People ofter say you don't find love rather love finds you. It catches you when you are looking the other way, busy with the mundane script of life. For me, the script was Engineering, assignments, labs, the endless drone of lectures. I wasn't looking for a plot twist. I wasn't looking for her.
But destiny has a favorite date for everyone. Mine was December 22, 2021.
I remember the air that day. It wasn't particularly special to anyone else, but looking back, the atmosphere felt charged, like the sky was holding its breath. That was the day I saw her.
She wasn't the loudest person in the room. She didn't demand attention, yet she commanded it effortlessly. She was five feet of grace, a gorgeous frame that held a universe of maturity. I remember noticing her short hair first, it framed a face that held kindness like a secret and her gold ear rings look like sparkle of her kindness. There are girls who are pretty, and then there are girls who feel like home. She was the something else.
We started with the slow, steady rhythm of friendship. We talked about classes, about life, about nothing and everything. The closer we got, the more the world around us started to blur. Our friends, with that sharp intuition that onlookers always have, started the teasing.
"Look at the couple!" they'd whisper. "When are you making it official?"
I would laugh it off. She would smile that polite, mature smile of hers. To me, we were just best friends. I was blind to the obvious. I thought love was supposed to be loud, dramatic, and chaotic. I didn't know that true love is quiet.
Until the tears fell.
In the lazy heat of mudane summer, it was after the first semester. The sun was harsh that day, mocking the mood of the students stumbling out of the exam hall. She had written badly. For a girl who carried the weight of her family's expectations of a single daughter, the pride of her house, failure wasn't just a grade. It was a crack in her armor.
I saw her cry. It wasn't a loud sob. It was a silent shattering. Seeing those tears in her eyes did something to me that no amount of laughter ever had. It broke me.
Physically, my chest ached. I sat beside her, consoling her, whispering words of comfort that felt inadequate against her pain.
Eventually, the storm passed. I went back to my room to work, to bury myself in assignments. But the silence of my room was deafening. I couldn't focus. The equations on the paper blurred into her face. And then, it hit me.
I slept back in my bed, the fan whirring above me, and I analyzed the feeling in my chest. Why did her pain hurt me so much? Why did her presence calm the storms in my head?
I realized that when I was with her, I felt safe. It is a rare word to use for romantic love - safety. We usually associate it with adrenaline. But this was different. I felt a sense of care around her that I hadn't felt in years. It was a purity, a nurturing warmth that I had only ever known from one other woman in my life... my mother.
To find a soul that reminds you of the safety of a mother's love is not just romance, it is pure. That was the moment of realization. The teasing of my friends wasn't a joke it was a prophecy. I was in love.
But with realization came the shadow of reality. We live in a world of lines and borders. Caste. Society. The heavy burden of being a single daughter. I knew her family dynamics. I knew the walls that stood around her house. If I proposed, I risked shattering the peace she fought so hard to maintain. I risked losing the friendship that kept me grounded.
For months, I held the secret in my throat. It burned there. September 13 2022 arrived. Another exam day - It was coding theory exam. The tension in the college was thick, the smell of nervousness and old paper in the air. But my nervousness had nothing to do with the question paper.
I had made a decision.
I knew she would likely reject me. The logical part of my brain screamed that the odds were zero. But my heart whispered that regret is a heavier burden than rejection. I couldn't live the rest of my life wondering "what if."
I found her amidst the chaos of the exam prep. The world around us seemed to mute. It was just me, her, and the truth.
I walked up to her. My hands were trembling slightly from the weight of what I was about to offer. I didn't want to trap her.. I wanted to free myself.
I looked at her, this beautiful, mature, five-foot girl who held my heart and I gently held her cheeks. Her eyes widened. She looked scared, perhaps sensing the shift in the air.
"I love you." I said.
The words hung between us. Before she could panic, before the walls could come up, I continued.
"But listen to me. You have no need to love me back."
I spoke with a clarity I didn't know I possessed. "I know the restrictions. I know about your father. I will just try my level best in life. I will work, I will succeed, and when I am worthy, I will talk to your father myself. You will always be proud in front of him. I will never let my love be a reason for your head to bow down."
Her eyes were searching mine, confused, scared, yet listening.
"After this," I said, my voice softening, "you may not be good to me. Things might change. But if I didn't propose today, it would be a regret I couldn't carry. I don't need an answer. I will be as normal as before. I will never force you, my dear."
I apologized for crossing the line. I promised to remain her friend. I laid out the plan, not a plan to date, but a plan to settle, to earn the right to ask for her hand respectfully.
"If he accepts, okay." I whispered, feeling the sting of tears threatening my own eyes. "If he not...", I paused. The fear gripped me then. "No way he will say okay for sure." I thought, my eyes betraying my fear.
She looked at me, her expression crumbling into guilt. "Sorry!" she whispered. "I don't have an answer for you..."
She started to apologize, to take the burden of the "no" onto her shoulders. I couldn't let her do that.
"No." I interrupted, shaking my head. "Don't apologize. It's okay. Just study hard."
I dropped my hands from her cheeks. I stepped back, creating the distance she needed. I turned and walked away toward the exam hall, leaving my heart standing next to her.
I didn't look back. I didn't ask for a promise. I didn't ask for a chance. I simply gave her my truth and left her with her freedom.
That was the day I learned the first secret.
The Secret of Realization
We grow up thinking that realizing you love someone is the happy ending. We think it means possession, ownership, and demands. We think love asks, "Will you be mine?"
But on that humid September day, I learned the truth. Realization is not about demand.. it is about surrender.
True realization is knowing that this person is so precious to you that you would rather be rejected by them than force them into a difficult corner. It is the understanding that you can love someone entirely, wholly, and desperately, without needing them to say it back immediately.
I realized that she was the one.... the only one after my mother... not because she said yes, but because even in her silence, even in her rejection, I felt a duty to protect her peace. I felt her respect towards her father decision more than her decision. Her father rarely gave her freedom, but I wanted her to feel safe, love and freedom. That's it!!
Love is not a contract. It is a vow you make to yourself:- I will wait. I will work. And I will love you, even from the distance of a friend.
Chapter 1 ends - What next?