The first day at the hostel didn't feel like the beginning of something new.
It felt like something had been taken away.
I stood outside the hostel building with my bags beside me, looking at the place where I was supposed to spend the next few years of my life.
Students were walking around.
Some were laughing.
Some were carrying their luggage.
Some were talking to their parents.
Everyone seemed to have a reason to be there.
I didn't.
At least, that's how it felt.
My father helped me settle my things.
My mother kept asking me whether I had packed everything.
"Kapde sab hain na?"
"Haan."
"Medicines?"
"Haan, Maa."
"Books?"
"Haan."
She asked the same things again and again.
I knew why.
She wasn't checking my luggage.
She was delaying the goodbye.
I understood it, but I didn't say anything.
Eventually, they had to leave.
My mother hugged me tightly.
I tried to smile.
"Main theek rahunga."
She nodded.
But the moment they started walking away, I felt something inside me become heavy.
I watched them disappear.
And then I turned around.
The hostel suddenly looked much bigger.
And I suddenly felt very small.
That night was strange.
There were people around me everywhere, but I had never felt so alone.
My roommates were talking.
Someone was laughing in the corridor.
Someone was calling home.
Someone was complaining about the food.
I sat quietly on my bed.
I opened my bag.
And there it was.
Her photograph.
That tiny passport-size photograph I had taken before leaving.
I took it out.
For a few seconds, I simply looked at it.
Then I smiled.
"Tu hoti toh itna ajeeb nahi lagta."
Of course, the photograph didn't answer.
I kept it beside my pillow for a while.
Then I carefully put it inside my notebook.
That night, I couldn't sleep properly.
I kept thinking about home.
About my mother.
About my room.
About my old routine.
And, more than anything...
About Payel.
Before coming to the hostel, I had thought distance meant being a few hundred kilometres away.
I was wrong.
Distance was much more complicated.
It meant wanting to tell someone something and realizing they weren't there.
It meant seeing something funny and instinctively reaching for your phone.
It meant having a terrible day and knowing the person who usually made it better was somewhere else.
And the worst part?
Phones weren't allowed.
So I couldn't even talk to her whenever I wanted.
The first few days passed slowly.
Classes started.
The hostel had its own routine.
Wake up.
Get ready.
Classes.
Lunch.
Study.
Back to the hostel.
Dinner.
Study again.
Sleep.
Repeat.
Everyone slowly began getting used to it.
Even I did.
At least, that's what I told myself.
I made a few friends.
I started talking to people.
I laughed.
I attended classes.
I tried to focus.
From the outside, everything looked normal.
But there was one thing I couldn't get used to.
Not being able to talk to Payel.
Sometimes I would think,
I wonder what she's doing right now.
Maybe she was in school.
Maybe she was studying.
Maybe she was talking to her friends.
Maybe she was thinking about me too.
I had no way of knowing.
And that uncertainty was difficult.
Then the first weekend came.
I wanted to go home.
Not because I hated the hostel.
Not because I couldn't handle it.
I simply wanted to see her.
I wanted to hear her voice properly.
I wanted to sit somewhere and talk without worrying about hostel rules.
But there was a problem.
I couldn't exactly tell my father,
"I want to go home because I miss my girlfriend."
So I needed an excuse.
I found one.
Something completely ordinary.
I called home.
"Papa, mujhe kuch books chahiye jo ghar pe reh gayi hain."
There was a pause.
"Kaunsi books?"
For a second, I panicked.
Then I named a few.
He agreed.
And just like that, I had a reason to go home.
The moment I got home, I didn't even properly unpack.
I just wanted to talk to her.
I found a quiet place.
And finally...
I called Payel.
The moment she answered, I smiled.
"Hello?"
"Hello."
Her voice.
It felt strangely familiar after only a few days.
"Kaise ho?"
"Fine."
"Hostel kaisa hai?"
"Thik hai."
"Friends bane?"
"Haan."
We talked.
About everything.
And nothing.
The conversation wasn't some grand romantic moment.
We talked about our days.
She told me things about school.
I told her about the hostel.
We laughed about stupid things.
We complained.
We teased each other.
And for a few hours, I forgot that I had to go back.
That weekend ended too quickly.
I returned to the hostel.
And then the next weekend came.
Again, I wanted to go home.
Again, I found a reason.
This time it was something else.
Then another weekend.
Another excuse.
Then another.
Sometimes I genuinely had something to do at home.
Sometimes I didn't.
But every weekend, somehow, I found a way.
Looking back, it was almost funny.
