Changing Room

Divya's POV

The box was still sitting there when she turned around.

She didn't know how long it had been there. She didn't know who had placed it on her dresser, sandwiched between her perfume bottles and the photo frame of her and Tanisha from last Diwali. But it was there now — black, polished, the kind of black that didn't just absorb light but seemed to eat it, leaving the corners of her room darker than they should've been.

Her hand stilled mid-air, hairbrush forgotten.

Yeh kahaan se aaya?

She took a step closer. Then another. The wood — if it even was wood — looked too smooth, too deliberate, the kind of polish that came from someone's hands running over it again and again, obsessively, like a ritual.

And the moment her eyes locked onto the brass clasp at its front, something in her chest seized.

It wasn't fear exactly. Fear she could've handled — fear was loud, immediate, something you could run from. This was quieter. Colder. It crawled up her spine vertebra by vertebra, settling at the base of her neck like a hand she couldn't see.

Maine yeh dekha hai. Kahin na kahin, maine yeh box dekha hai.

But where? When? The memory sat just behind a locked door in her mind, and no matter how hard she pushed, it wouldn't open. Just fragments. A flicker of candlelight. The smell of roses gone slightly rotten. A man's voice, low and unbothered, saying something she couldn't quite hear.

Her palm hovered over the lid.

Just open it, Divya. It's probably nothing. Tanisha's pranks. Or maybe Dadi got you a gift and forgot to mention it.

But her fingers wouldn't move. Every instinct in her body — the same instinct that had once saved her, once, when she was too young to even understand what she was being saved from — screamed at her to step back.

So she did.

Her breath had gone shallow without her noticing, little stuttering inhales that weren't pulling in enough air. Her pulse hammered against her throat. The room, which had felt warm and familiar a minute ago, suddenly felt like it belonged to someone else — like she was a stranger standing in her own bedroom.

Her vision swam at the edges. A thin sheen of sweat broke out along her hairline.

Nahi. Nahi, kuch nahi hai. Tu bas overthink kar rahi hai.

But her body didn't believe her own reassurance. Her knees felt unreliable beneath her, like the floor had tilted a few degrees without her permission. Her hands were trembling — not the delicate trembling of nerves, but something deeper, something that came from a place inside her she'd spent years trying to bury.

She stumbled backward until she hit the edge of her bed, sitting down hard.

And then, without thinking, without deciding to, the words started falling from her lips.

"Hare Krishna... Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare..."

Her grandmother's voice echoed in her memory — "Jab dar lage, naam le beta. Naam se bada koi kawach nahi hota." — and she clung to it now like a lifeline thrown into dark water.

She chanted until her breathing slowed. Until her hands stopped shaking quite so violently. Until the cold feeling at the base of her skull finally — finally — began to recede.

She didn't remember lying down. She didn't remember pulling the blanket up to her chin. The last thing she was aware of was the name of God still moving silently on her lips as sleep dragged her under, pulling her away from the box and whatever memory it was trying so desperately to claw its way out of.

Morning arrived gently, the way it always did in Udaipur — golden light slipping through gauzy curtains, the distant call of temple bells drifting up from somewhere near the lake, birds arguing on the windowsill.

Divya woke up disoriented for a second, blinking at the ceiling, before the events of last night came rushing back in pieces. She sat up slowly, half-expecting to feel that same suffocating dread.

But it was quiet. The morning had a way of making nighttime fears feel smaller, sillier, like something a child had imagined under the covers.

She showered, letting the warm water loosen the tension that had knotted itself into her shoulders. When she stepped out, she wrapped herself in a towel and stood in front of her closet for a long moment before pulling out a soft pink kurta — the one with delicate gota border at the sleeves, the one that always made her feel like herself again.

She slipped it on, and the mirror seemed to agree with her choice. The color sat against her skin like it had been made for her, warming her complexion, making her dark eyes look even more luminous. A small, satisfied smile tugged at her lips.

Aaj kuch bura nahi hoga, she told herself. Aaj sirf achha din hai.

She sat at her vanity, reaching for her comb, humming something under her breath—

And then it hit her. Out of nowhere. Like a wave crashing into the shore without warning.

The box.

Her hands froze mid-stroke through her hair. Her stomach dropped, that same uneasy feeling pooling low in her belly, spreading outward like ink in water.

Kyun yaad aaya abhi? Maine toh bhulaane ki koshish ki thi.

