Mom turns around slightly, her seatbelt tugging at her shoulder. “You girls have always been like two halves of the same moon.”
That makes me smile.
“She promised to make the bracelet with her own hands for my birthday,” I say, smiling.
“That sounds just like Kavya,” Dad chuckles. “Your mother used to do that too… knitting me the ugliest scarves every winter when we first got married.”
Mom gasps, smacking his arm playfully. “Ugly? You wore them every day!”
“I wore them because I loved you,” he says, his eyes twinkling.
I laugh. A real one. And just like that, everything feels light again.
Until—
A blinding glare catches the corner of my eye. I turn my head to the left, and my heart lurches. I notice a truck barreling towards the intersection, too fast, too close, too sudden.
“Dad!” I scream, and suddenly, everything happens all at once. The screech of tyres, my mother’s gasp, my father yanking the steering wheel in a desperate attempt to avoid the collision. The car jerks violently, but it’s already too late.
The sickening crunch of metal fills the air as glass shatters around us, and the force of the impact hurls my body sideways. My head slams hard against the window, and a sharp painflashes through me. In the next second, everything begins to blur. I can’t focus on anything, except for the rapid pounding of my heart, drowning out the world until there’s nothing left. Just darkness.
Chapter 1
Nisha
Around a year later
“You have no idea how beautiful you are,” he says, his gaze locked on mine across the empty classroom.
My throat tightens. I try to speak, probably to thank him, but the words crumble before they can form on my lips. Then, in the next moment, my breathing quickens as I see him rise from his seat. He takes one step towards me, then another.
“I still remember,” he murmurs, his voice thick, “the first time I saw you. You didn’t even look at me. But I couldn’t take my eyes off you the entire lecture.”
He stops in front of my desk, bending slightly so we’re eye to eye.
“You were wearing that pale blue kurta,” he says, his smile widening. “Your hair was in a loose braid, and you laughed at something your friend said. You had no idea how smitten I was with you in that moment.” He reaches out, and his fingers brush over my cheek. “I am truly your admirer.”
The shrill beeping of the monitor jolts me awake, and I gasp, choking on air that suddenly feels too thick.I am safe. I amsafe. He can’t hurt me. He can’t.I whisper it over and over like a mantra, but the words barely graze the panic clawing its way up my spine. My chest tightens, and I feel my lungs begin to burn. God, I can’t breathe.
No. I can’t let him haunt me. I need to think about something else.
Clinging to that thought, I force my eyes open and look around the hospital room: white walls, a small window with pale blue curtains, and the faint hum of the ceiling fan above. Slowly, my gaze shifts to the corner of the room, and for a moment, I think I see him. My heart lurches, but when I blink, he’s gone.
He’s not here. He’s not here,I tell myself again, but my mind seems determined to play tricks on me.
All I can think of are his cold fingers wrapped around my wrist, and his voice brushing against my skin as he whispers…
No. Stop.
I squeeze my eyes shut and dig my nails into my palm, hoping for the darkness to take over. But instead, everything comes rushing back, the moments that brought me here, lying in this hospital bed. One mistake. One moment of trust given to the wrong person. One name. The reason for all of this—Prakash.
It’s been eight hours since they brought me to the hospital. Eight hours since I regained consciousness. But in that short span of time, my world has turned completely upside down. Twisted, broken, unrecognizable.
Earlier, when Inspector Viraj Shetty came to take my official statement and check on me, I asked him to tell me the truth. He hesitated at first, weighing his words, but when I insisted, he tore off the emotional bandage I didn’t even know I was wearing.
That’s when I learned I’d been in a coma for an entire year. And in that one year, I’d lost everything. My parents were killed in the very crash I somehow survived. But that wasn’t the worst part. The crash hadn’t been an accident. It was deliberate,orchestrated. And as if that truth wasn’t enough to shatter me, Inspector Viraj delivered another devastating blow. Suman, my best friend… she had been murdered.
And it was all because ofhim. Because I let Prakash into my life. Because I was too blind to see the monster hiding behind that perfect smile.
