Pov:Max
Our room was finally full.
Kitty was curled up at the edge of the bed, painting her nails a dangerous shade of red. Ren sat on the floor, legs crossed, flipping through a tattered notebook she always carried around—pages filled with old poems, doodles, and half-told stories.
The air smelled like instant noodles and coconut hair oil. Home, in its own messy way.
"You remember that guy I told you about?" Kitty said suddenly, eyes sparkling. "The one I saw in the canteen? Ram ?"
Ram .
The name hit me like a whisper.
Mike. That was what I called him.
The name no one else knew. The name saved in my phone with a blue heart and an H—for something that never existed, but I still held onto.
He was Ram to the world.
But he was Mike to me.
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Ren looked up, a strange flicker in her eyes. "Yeah… Rama Krishna? Goes by Ram ?"
"YES! That one," Kitty beamed. "Why, you know him?!"
Ren's expression didn't shift, but her grip on the notebook tightened just slightly.
"Yeah. I... knew him. Back in Chennai. Before he moved here."
My heart slowed.
Chennai? That's where we were. That's where I knew him. But I never told Kitty his full name. Never connected the dots for her.
"Small world," Kitty laughed, stretching. "What was he like?"
Ren hesitated. "Quiet. Kept to himself. But always showed up when it mattered."
That line hit me like a whisper from the past.
Because that was Ram . The boy who helped me carry my broken science model after it shattered. The boy who never missed school on my birthday, even if he had a cold. The boy who never knew I loved him.
"You okay, Max?" Ren asked, eyes meeting mine.
I blinked. "Yeah. Just thinking."
But inside, everything was spinning.
Because if Ren knew Ram from before…
and she knew what happened back then…
then maybe—just maybe—she knew the reason he left school so suddenly.
The reason he disappeared before I could ever tell him.
And suddenly, I wasn't sure if I was ready to know the truth.
_________________________________________
Class Time...
Some blah blah lessons
Classes ended. People flooded out like bees freed from a box. Laughter, tired yawns, snack plans. All of it blurred past me.
But inside me?
Stillness.
Followed by noise.
Ren's voice from earlier kept echoing in my head.
"Yeah… ramakrishna? Goes by
Ram.
That was his real name now.
The one everyone else knew.
But to me...
He was Mike.
The name wrapped in teenage dreams and blue hearts.
The one I never said out loud.
I walked back to the room, ignoring Kitty's jokes and Ren's soft humming beside me. Even as my body crashed onto the bed, my mind wouldn't stop sprinting.
She knew him.
Before.
Maybe even during.
And I couldn't shake the feeling that she knew why he vanished from my life all those years ago.
I turned to her slowly. Ren was sitting on the floor again, scribbling something into her notebook with a pencil.
I swallowed my hesitation.
"Hey, Ren…"
She looked up. "Hmm?"
I sat up, careful. "That guy you mentioned earlier. Ramakrishna… Did you know him well?"
Her pencil paused mid-stroke. Her eyes met mine—and for a second, I swear she looked guilty.
"We were... in the same circle," she said, choosing her words carefully. "Why?"
I hesitated.
Because how do I say—he was my first love?
That I still think of him as Mike—someone who never got to hear how I felt?
That your words today stirred something inside me that hasn't stopped since?
"I just… I think I know him too. From before."
Ren blinked. "Oh?"
That's all she said. Just that one word, like it meant nothing. But I saw the shift in her expression.
Something was there.
A truth between us.
But still caged.
What did you see, Ren?
What did you know?
And why do I feel like the silence between us is louder than anything I've heard all day?
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