Just Once In My Life - Part - III

When I woke, the morning light was streaming in through a gap in the curtains. It was 9:45. I reached out instinctively, but the space beside me was empty, the bedsheet cold.

“Jhanvi?” I called out softly, scanning the room.

No answer. Her bag was gone. The scarf she’d been wearing the night before — gone. Even the faint scent of her perfume seemed to have disappeared into the air.

A tightness grew in my chest as I checked the terrace, the bathroom, the corridors outside. She was nowhere. It felt as if the night before had been a dream — one of those vivid ones that leave you unsettled when you wake.

A knock broke the silence.

When I opened the door, a housekeeping guy stood there holding a tray. “Miss Jhanvi asked me to give you this breakfast,” he said with a polite nod.

On the tray was a simple but comforting spread: hot aloo parathas with a square of butter melting slowly on top, a small bowl of curd, tangy mango pickle, and a steel kettle of masala chai.

He walked in, set the tray on the dinner table, and left quietly. That’s when I noticed it, half-tucked beneath the plate, a folded note.

I picked it up.

Kartik,

Thank you — for listening, for not judging, for last night. It was special. I’ll never forget it. But our paths… they lead in different directions. I still have a long way to go before I can call my dreams my own.

Don’t let the walls you were born into keep you in. Break them, even if it scares you. Love yourself before you try to love anyone else. And if you want to leave this small town, leave. No matter what.

Jhanvi

I sat there for a long time, chai cooling in my hands, her words echoing louder than the city outside.

That morning changed something in me.

Nine years later

The rain was falling in silver sheets over Marine Drive, blurring the line where the sea met the sky. The Arabian Sea roared against the tetrapods, waves splashing high enough to wet the stone promenade. Monsoon in Mumbai has a strange beauty—it’s chaotic, grey, and yet impossibly alive.

I sat alone, the note still folded neatly in my hand, the ink faded but legible.

Life had carried me far from that terrace in Jodhpur. I’d left a year after meeting Jhanvi, first to Delhi, then to Gurugram. The call center job paid little, but it gave me space to breathe. That’s where I met Puneet from Kalyan, who dreamed of starting a hosiery business. His energy was infectious, and I began saving with him. By then, my parents had accepted my choices. They even helped me invest.

Two years later, we left our jobs and moved to Kalyan. The small mill we opened in Ulhasnagar scraped by at first, importing raw material from Surat. Months of work paid off, and slowly, we started making profits.

That’s when I met Ragini. She lived in my neighborhood, a schoolteacher with an easy smile. I proposed within weeks, and by the end of the year, we were married. Now we have two kids and a life in Kalyan.

But some memories….they don’t fade. I’ve never told Ragini about Jhanvi. No one knows. It’s mine alone, the night I smoked weed for the first and only time, the night I held a stranger as if we’d known each other forever, the night I had the best conversation of my life with someone I never saw again.

I looked at the note once more, the paper worn soft with time. The rain drummed on the city, and the sea kept its endless rhythm. Somewhere, I thought, Jhanvi was still walking her road, and I silently hoped she had found what she was looking for.

-------------------------------------------------------------The End----------------------------------------------------------------