The corridor had mostly emptied, leaving only faint echoes of footsteps and murmurs that faded into the distance. Outside the window, the sky was beginning to soften into twilight hues, casting long golden beams through the glass and onto the tiled floor. Time seemed to pause.
Anaya stood quietly, her fingers gripping the strap of her bag. She waited, her eyes steady on Rhea, who had stopped just a few steps away. There was something different in her expression like something unreadable flickering behind her eyes.
"I…" Rhea began but stopped just as quickly. Her voice barely rose above a whisper.
Anaya tilted her head slightly, not pressing, just waiting.
Rhea looked down at her hands, as if surprised to find them shaking. She quickly hid them behind her back.
"You were just heading to your hostel?" she asked again, though she already knew the answer.
Anaya nodded. "Yes."
A beat of silence.
The breeze slipped in through a slightly opened window nearby, fluttering the edge of a noticeboard. It smelled faintly of rain, though the skies were still clear. Rhea's hair lifted with it, but she didn't seem to notice.
"Listen…" Rhea tried again to said something, her voice more serious this time. "There's something I've been meaning to say, but… I'm not sure if I should."
Anaya's eyes softened, her voice gentle. "You can tell me."
Rhea opened her mouth, then closed it. Her eyes darted to the floor, then to the window, then back to Anaya. Her lips trembled with the weight of unspoken words.
"I just…" Rhea gave a small, shaky laugh. "I don't know how to start."
Anaya waited, quiet and still, her presence steady like the calm before a storm. She was used to silence. She understood it. Sometimes, it spoke louder than anything else.
Finally, Rhea looked directly at her. "Have you ever had something in your chest that felt like a knot? Like if you said it out loud, everything would unravel?"
Anaya blinked, and for the briefest moment, her heart fluttered. "Yes," she said softly.
Rhea smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "That's how I feel now. Like something is coming in your way"
They stood like that for a long time, words suspended in the space between them, like dust dancing in the light. And then, suddenly, Rhea shook her head.
"Maybe it's nothing," Rhea said. "I'm probably just overthinking."
Anaya didn't push. She could sense it like there was more. But she also knew the fragility of moments like these, where the truth wavered like a candle flame. It had to come on its own.
"Okay," Anaya said, her voice calm.
Rhea exhaled slowly, as if relieved but also disappointed in herself. "I just… I wanted to make sure you're okay. That's all."
"I am," Anaya said gently, but the words felt like leaves drifting on water, light, uncertain.
They began walking toward the staircase together, the air between them quieter now, but tinged with something unresolved.
Halfway down, Rhea suddenly paused again. "Do you ever feel like people pretend around you? Or maybe you misunderstood their intentions? Like that..."
Anaya stopped, her hand lightly on the railing. "Sometimes."
"I feel like there's a lot going on that we don't say," Rhea said, her voice low. "Between friends, between classmates. Like… secrets we carry because we don't know if anyone will understand."
Anaya didn't respond right away. Her mind wandered to the many moments she had kept silent like about her thoughts, her fears, even the way the world sometimes felt too loud, too bright.
"I understand," she finally said.
Rhea glanced sideways at her, eyes searching. "You really do, don't you?"
Anaya looked up at her, a small smile forming. "Maybe that's why we're friends."
Rhea smiled, this time more genuinely. "Yeah."
They walked out into the fading evening light. The sky had turned into a soft watercolor wash of purples and pinks. The world felt quieter out here, the kind of quiet that made it easier to breathe.
Rhea walked beside her for a while, neither of them saying much. But there was comfort in that silence, like an invisible thread tying them together.
As they reached the main gate, Rhea stopped again. And said,
"Anaya?"
Anaya turned to her.
"I hope you know you can talk to me too," Rhea said. " I know you had never share your secrets and i just think something is going on with you. I just don't want you to hurt like me."
Anaya felt something stir inside her. She nodded. "Thank you."
Rhea gave her a quick hug. awkward but sincere and then turned down the road leading to her street.
Anaya watched her go, then turned to walk in the other direction, her thoughts swirling. Whatever Rhea had almost said, it wasn't over. It lingered in the air, unfinished. And somehow, Anaya felt that it was connected to something more than just them. A deeper thread, a whisper beneath the surface of things.
As she walked, her phone buzzed. A message.
From an unknown number:
"Did Rhea tell you anything?"
Anaya froze.
The message blinked up at her like a tiny crack in the surface of an ordinary day. She stared at it for a long time, heart thudding. She didn't recognize the number. There was no name attached.
She didn't reply.
She kept walking, but now her steps were slower. Her mind raced.
She murmured and questioned herself, "Who would send something like that? What was Rhea not wanted to tell me?
And why did I feel like things were just beginning to unravel?
"Oh god! Today is really a confusing day. Ehoever i met those said like something confucius. Well, i really don't understand what they meant to be in the end.
Oh its really tiring..."
Finally Anaya reached the hostel room. And she is ready to going out for her part time job. And then suddenly her roomate called her.
"Anaya..." With a gentle voice in a slow-motion.
Anaya turned over ...
Anaya murmured herself, "Oh man! what's again?she hasn't talked to me this while. And saw me like looking at a cheaper. Well, this girl is Rose but her character is like those thorns around the the rose flower. Sometimes i think i want to kill the man who got a name for her like this.its just that it doesn't suit her .."
"She got into a fight with me at start and now its been half year. And now she called me."
"I really think there is something fishy about today..."