The next morning, I woke up with a smile.
Not the usual smile that appears on your face because you heard a joke or saw something funny.
It was different.
It was the kind of smile that comes when your heart finally gets something it has been waiting for.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling for a few seconds.
Then, almost immediately, my mind went back to her.
Payel.
For the first time, I could actually say it to myself.
She is mine.
Not in the sense of owning someone.
No.
She was mine in the sense that she had chosen me.
She had chosen us.
After everything we had gone through, after all the confusion, misunderstandings, arguments and uncertainty, she had finally said those words.
"Fine, let's give 'us' a chance... ✨ It's a yes..."
I smiled again.
I picked up my phone and looked at our conversation.
I read those words again.
And again.
I don't know how many times I read them that morning.
Every time I did, my heart felt lighter.
I genuinely believed that maybe life was finally going to be kind to me.
Maybe after everything, I had finally reached the peaceful part of my story.
But I should have known better.
Because every time I thought I had found peace, life found another way to test me.
That day, there was one thing waiting for me.
My board result.
I had always been confident about my academics.
For the last four or five years, I had never scored below 80%.
So naturally, I had expectations.
Not only from myself, but from everyone around me.
I expected more than 80%.
Actually, somewhere inside, I was almost certain that I would get it.
I had worked hard.
I had answered the papers with confidence.
I had spent months imagining the moment when I would see my result.
I imagined calling my mother.
I imagined telling Payel.
I imagined hearing everyone say,
"I'm proud of you."
And then, around noon, the announcement came.
CBSE announced that the results were going to be released.
My heart started beating faster.
I kept checking my phone.
Refreshing.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Then the Class 12 result was uploaded.
And around 2 PM, the Class 10 result was finally available.
That was it.
The moment I had been waiting for.
And suddenly, the confidence I had carried for months disappeared.
My hands started trembling.
I opened the result page.
Roll number.
Admit card number.
I entered everything carefully.
My fingers felt strangely cold.
I looked at the screen.
For a few seconds, I didn't press anything.
I was scared.
Not because I thought I would fail.
I knew I wouldn't.
I was scared because I had expected so much from myself.
Finally, I clicked.
The page loaded.
And then I saw it.
76%.
I froze.
I just stared at the screen.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't speak.
I couldn't even properly understand what I was seeing.
I refreshed the page.
Maybe there had been some mistake.
The result appeared again.
76%.
I checked my name.
My roll number.
Everything was correct.
There was no mistake.
It was my result.
76%.
I knew it wasn't a bad percentage.
If someone else had told me they had scored 76%, I probably would have told them that it was completely fine.
But when it was my result...
It felt different.
For someone who had consistently remained above 80% for years, dropping to 76 felt like I had failed myself.
I didn't care about what other people would say.
I cared about what I would say to myself.
And at that moment, my mind was brutal.
You were supposed to do better.
What happened to you?
How did you let this happen?
I stared at the percentage again.
The room became strangely quiet.
I could hear the sound of my own breathing.
I didn't even realize when the tears started falling.
At first, I wiped them away.
Then more came.
And eventually, I stopped trying.
I broke down.
Completely.
I had never cried like that before.
It wasn't just because of the marks.
It was because those marks had suddenly become everything in my head.
My confidence.
My expectations.
My plans.
My image of myself.
Everything seemed to collapse at once.
Then my phone rang.
It was Soumyajyoti bhaiya.
He was my senior, but calling him just a senior would be unfair.
He was like an elder brother to me.
I picked up.
"Hello?"
My voice was barely audible.
"Bro, result dekha?"
I tried to answer normally.
"Ha..."
He immediately noticed something.
"Kitna aaya?"
I couldn't answer.
My throat tightened.
And suddenly I started crying again.
I tried to hide it.
I turned my face away even though he couldn't see me.
But the tears wouldn't stop.
For a few seconds, there was silence on the call.
I think he was confused.
He probably wondered whether he had called the right person.
Because no one had ever heard me cry like that.
I had always been the person who would laugh things off.
The person who would say,
"Ho jayega."
The person who would tell everyone else not to worry.
