The next morning was Sunday.
I woke up with a strange kind of hope.
Maybe because the previous day hadn't gone exactly how I had imagined.
I had finally seen Payel after five weeks.
I had talked to her.
I had seen her smile.
She had blushed when she noticed me looking at her.
But still, something had felt different.
I didn't know what it was.
So when I woke up that Sunday morning, I decided not to think about it too much.
Maybe today would be better.
Maybe we'd finally get some time to talk properly.
I picked up my phone and typed the simplest message I could think of.
"Good morning madam jii."
Then I waited.
A few minutes passed.
Nothing.
I wasn't worried.
Maybe she was asleep.
Maybe she had woken up late.
Maybe she was busy.
So I left it.
I went about my morning.
After some time, I checked again.
Still nothing.
I sent another message.
Then another.
Nothing.
I didn't want to bother her, so I stopped.
I already knew she was preparing for her board examinations.
Class 10 boards were important.
I understood that.
If she was studying, obviously she wouldn't be sitting with her phone all day.
So I told myself not to expect anything.
But as the hours passed, I kept checking.
Nothing.
Morning became afternoon.
Afternoon slowly became evening.
Still no reply.
I didn't want to admit it, but I was getting upset.
Not angry.
Just...
disappointed.
I had been waiting for this weekend.
After five weeks, I had finally seen her.
And somehow, I had imagined that once I got home, we'd talk properly.
Maybe for hours.
Maybe we'd laugh about yesterday.
Maybe we'd talk about everything we hadn't been able to talk about.
Instead, I was sitting there looking at a silent chat.
Then, just when I was getting ready to leave for the hostel, my phone finally vibrated.
Her message.
"Sorry yaar busy thi."
I stared at it for a moment.
There was nothing wrong with that message.
She had a reason.
She was busy.
So I replied,
"It's okay, koi baat nahi."
And I meant it.
At least, I wanted to mean it.
But there was still something sitting heavily inside me.
I knew she was preparing for her boards.
I knew she had responsibilities.
I knew she couldn't always give me her time.
I wasn't asking for the whole day.
I wasn't even asking for hours.
I just wanted one proper conversation.
One.
Because this weekend, I had finally gotten to see her after five weeks, but somehow I had almost lost the chance to actually talk to her.
It felt strange.
I had waited so long just to see her.
And now I was leaving without getting the thing I had actually been looking forward to.
Before leaving, I sent her one more message.
I didn't want to complain.
I didn't want to make her feel guilty.
I just wanted her to know what I felt.
"Chalo thik hai. Byee. Iss weekend toh theek se baat nahi hui. I hope next weekend mein hoga. Aur ha, tum apna khyal rakhna. Kuch problem hua toh batana. And most importantly, I will be with you always cause I love you, okay?"
I looked at the message once before sending it.
Then I pressed send.
And left for the hostel.
The journey back felt longer than usual.
I looked outside the window most of the time.
I wasn't crying.
I wasn't angry.
I was just quiet.
And when I reached the hostel, everyone noticed.
Usually, whenever I returned from home, I came back with a different energy.
I talked more.
I laughed.
I annoyed everyone.
Sometimes I would tell them some random story from home.
But that day, I walked in quietly.
Rohit noticed me first.
He looked at my face and immediately tried his usual teasing.
"Kya hua Sarthak babu? Payel se milna nahi hua kya?"
Normally, I would have thrown something at him.
Normally, I would have replied with some ridiculous threat.
But that day...
I didn't say anything.
I just looked at him for a second and walked towards my room.
Rohit's expression changed slightly.
He knew something was wrong.
I went inside and lay down on my bed.
I didn't want to talk.
I didn't want to explain.
I just wanted to lie there.
Our warden came by sometime later.
He saw me lying on the bed.
He didn't say anything.
He knew me well enough by then.
He knew I studied without being reminded.
He didn't have to come and tell me to open my books.
He didn't have to ask whether I had completed my work.
If I had something to do, I usually did it myself.
