Almost Loving You

"Some loves are written in the margins. Ours was scribbled between the lines-messy, unspoken, and impossible to erase." Riya Sharma knows how to love-fiercely, foolishly, and with her whole heart. But when her high school crush rejects her, she retreats into the pages of dark romance novels, where love is all-consuming and endings are never simple. Reality, however, is less poetic... until Aarav Malhotra, the boy who once looked at her like she hung the stars, walks back into her life. Cold, brilliant, and ruthlessly logical, Aarav has always been an enigma. In school, he spoke to her in a voice softer than anyone else's, listened to her rants about books like they were sacred texts, and left sketches of her in his notebooks-though she never knew. But when Riya's indirect confession at their farewell party vanished into silence, she assumed he didn't care. Years later, fate intervenes. Riya, now an aspiring army doctor, crosses paths with Aarav-a prodigious engineer-during a high-stakes medical-tech campaign. The boy who built walls around his heart is now a man who builds bridges. The girl who wrote poetry about love now stitches wounds on battlefields. And the electricity between them? It never dimmed. As they navigate tangled pasts and fragile new beginnings, Riya and Aarav must confront the words they never said and the choices that tore them apart. But this time, walking away isn't an option-not when their love story might be the one worth fighting for.

The library was quiet except for the sound of my pencil scratching against paper, the familiar scent of old books and lemon-scented polish filling the air as I sketched Arjun Sethi's profile for what felt like the hundredth time. His sharp jawline, the way his hair always fell slightly over his forehead-I had memorized every detail from my usual seat three benches behind him during assembly. Ananya Malhotra, my only friend who tolerated what she called my "artistic melodrama," elbowed me sharply and nodded toward the door. My stomach twisted as Arjun walked in, his arm draped over Priya Kapoor's shoulders, her laughter bright and effortless. My pencil snapped between my fingers.

Two weeks ago, I had made the mistake of slipping an anonymous note into Arjun's locker-"You don't know me, but I know the way you always fix your hair before a free throw..."-unsigned, foolish, and now utterly humiliating. Because when he spotted me in the library, his lips curled into that lazy smirk, and he said, "Oh. Sketch Girl," like I was nothing more than a mildly amusing oddity. Priya giggled, and my face burned.