But that day, I couldn't even convince myself.
Bhaiya didn't lecture me.
He didn't say,
"76 hi toh hai."
He didn't compare me with anyone.
He simply stayed.
Sometimes, you don't need someone to fix your problem.
You just need someone who refuses to leave while you're falling apart.
And he did that.
After the call ended, I sat there with my phone in my hand.
Then another notification appeared.
Payel.
My heart sank.
Her message read:
"Hey Sarthak, I heard that you got your result. How much did you get?"
I stared at the message.
I didn't know how to tell her.
She had only recently become my girlfriend.
The person I had been waiting for.
The person I wanted to impress.
And now I had to tell her that I had scored 76%.
I didn't type anything.
Instead, I sent her a screenshot.
And then, in the worst moment of my life, I said something I deeply regretted.
I told her that I was going to end my life.
The moment I sent it, my phone felt heavier.
Her reply came quickly.
She didn't ignore me.
She didn't treat it like some dramatic statement.
She confronted me.
Her words were harsh, but behind them was fear.
She said that if something happened to me, my mother and she would be left alone and that I would regret it.
I stared at those words.
My eyes filled with tears again.
I was confused.
I didn't know what I was supposed to do.
But somewhere inside me, those words reached a place that my result couldn't.
She was scared of losing me.
Not because of my marks.
Not because of my achievements.
Just because I was me.
And that realization broke something inside me.
But this time, it wasn't the kind of brokenness that destroyed me.
It was the kind that slowly allowed me to rebuild.
The next three days were unlike anything I had experienced before.
Payel missed school.
She kept talking to me.
She kept checking on me.
She didn't allow me to isolate myself inside my thoughts.
Every time I tried to disappear into silence, she came back.
Sometimes she talked seriously.
Sometimes she scolded me.
Sometimes she distracted me with completely random conversations.
Sometimes she simply stayed.
She reminded me that a percentage wasn't my identity.
She reminded me that my mother would rather have me beside her than have a perfect marksheet without me.
She reminded me that I had dreams beyond school.
Japan.
My career.
My future.
My life.
And slowly, I started believing her.
Not immediately.
But slowly.
I started eating again.
I started sleeping.
I started talking.
I started laughing.
The darkness didn't disappear overnight.
But it became less powerful.
And somewhere during those three days, I realized something.
I had spent so much time thinking that my life depended on a number.
But my life was worth infinitely more than any number printed on a result sheet.
Payel had made me understand that.
I began to feel the value of my life again.
I thought that was the biggest challenge I would face that year.
But life wasn't finished with me.
A few days later, I received an admission letter.
From one of the best colleges in Mumbai.
For a moment, I was happy.
It felt like another opportunity.
A fresh start.
Maybe life was giving me another chance.
I imagined Mumbai.
A new college.
New people.
New dreams.
Maybe I could prove myself again.
But then my father made a decision.
Because of my performance, he didn't want me travelling every day.
He wanted me to stay in a hostel.
When I heard that, my happiness disappeared.
"Hostel?"
I couldn't believe it.
I wasn't ready.
I had just survived the emotional storm of my result.
I had finally started feeling normal again.
And now I was being told that I had to leave home.
Leave my mother.
Leave my room.
Leave everything familiar.
And leave Payel.
I told her.
For the first time, I saw the same fear in her words that I had felt inside myself.
She wasn't ready either.
Neither of us was.
But what could we do?
My father had made the decision.
And I didn't have another option.
The days passed quickly.
Soon, my room was filled with bags.
Clothes.
Books.
Documents.
Things I would need at the hostel.
Everything was being packed.
Except one thing.
Her.
How was I supposed to pack someone who had become part of my everyday life?
I couldn't take my phone with me.
Phones weren't allowed in the hostel.
That meant no late-night conversations.
No random messages.
No checking whether she had eaten.
No good mornings.
No good nights.
No immediate calls whenever something happened.
The thought scared me more than I wanted to admit.
So before leaving, I did something simple.
I took a passport-size photograph of Payel.
Just a small photograph.
Nothing special.
But I kept looking at it.
