Dream - Part 1

 

An Incomplete Love

Some loves begin loudly.
Theirs began in laughter.

Ananya and Arjun were just friends — at least that is what the world knew. They shared tea breaks, unfinished jokes, long walks that had no destination, and conversations that never really ended. To Arjun, she was comfort. To Ananya, he was everything.

Ananya did not remember the exact moment she fell in love with him. Maybe it was the way he listened without interrupting. Maybe it was the way he adjusted his pace when she walked slower. Or maybe it was the dangerous kindness in his eyes — the kind that makes you feel chosen even when you are not.

Her love was not loud.
It was deep. Terrifyingly deep.

If a day passed without seeing him, she felt incomplete — like a sentence without its last word. If he did not call, she would stare at her phone, pretending not to wait. If he laughed with someone else, her heart would shrink quietly, invisibly.

She never confessed.
She stayed playful instead.

She teased him. Mocked him. Stole his pen. Hid his notebook. Called him dramatic. Rolled her eyes at his serious talks. Laughed too loudly at his smallest jokes. It was her way of loving him without admitting she was in love.

Arjun mistook her playfulness for lightness.
“She doesn’t take anything seriously,” he once told a friend.
He didn’t know she took him more seriously than her own heartbeat.

To him, she was fun. Easy. Carefree.
To her, he was home.

Some nights, Ananya would sit by her window and whisper his name into the silence, as if the wind could carry her feelings to him. She would promise herself not to expect too much. Not to hope. Not to dream.

But love is stubborn.

And hers was the kind that doesn’t fade just because it is unseen.

It was an incomplete love —
whole in her heart,
unfinished in his.

And that was how the dream began.