The art block at her college was Erica's safe space. The world outside demanded perfection-but here, her brush could tremble. Her lines could bleed.
It was late afternoon when she noticed him-sitting alone in the courtyard, a sketchbook balanced on his knee, pencil moving with a kind of lazy confidence. He wasn't from her batch. Maybe not even her department. But something about him stood out, like he didn't belong in this noise, yet owned it.
She wouldn't have noticed him again-except he noticed her first.
"Your name's Erica, right?" he said the next day, catching up beside her after class.
She blinked. "Yeah... how do you know?"
He smiled, crooked and slow. "Your mural in the south hallway. The one with the faceless girl standing in fire. That wasn't just art. That was truth."
Her stomach did a small flip. Compliments weren't new. But this one didn't feel rehearsed. It felt like he saw something.
His name was Max. He spoke Hindi like a tourist, but listened like a therapist. Half-Indian, half-French. Came to India for "roots," stayed for "people," or so he said. He was doing a research paper on trauma in artistic expression. It sounded fake, but she couldn't prove it.
Over the next few weeks, he lingered.
He'd show up with two coffees when she hadn't mentioned needing one. Quote poets she hadn't heard of, then ask her if she liked the sky better at dawn or dusk. He'd ask about her family, then listen-not just hear, listen-when she talked about how hard it was to be both free and dutiful.
It was strange, how easily he filled the spaces she didn't know were empty.
He never pushed. Never crossed lines. He made her laugh with dark, dry humor. He walked her home once when it rained, but stayed at a distance the whole way.
It was his respect that made her trust him.
And his silence that made her want to tell him more.
"People think I'm strong," she told him one evening, sitting on the library steps. "But sometimes I feel like I'm made of paper. One drop of water, and I'll dissolve."
He didn't say anything poetic in return. He just said, "Then stay close. I'll hold the umbrella."
And maybe, for the first time, Erica let herself believe in something that looked like love.