The first thing Rhea noticed about Elmridge University wasn’t the grandeur of its stone buildings or the hum of a hundred conversations—it was the tree.

A cherry blossom, tall and regal, stood at the heart of the courtyard. Its pale pink petals floated gently to the ground like whispers, creating a soft carpet beneath the iron bench beneath it. The world around it moved quickly—students hurrying to class, clubs advertising loudly, laughter echoing from distant corners—but the tree remained still. Unbothered. Untouched.

Just like her.

She clutched the strap of her bag tighter, her heart thudding beneath her cotton kurti. It was orientation day, and while others clicked selfies and huddled in new groups, she remained apart. Invisible. That was the plan. Come in quietly. Finish her degree. Leave.

She hadn’t planned to sit down, but her legs felt heavier with each step. The bench beneath the cherry tree was empty—or so she thought.

A soft voice interrupted her just as she was about to drop her bag beside her.

“Careful,” it said. “That’s where she sits.”

Rhea turned, startled. A boy—no, a young man—was already sitting on the far side of the bench, half-shadowed by the canopy. His long legs were stretched out, sketchbook balanced on one knee. His smile wasn’t mocking; if anything, it was amused.

“She?” she asked, hesitantly.

“The tree,” he replied, tapping his pencil against the wood. “She doesn’t like loud footsteps or heavy thoughts. She prefers gentle visitors.”

Rhea blinked. Either he was strange, or poetic. Maybe both.

“You talk to trees often?” she asked, unsure if she should smile or walk away.

“Only this one,” he said, glancing up at the blossoms. “She listens.”

Rhea sat at the edge of the bench, unsure if she was intruding on something sacred or just witnessing a very elaborate joke. He returned to his sketch, the pencil gliding across the page like it had a rhythm of its own.

“I’m Aarav,” he said after a moment, not looking up.

“Rhea.”

He nodded, as if her name completed something in his head.

She looked away, scanning the students who passed, loud and confident. She didn’t feel like either. Her brother used to say that college was a new chapter. A place to reinvent yourself.

But how do you reinvent when your old self never finished its story?

“What’s your major?” Aarav asked casually.

“Psychology,” she replied, watching a girl squeal as her friends threw confetti.

“Figured. You have the face of someone who notices everything but says nothing.”

“And you?” she asked.

“Architecture. I build things I can’t explain.”

That made her smile, just a little.

A gust of wind shook the tree, scattering more petals between them. One landed on her lap, fragile and soft. She picked it up, twirled it between her fingers.

“Why do you sit here every day?” she asked.

He closed his sketchbook gently, then looked at her—really looked.

“Because this is the only place on campus that feels like it’s not trying to be anything else.”

Rhea didn’t reply, but her chest ached a little. Because she knew exactly what he meant.

As the bells rang for the next session and students moved on, neither of them did. They sat beneath the cherry blossoms in comfortable silence, strangers with secrets, breathing in the brief peace the world had offered.

It was a beginning.

A quiet one.

But some of the most beautiful things begin like that.

---

The cherry tree had begun to shed more petals now.

Rhea noticed it the moment she returned to the courtyard the next morning. The same soft carpet of pink had thickened overnight, like the sky had wept poetry in silence.

She wasn’t sure why she came back. She told herself it was for the quiet. For the view. For the shade.

Not for him.

And yet… there he was again.

Aarav sat like he always did, leaned slightly forward, pencil tucked behind his ear, sketchbook half open on his lap. He looked up when she approached—not surprised, not expectant. Just calm, like he somehow knew she would return.

“You’re back,” he said, sliding a little to make room.

“Just passing by,” Rhea said, but sat down anyway.

She liked how this spot made everything else fade. The buildings, the chatter, the feeling of being new and unsure. Here, she didn’t have to smile if she didn’t want to. She didn’t have to explain herself.

For a while, neither spoke.

Birds hopped near their feet. A girl passed by crying on the phone. A professor shouted something about class rosters.

“Do you always draw?” Rhea asked, watching his fingers move on the page.

“Mostly,” Aarav said. “When I can’t say things out loud.”