Her face was frozen inside that tiny frame.
And somehow, that tiny piece of paper felt like the most valuable thing I owned.
I placed it carefully inside my bag.
The day of my departure arrived.
I woke up earlier than usual.
My room looked different.
Maybe nothing had actually changed.
But I knew I was looking at everything differently because it might be the last time I saw it for a while.
I looked at my bed.
My books.
My walls.
My window.
The place where I had spent countless nights dreaming about the future.
And now I was leaving.
My mother tried to remain strong.
I could see that she didn't want me to notice how emotional she was.
My father was busy making arrangements.
Everyone was doing something.
But inside me, there was only one thought.
I'm leaving.
Before I left, I talked to Payel.
Neither of us knew what to say.
We both knew this goodbye wasn't going to be easy.
I wanted to tell her so many things.
Please don't forget me.
Please wait for me.
Please don't let the distance change us.
I love you.
But sometimes the heart has too many words and the mouth has none.
Then came the moment.
I had to leave.
I picked up my bag.
I checked everything one last time.
And then Payel sent me something.
A song.
"Aise Na Jao Piya..."
I played it.
The first notes filled the room.
And suddenly, everything became too real.
I closed my eyes.
I remembered the first time we spoke.
The silly conversations.
The misunderstandings.
The moments when I thought I would lose her.
The moment she finally said yes.
The day she stood beside me when I couldn't stand for myself.
The three days when she refused to let me give up.
And now...
I was leaving.
I looked at her photograph inside my bag.
My eyes became wet.
I whispered,
"Bas thoda sa wait karna, Payel."
Maybe she couldn't hear me.
Maybe she never would.
But I needed to say it.
Because I didn't know what the future would look like.
I didn't know whether distance would make us stronger or slowly pull us apart.
I didn't know how many days would pass before I heard her voice again.
I didn't know what would happen next.
But I knew one thing.
She had become a part of my life in a way I could never erase.
She hadn't just been there during my happiest moment.
She had stayed during my darkest.
And perhaps that was what love really meant.
Not just holding someone's hand when everything was beautiful.
But holding on when everything was falling apart.
The song continued.
I wiped my tears.
I picked up my bag.
And walked towards the door.
Before stepping outside, I turned around one last time.
My home.
My room.
My childhood.
Everything I knew.
For the first time, I understood that growing up wasn't always about becoming independent.
Sometimes growing up meant leaving behind the people and places that made you feel safe.
I stepped outside.
The door closed behind me.
And for a moment, I just stood there.
I could feel the weight of the bag on my shoulder.
But the heavier weight was inside my heart.
I was leaving home.
I was leaving my mother.
I was leaving everything familiar.
And I was leaving the girl who had just become mine.
But maybe this was what life wanted.
Maybe love wasn't always about being together.
Maybe sometimes love was about waiting.
Waiting through distance.
Waiting through silence.
Waiting through days when you couldn't even hear the other person's voice.
I touched the photograph inside my bag.
And smiled through my tears.
The 76% was still there.
The disappointment was still there.
The fear was still there.
But something else was there too.
Hope.
I had almost forgotten what hope felt like.
Now I knew.
My life wasn't over because of one result.
My dreams weren't over because I had fallen short of my expectations.
And my story with Payel wasn't over because I was going to a hostel.
It was simply entering another chapter.
A harder chapter.
A chapter of distance.
A chapter of waiting.
A chapter where we would discover whether what we had was strong enough to survive the kilometres between us.
I got into the car.
The song was still playing softly.
I looked out of the window as my home slowly disappeared behind me.
I didn't know when I would return.
I didn't know what the next few years would bring.
But I knew that somewhere in my bag was a tiny photograph.
And somewhere far away was a girl waiting for me.
Maybe that was enough.
I leaned my head against the window and closed my eyes.
The city was changing.
My life was changing.
I was changing.
And as the car moved farther away from home, I whispered the words one more time.
"Wait for me, Payel."
Because sometimes forever doesn't begin with a promise that you'll never leave.
Sometimes...
forever begins with two people choosing to wait for each other.
To be continued ...