She set the comb down, gripping the edge of the vanity table until her knuckles went pale. Her reflection stared back at her, eyes a little too wide, breath a little too fast.

"Nahi, Divya. Stop it," she whispered to herself, voice firmer this time, like she was scolding a younger version of herself. "Yeh sirf ek box hai. Bas. Shayad Tanisha ne rakha hoga, prank ke liye. Usse aadat hai aise drama karne ki."

The explanation sounded reasonable. Logical, even. Tanisha did have a flair for dramatics, for elaborate jokes that usually ended with both of them laughing until their stomachs hurt.

But the silence that followed her own words stretched a beat too long. A silence that didn't agree. A silence that knew something she didn't.

"Haan, yahi hoga," she said again, quieter, like she was trying to convince the silence itself. "Ya kya hi ho sakta hai... main bhi na, bahut overthink karti hoon har choti choti baat pe."

She forced a small laugh — the kind that doesn't quite reach the eyes — and turned back to her reflection with renewed determination. She finished drying her hair, running a flat iron through the ends until they fell in soft waves, and reached for her favorite rosy lip tint, dabbing it onto her lips with practiced ease.

By the time she came down the stairs, she looked every bit like a girl with nothing weighing on her mind. The box stayed upstairs, locked away in her room — and, she hoped, locked away in some corner of her thoughts too.

Breakfast was loud and warm, the kind of chaos that only a big joint family could produce. Dadi sat at the head of the table, overseeing the spread of parathas, curd, and pickle with the authority of a general reviewing troops.

"Aaj tum dono baahar jaao," Dadi announced, gesturing between Divya and Tanisha with her spoon. "Udaipur dekho thoda. Shopping karo, khaana khaao, masti karo. Bas ghar mein baithi rehne ki zarurat nahi."

Tanisha's face lit up instantly. "Sach mein, Dadi?"

"Haan haan, jao. Bas saath mein raho, aur phone on rakhna."

Divya smiled — a real one this time — and felt some of the heaviness from the morning lift off her shoulders. A day out with Tanisha sounded exactly like what she needed.

The city welcomed them with open arms — narrow lanes painted in faded blues and yellows, the smell of fresh kachori drifting from roadside stalls, the lake shimmering somewhere in the distance like a mirror catching the sky. They ducked into little boutiques, tried on jhumkas that were probably too heavy for either of them to actually wear, and laughed so hard at one point that Tanisha nearly knocked over a display of bangles.

At the restaurant, over plates of dal baati churma, Divya felt something settle inside her — a lightness she hadn't felt in days. There was no fear here. No cold dread crawling up her spine. Just Tanisha's ridiculous stories about her college crush, just the clinking of glasses, just the warm Rajasthani sun filtering through the window.

For those few hours, the box didn't exist. The whispers in her memory didn't exist. There was only joy — uncomplicated, golden, hers.

After lunch, they wandered toward the newly opened mall on the edge of the city, its glass front gleaming under the afternoon sun. Inside, the air conditioning hit them like a relief, and they moved from store to store with the wide-eyed wonder of two girls discovering a city for the first time — touching fabrics, trying perfumes, giggling at mannequins dressed in outfits neither of them would ever actually wear.

Eventually, they found themselves in front of a saree shop, the kind with mannequins draped in rich silk and embroidery glittering under warm lighting.

Divya's eyes lit up the second she stepped inside.

She had always loved sarees — the elegance of them, the way they made a woman feel like she was carrying centuries of grace in six yards of fabric. And being in Rajasthan, surrounded by craftsmanship she might never see again, she decided right then that she wanted to take home something more than just photographs.

"Yeh dekh," Tanisha said, pulling a saree off the rack — soft pink, threaded with delicate gold embroidery along the border, the kind of piece that looked like it belonged in a painting. "Ye perfect lagegi tujh pe. Try kar na."

Divya took it eagerly, fingers brushing over the embroidery. "Sach mein bohot pretty hai."

The shop manager guided her toward the changing rooms at the back — spacious, dimly lit with warm yellow bulbs, mirrors lining one wall. Divya stepped inside, sliding the curtain shut behind her, and began carefully unraveling the saree from its folds, draping it the way her mother had taught her years ago.

She'd made it halfway through the pleats — blouse secured, the loose end of the fabric still gathered at her waist, her stomach bare between the two — when the lights above her flickered.

Once.

Then again, harder this time, the bulb buzzing audibly before settling into a dim, unstable glow.