So he simply looked at me, understood that I needed some quiet, and walked away.
A little later, Subhra, Shreyash, Sanjay and Dev came into the room.
Subhra looked at me.
"Bro, tu thik hai na?"
I looked at them.
I forced a small smile.
"Haan yaar, it's okay."
They didn't completely believe me.
I knew that.
But nobody pushed me.
They stayed around for a while.
Sometimes that's all a friend needs to do.
You don't always need advice.
Sometimes you just need people who sit beside you when you're not in the mood to talk.
Two days passed.
And slowly, I convinced myself that maybe it had just been bad luck.
Maybe the weekend had simply gone badly.
Maybe next weekend would be different.
I didn't want to turn one disappointing weekend into something bigger.
Then Friday came.
And suddenly, I remembered something.
My birthday was on Sunday.
The thought immediately changed my mood.
That afternoon, my father called the warden and asked if I could be allowed to go home for three days—Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
When I heard that, I couldn't stop myself.
"Yessssss!"
Three days.
Home.
My birthday.
And Payel.
For the first time in days, I felt genuinely excited again.
After classes that Friday, I borrowed the phone of one of my classmates.
I opened Instagram and logged into my account.
I immediately went to Payel's chat.
I typed:
"Oye sun, chal iss Sunday ko mandir chalte hai."
I sent it.
And, almost unbelievably, she was online.
Her reply came quickly.
"Okay, par tu message kese kar raha hai?"
I smiled.
"Just ese hi, dost ke phone se. Abhi logout kar dunga."
She agreed.
And just like that, my plans for Sunday became real in my head.
Birthday.
Home.
Temple.
Payel.
Maybe this weekend would make up for the previous one.
Maybe everything would feel normal again.
Maybe I had been worrying for nothing.
I returned to the hostel that evening in a completely different mood.
I was smiling again.
Dev had a foldable table.
I took it and placed it over my bed so I could study comfortably while sitting there.
I opened my books.
For once, studying didn't feel like a burden.
My mind was already on Sunday.
I was thinking about what we would talk about.
Whether we'd laugh.
Whether we'd stay at the temple for a while.
Nothing extraordinary.
Just a normal day.
A normal birthday.
A normal meeting with the person I loved.
Then suddenly—
"Oi!"
There was some commotion outside.
Rohan and Andy were fighting over something.
I didn't even pay much attention.
They were always doing something.
I kept reading.
Then everything happened at once.
Andy lost his balance.
He fell onto the table.
The table broke.
And the broken table came directly down onto my knees.
Andy was on it too.
For a second, I didn't understand what had happened.
Then the pain hit.
Hard.
I immediately shouted.
"AH!"
Everyone froze.
The warden came running.
He saw the broken table, Andy, me, and the mess around us.
He immediately shouted at Rohan and Andy.
"What were you two doing?!"
I was holding my leg.
Andy looked terrified.
"It was an accident!"
I knew it was.
So even through the pain, I said,
"It was just an accident."
The warden quickly called for a doctor.
I tried to stay calm.
But the pain wasn't going away.
The doctor arrived and examined my leg.
After checking it properly, he gave us the answer none of us wanted.
It was fractured.
I stared at him.
"A fracture?"
He nodded.
Then came the second problem.
I couldn't climb stairs properly for some time.
He gave me medication and some instructions before leaving.
Everyone around me had gone quiet.
I wasn't thinking about the fracture.
Not really.
My mind immediately went somewhere else.
The temple.
I suddenly remembered the plan.
The temple was high.
There were around thirty-five to forty stairs.
I looked towards the staircase.
And it hit me.
I couldn't go.
I couldn't climb those stairs.
I couldn't meet Payel there.
I couldn't go with her.
And for some reason, that hurt almost as much as my leg.
My eyes started filling with tears.
I tried to stop them.
I couldn't.
The tears came anyway.
Rohit noticed.
He came over and tried to lighten the situation.
"Kya hua? Dard ke wajah se ro raha hai?"
