted Sid leaning against the gate, scrolling on his phone.
He looked up, caught her eye, and straightenedalmost like he hadn't expected to see her.
"Hey," she said, slowing her steps. "Can we talk after class?"
"Uh yeah, sure." His voice had a small hitch to it, the kind that made her pulse pick up. This was the first time she'd asked him for something without an excuse.
"It's about the centre," she added quickly, though she wasn't sure if that was the truth or just a shield.
He nodded, his mouth twitching at the corners like he wanted to smile but thought better of it.
Inside, the familiar scent of chalk dust and fresh ink greeted her. The whiteboard already had Plot ≠ Sequence of Events scrawled across it in Ms. Dutta's bold handwriting. Aarya slipped into her usual spot near the window, where the sunlight painted her notebook in a rectangle of gold.
Ms. Dutta breezed in like a one-woman parade, her arms stacked with a bizarre haul: a pizza box that still smelled faintly of oregano, a single grey feather, a tarnished silver earring with a missing stone, and a battered Nokia phone whose keypad looked fossilized. There were other oddments too—a playing card bent at the corner, a ribbon frayed to threads, and what looked suspiciously like an old train ticket.
She arranged the objects in a crooked line on the front desk, then tapped the board with the end of a marker."Today, we talk about object anchoring how random items can become symbols in a story if you give them weight. Your task: connect all of these objects into a single narrative. Don't just link them… make them matter. Deadline: day after tomorrow."
She added beneath her first note:Foreshadowing ≠ SpoilerChekhov's Gun Principle – If there's a gun in Act 1, it must go off in Act 3.
Aarya felt the words land somewhere deep. Object anchoring. Chekhov's Gun.
Her gaze drifted to the feather. The diary scrap. The flutter of wings she'd seen near the south gate. The locket. Suddenly the assignment didn't feel random at all.
Her pen moved without permission, sketching a loose diagram in the margin: Object → Clue → Connection → Truth. Next to it she scribbled: symbol key? false trail? narrative mask?—terms she could hide behind if anyone asked what she was doing.
The rest of the class was a mix of scribbles, the scratch of pens, and Ms. Dutta weaving between desks, occasionally tossing phrases like emotional callback or red-herring twist into the air.
When the bell rang, Aarya closed her notebook slowly, almost reluctantly. The map of words she'd drawn seemed to hum with possibility.
Outside, Sid was waiting. They crossed the street toward the café, the page in her notebook still buzzing in her head like an unspoken secret.