Some love stories end. Others simply wait for the right moment to begin again. You Were Never Meant To Read This by Shrijeet Shandilya returns to Dev and Tanishka’s story, where fifteen months after their goodbye, one unexpected message changes everything.
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Thinking of her pulls me back to college. Specifically, the last few months.
Those last six months were a constant unsaid battle between me trying to move on and trying not to feel everything all the time. Assignments, deadlines and fake smiles acted as bandages to cover the wounds. Soon, it became difficult to tell whether I was busy living or busy hiding.
Time kept moving, tugging me along with it.
There was no contact with Tanishka. The last time I heard her name was from Avantika, someone I wish I’d never met, when she called me on my birthday.
October left Goa soon after, the way the monsoon does, slowly and softly with the promise of sun. Similarly, after that last call with Avantika, things with her didn’t end loudly, they just stopped. Only the sun never came.
College didn’t stop for me. Placements, late night parties, endless gossip, lectures—everything kept moving the way it always had. Helping me fill the days so that I wouldn’t have to sit with what was missing.
The day I got placed in ITL, my MBA degree unofficially ended. Everything felt different after. Lectures, group projects, getting a decent grade, everything became a formality.
By March, as college moved closer to actually ending, I realized how much it had changed. Most of the batch was placed, and now, there were only two categories of people left. The ones with an offer and those chasing the offers.
The ones still chasing didn’t talk much about it. They didn’t need to. You could see it on their faces. Every rejection was like a slap to the face. Every shortlisting felt like a thread of hope, only for it to be snatched away when the offer went to someone else. I could see it in their eyes, the quiet fear of being left behind.
Failure in placements is easy to measure. It’s black and white, yes or no. But when people drift apart, there is no rejection email. You just realize, slowly, that you’re no longer part of someone’s life the way you used to be. Like the smoke left behind after a candle is blown out, you get left behind without any explanation.
I wasn’t absent, I was right there with everyone, sitting in class, laughing in the canteen with people around me. On the surface I looked fine. But deep down, I was only waiting. Waiting for one thing.
Tanishka.