I shook my head.
I tried to speak.
My voice broke.
"I can't meet Payel."
Everyone became quiet.
I continued.
"Mandir nahi jaa sakta uske saath."
The tears were already rolling down my cheeks.
It wasn't really about the temple.
It wasn't even just about Payel.
It was about the hope I had built around that day.
I had finally been given three days at home.
My birthday was coming.
I had made a plan.
After the previous weekend, I had been looking forward to this one even more.
And now, suddenly, I couldn't do it.
My friends started trying to console me.
"Bro, koi aur din mil lena."
"Plan baad mein bana lena."
"Pehle leg theek kar."
They were right.
I knew they were right.
But when you're disappointed, logic doesn't immediately make the feeling disappear.
That night, I kept thinking about it.
Eventually, the next day, I went home.
I didn't attend classes.
My parents were obviously concerned when they saw me injured.
They asked what happened.
I explained.
After things settled down a little, I messaged Payel.
"Oye sun, kal shayad plan cancel karna padega."
I told her what had happened.
Her reaction surprised me.
She became worried.
She started asking questions.
How bad was it?
Did the doctor check?
Was I okay?
What did the doctor say?
For the first time in a while, I felt that familiar warmth again.
She was concerned about me.
And that mattered.
I told her everything.
We ended up talking for around five hours that day.
Five hours.
After the silence of the previous weekend, those five hours felt like getting something back that I thought I had lost.
We talked about the accident.
About my leg.
About school.
About random things.
Eventually, she had to leave.
I put my phone down.
For the first time in days, I felt peaceful.
I didn't think about the previous weekend anymore.
I didn't think about whether something was wrong.
I just felt happy that we had talked.
After she left, I went back to what I always did when I wanted to disappear from the world for a while.
I picked up a book.
I have always been a book person.
Romance novels.
Science fiction.
Anything that could pull me into another world.
Books were easy.
They didn't expect anything from me.
They didn't leave me wondering why they had stopped replying.
They didn't make promises.
They simply waited until I opened them.
That night, I read for a while.
Then midnight came.
My birthday.
I checked my phone.
Messages started coming in.
My family wished me.
Sayan wished me.
Soumyajyoti bhaiya wished me.
That was it.
I waited.
Maybe Payel was asleep.
I told myself that.
Of course she was asleep.
Maybe she'd wake up in the morning and wish me.
Maybe she'd be the first person to message me when she woke up.
I went to sleep with that thought.
The next morning came.
I checked my phone.
Nothing.
I waited.
I tried not to think about it.
I got up.
Had breakfast.
Talked with my family.
Checked my phone again.
Nothing.
The morning slowly moved forward.
I told myself not to keep checking.
But every time my phone lit up, my eyes went straight to it.
Every notification made me wonder for half a second.
Maybe it's her.
Then it wasn't.
I didn't want to admit how much I was waiting.
Because I knew exactly what I wanted.
I didn't need a huge birthday paragraph.
I didn't need a long call.
I didn't need anything dramatic.
I just wanted her to remember.
I wanted to see her name on my screen.
And then, at exactly 10:03 AM, my phone finally vibrated.
I looked down.
It was Payel.
For a second, my heart lifted.
She had wished me.
I opened the message.
I read it once.
Then again.
And I smiled.
But the smile carried something else with it too.
A tiny ache.
Because somewhere inside me, I had imagined that she would be the first person.
I had imagined seeing her message at midnight.
I had imagined waking up to it.
I had imagined replying while everyone else was still asleep.
Instead, it was 10:03 AM.
The day had already started.
People had already wished me.
I had already spent hours waiting.
Maybe that expectation was mine alone.
Maybe she didn't even know I had been waiting.
And that was okay.
I reminded myself of that.
She had her studies.
She had her own life.
She wasn't sitting there counting the minutes the way I was.
So I pushed the disappointment aside and replied:
"Thank you so much, my dear."
I made it sound completely normal.
Like it was okay.