I had been sent to a hostel so that I would become more independent.
And instead, I had become an expert at creating reasons to come home.
But the truth was simple.
I wasn't coming home because of books.
Or clothes.
Or documents.
Or some forgotten thing.
I was coming home because of her.
Every weekend, I wanted those few hours.
Those few hours where distance disappeared.
Those few hours where we could talk normally.
Those few hours where I could forget that our lives had suddenly become different.
And Payel knew it.
She knew exactly why I kept coming home.
One day she laughed and said,
"Tu har weekend ghar kyun aa jata hai?"
I smiled.
"Bas mann karta hai."
She looked at me.
"Sach bata."
I didn't answer.
She already knew.
Sometimes you don't need to say the truth when the other person already understands it.
Those weekends became our little escape.
For a while, everything felt normal again.
But slowly, something began changing.
Not dramatically.
Not overnight.
Just little things.
Our conversations became shorter.
Sometimes she was busy.
Sometimes I was tired.
Sometimes we both had things to do.
Earlier, we could talk for hours without running out of things to say.
Now, sometimes, we would sit in silence.
At first, I didn't think much of it.
I told myself it was normal.
We were both adjusting.
She had school.
I had college.
I had the hostel.
She had her own life.
Of course things would be different.
I didn't want to become the boyfriend who constantly demanded attention.
So whenever she was busy, I told her,
"It's okay. Tu apna kaam kar."
And whenever I was busy, she said the same.
We were trying.
At least, I thought we were.
There were still good days.
There were still conversations that made me smile.
There were still moments when she made me feel like nothing had changed.
But there were also moments when I felt the distance.
Tiny moments.
The kind you ignore because you're afraid that noticing them will make them real.
Sometimes I'd send her a message and wait.
Ten minutes.
Twenty minutes.
An hour.
I would look at my phone.
Then put it away.
Then check again.
And when her reply finally came, I would act normal.
"It's okay, I was busy too."
Even when I wasn't.
I didn't want to complain.
I didn't want her to feel guilty.
I didn't want to become a burden.
So I kept things inside.
That was probably my first mistake.
Because love doesn't always break because two people stop caring.
Sometimes it begins breaking because two people care but stop saying what they feel.
One evening, I was sitting in the hostel after dinner.
Everyone around me was talking.
I was holding my phone, even though I knew I wasn't supposed to use it.
I looked at the photograph inside my notebook.
The same tiny photograph.
The same smile.
And suddenly, I realized something.
I had gone to the hostel thinking I would be counting days until I could come home.
But now I was beginning to count something else.
The number of times we talked.
The number of messages she sent.
The amount of time it took her to reply.
The little changes in her tone.
And I hated myself for noticing.
I didn't want to become suspicious.
I trusted her.
I trusted us.
At least, I wanted to.
So I closed the notebook.
Put the photograph back inside.
And told myself,
"Everything is fine."
Maybe it was.
Maybe I was simply overthinking.
Maybe distance was making me sensitive.
Maybe nothing had actually changed.
The next weekend, I came home again.
Another excuse.
Another journey.
Another few hours with her.
And when I saw her, all those doubts disappeared.
For a while.
That was the strange thing about Payel.
Whenever I saw her, I remembered why I had fallen in love with her in the first place.
The doubts became smaller.
The distance disappeared.
And I felt like myself again.
But every time I returned to the hostel, reality came back with me.
One Sunday evening, I was packing my bag to return.
My mother asked,
"Phir kab aaoge?"
I smiled.
"Next weekend."
She looked at me and laughed.
"Tu toh har weekend aa jata hai."
I laughed too.
But inside, I knew the real reason.
I wasn't coming home every weekend because I couldn't live without my family.
I was coming home because there was one person waiting there who made the distance bearable.
I left for the hostel again.
The road felt familiar now.
The same roads.
The same journey.
The same hostel waiting at the end.
But something had changed.
I couldn't explain what.
And perhaps that was the problem.
Some changes don't announce themselves.
They simply begin.
Quietly.
A missed conversation here.
A shorter reply there.
A little more distance.
A little less certainty.
And by the time you realize something has changed...
you may already be standing somewhere completely different from where you started.
I didn't know that then.
All I knew was that next weekend, I would find another excuse.
I would come home again.
I would see Payel again.
And for a few hours...
everything would feel normal.
At least, that's what I believed.
Because back then, I still believed that love was strong enough to survive anything.
I hadn't yet learned that sometimes the biggest threats to a relationship don't come from miles away.
Sometimes...
they come from people standing much closer.
To be continued....