Her heart skipped. Her hands paused over the half-formed pleats.

"Aah—"

Before she could even finish her thought, she heard Tanisha's voice through the curtain, followed quickly by the shop manager's. "Arre kuch nahi, bas thoda issue hai wiring mein. Abhi recover ho jayegi, aap please wahi rukiye."

Divya exhaled, pressing a hand to her chest. Theek hai. Sirf ek short circuit hai. Kuch nahi.

She tried to steady herself, tried to go back to focusing on the pleats in her hand, tilting her head down to recount the folds—

And that's when she felt it.

A presence. Close. Too close.

Before she could turn, before she could even gasp, a pair of arms wrapped around her from behind — strong, certain, terrifyingly familiar in a way she couldn't place. One large palm settled flat against her bare stomach, fingers spreading possessively over her skin, right where the saree hadn't yet been pinned into place. He lowered his head, resting his face against her neck before placing a lingering kiss on her skin.

Her entire body locked up.

It wasn't the cold shiver of fear this time. It was something deeper — a recognition that bypassed her conscious mind entirely and went straight to some primal part of her that knew this touch. Knew this scent — sandalwood, leather, something achingly masculine underneath it all. Knew the exact way those fingers curled against her skin, like they'd memorized the shape of her years ago and never forgotten.

Her breath turned ragged, coming out in short, uneven bursts. Sweat broke out across her forehead despite the air conditioning. Her whole body trembled — not from cold, not even fully from fear, but from something that felt disturbingly, achingly familiar.

She opened her mouth, maybe to scream — and that's when his lips brushed the shell of her ear, his voice low, rough, intimate in a way that made her stomach twist violently.

"Jaan," he murmured, and the single word unraveled something inside her. "I missed you, butterfly. "

The world tilted.

The mirrors blurred. The flickering light above seemed to pulse in time with her racing heartbeat. The last thing she registered was the warmth of his chest against her back, solid and unmoving, like he had no intention of ever letting her fall—

And then everything went black.

Advansh's POV

She went limp the second the words left his mouth.

For one terrifying heartbeat, his arms tightened instinctively, catching her full weight before she could collapse onto the floor of the changing room. Her head fell back against his shoulder, dark hair spilling over his arm, lips parted around a breath she could no longer finish.

"Jaan"

His voice cracked, just slightly. Three years he hadn't said it out loud. Three years he'd trained himself not to.

He turned her gently in his arms, lowering both of them carefully until he was kneeling on the floor of the changing room with her cradled against his chest, her face tilted up toward him, eyes shut, lashes dark and still against her cheeks.

She looked exactly like he remembered. Exactly like the photograph he still carried, folded and worn, in the inside pocket of every jacket he owned. Except now there were tiny details he hadn't accounted for — the slight curve in her jaw that had sharpened with age, the faint scar near her collarbone he didn't recognize and didn't like not knowing about.

His thumb brushed against her cheek, slow, almost reverent.

"Teen saal," he murmured, more to himself than to her unconscious form. Three years. Three years of silence he had built like a wall between them — brick by brick, lie by lie — convincing himself it was for her own good. Convincing himself that staying away was the only way to keep her safe from the world he belonged to.

And now, one whispered word, and she'd folded into him like she'd never stopped waiting.

Outside the curtain, Tanisha's voice rose in alarm, fists pounding against the fabric divider. "Divya? Divya, sab theek hai? Light thik ho gayi—Divya, jawab do!"

Advansh's jaw tightened. He had seconds. Maybe less.

He pressed his lips briefly to her forehead — a touch so light it might not have happened at all — before carefully shifting her into a position where she could be found, safe, breathing, simply fainted from the heat or the flickering lights or whatever story the world would believe easier than the truth.

"Jab tak main tumhe khud nahi bataunga," he whispered against her hairline, voice rough , "tab tak yeh raaz humare beech hi rahega, Divya. Lekin main wapas aa gaya hoon. Aur is baar... main tumhe phir nahi jaane doonga."

This time, I won't let you go again.

He eased her down gently, propping her against the changing room wall, and by the time Tanisha pulled the curtain back with panic flooding her face, the man who had held her — who had whispered the one word that could undo three years of careful forgetting — was gone.

Vanished into the crowd of the mall like smoke, like he'd never been there at all.

Only the lingering scent of sandalwood remained,and a single black rose petal resting innocently on the changing room floor.

TO BE CONTINUED...

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