Like I hadn't cared.
Like I hadn't spent the entire morning hoping.
We talked for about an hour.
And during that hour, I tried to forget the time.
I laughed.
I replied normally.
I didn't bring it up.
I didn't ask,
"Why so late?"
I didn't say,
"I thought you'd wish me first."
I didn't want to turn my birthday into a complaint.
Eventually, she became busy.
The conversation ended.
I put my phone down.
And that was it.
No more messages from her that day.
I lay on my bed quietly.
I wasn't angry with her.
I knew she had studies.
I knew she had her own life.
I didn't blame her for being busy.
But forgetting my birthday—or at least not remembering it until 10:03 AM—still hurt.
Not because 10:03 was some terrible time.
It wasn't.
It was early.
Objectively, there was nothing wrong with it.
The problem was never the clock.
The problem was the expectation I had created inside my own head.
Because she was important to me.
And when someone becomes that important, even small things start carrying meaning.
I had imagined that she would remember before everyone else.
Maybe that was childish.
Maybe it was unrealistic.
But it was honest.
I didn't want her to feel guilty.
I didn't want to punish her.
I didn't even want an explanation.
I just wanted to admit to myself that it hurt.
Throughout the day, only around ten or twelve people wished me.
My family.
A few friends.
People who remembered.
I felt strangely lonely.
It was my birthday.
I should have been happy.
But instead, I was lying on my bed wondering why the person I wanted to hear from the most hadn't been there when I expected her.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
I looked towards the door.
I wasn't expecting anyone.
I slowly got up and opened it.
And there stood Soumyajyoti bhaiya.
With his cousin Subho.
For a second, I just stared at them.
"Surprise!"
I couldn't help laughing.
They had actually come to see me.
They had brought things for me.
And suddenly, the whole feeling of the day changed.
We celebrated together.
Nothing huge.
Nothing extravagant.
Just people who had taken the time to come.
People who cared enough to make sure I wasn't sitting alone on my birthday.
And somewhere in the middle of that celebration, I realized something.
I had spent so much of the day thinking about the one person who hadn't been there...
that I had forgotten to notice all the people who were there.
My family.
Sayan.
Soumyajyoti bhaiya.
Subho.
My friends.
The people who had worried when I got hurt.
The people who had sat beside me when I was upset.
The people who had shown up without me asking.
Payel mattered to me.
She mattered a lot.
And I wasn't going to pretend otherwise.
But maybe love had made me look at everything through one person.
That day taught me something I hadn't understood before.
Someone can love you and still be busy.
Someone can care about you and still forget something important.
Someone can be important to you without being responsible for every emotion you feel.
I didn't blame Payel.
I couldn't.
She had her boards.
She had her own pressure.
She had her own life.
But that didn't mean I wasn't allowed to be hurt.
Both things could be true.
I could understand her...
and still feel disappointed.
I could love her...
and still wish she had remembered.
I could forgive her...
without pretending it hadn't hurt.
That night, after everyone had left, I sat quietly on my bed.
My leg hurt.
My birthday was almost over.
The temple plan was gone.
The weekend hadn't gone the way I had imagined.
And yet...
I smiled.
Because I had learned something.
Sometimes we spend so much time waiting for one person to make us feel special that we fail to notice the people who already do.
I looked at my phone one last time.
Her message was still there.
I smiled faintly.
Then I put the phone aside.
I wasn't angry.
I wasn't blaming her.
I still loved her.
But for the first time, I understood that love didn't mean expecting one person to fill every empty space in your life.
There were other people too.
People who cared.
People who showed up.
People who stayed.
And that realization didn't make my feelings for Payel smaller.
It simply made my world a little bigger.
I closed my eyes.
The day had been painful in more ways than one.
But perhaps that was what growing up felt like.
Not suddenly becoming stronger.
Just slowly learning that being hurt and being loved can exist at the same time.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, one thought remained.
Maybe next weekend will be different.
I still believed that.
At least for then.
To be continued...