She glanced at the sketchbook. He turned it slightly toward her without hesitation.

It was a pencil drawing of the cherry tree, delicate and detailed—branches twisting like veins, petals scattered like broken memories. But what struck her most wasn’t the tree. It was the two figures sitting beneath it. Tiny silhouettes. One hunched, cautious. The other open, at ease.

“It’s us,” she said quietly.

He gave a small shrug. “You sat here. So I drew you.”

“No one’s ever drawn me before.”

“Then they weren’t paying attention.”

Rhea didn’t know how to respond to that. Compliments unsettled her. She filed them away like receipts—proof that something happened, but not meant to be kept forever.

A soft breeze passed between them, carrying the scent of old rain and fresh beginnings.

She looked up at the branches. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How something so soft can survive every season.”

Aarav followed her gaze. “Maybe softness is strength.”

His voice held no weight of flirtation. It was just an observation. But it lingered longer than it should have.

Rhea hesitated. Then said, “My brother used to say that. Before he...”

She stopped herself.

Aarav looked at her, really looked.

“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything.”

But she already had. Just enough to feel the ache in her chest again. Grief didn’t need an audience. But it also didn’t like silence.

“He passed away last year,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “It changed everything. Even how I breathe.”

“I get it,” Aarav said. “My dad died when I was sixteen. After that... I built walls. Good ones. Beautiful ones. But still walls.”

And just like that, a thread tied them together.

Grief had a way of recognizing itself, even when buried beneath years or jokes or pretty sketches. It reached across benches and whispered, me too.

Rhea let out a slow breath.

“I didn’t come here to make friends,” she said.

“Neither did I.”

“But this… whatever this is... feels different.”

Aarav nodded. “Then let’s not call it anything yet. Let it just be.”

The bell rang in the distance.

Students rushed by. Some looked at them. Most didn’t.

But the cherry tree above, the petals below, and the bench between them felt like its own little world. And for the first time since her brother’s death, Rhea didn’t feel entirely alone.

She stayed a little longer.

So did he.

---

By the third week of classes, Elmridge felt less like a maze and more like a map Rhea was slowly learning to read.

But she still sat beneath the cherry blossom tree every afternoon.

It had become a ritual. Sometimes Aarav was already there, flipping through architectural textbooks or sketching in silence. Other times, she’d arrive first and pretend she wasn’t scanning the courtyard for him. Either way, they always ended up on that bench.

Together, but never too close.

Today, a paper fluttered between them—her psychology assignment on childhood attachment styles. She’d spent hours writing it in the library, chewing the end of her pen as she wondered whether she believed in attachment at all.

“You’re quiet today,” Aarav said, nudging her ankle gently with his sneaker. “Brain fried?”

Rhea smirked. “Fried. Boiled. Steamed.”

“Want to talk about it?”

She paused. “It’s about how early experiences shape our ability to connect. I’m supposed to analyze myself, but… I don’t know how honest I want to be.”

“Then lie creatively,” he said with a grin. “That's what artists do.”

She rolled her eyes but smiled despite herself.

A group of seniors walked by, laughing loudly, one of them tossing a paper plane that landed near Aarav’s feet. He picked it up lazily but paused mid-motion.

His expression changed.

Rhea noticed immediately. “What is it?”

He didn’t answer right away. His fingers unfolded the plane, eyes scanning the crude message scribbled inside.

“Run all you want, golden boy. You can’t draw over the truth.”

Rhea blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Aarav shrugged quickly, too quickly. “Nothing. Just a stupid prank.”

But his jaw had tightened. The kind of tension that doesn't come from jokes.

She didn’t press, but the words stayed with her—like cracks in a painting she couldn’t unsee.

He tucked the note into his sketchbook and changed the subject. “Hey, we got paired for the Cultural Fest showcase.”

Rhea looked up, confused. “We did?”

“Group list is on the student board. Architecture and Psych students collaborating for an art-therapy installation. We’re building something that explores memory and emotion.”

Her brows rose. “You already knew and didn’t tell me?”

“I wanted to see your face when I dropped the news.”

“You enjoy surprises?”

“Only the kind that don’t explode.”

She stared at him a moment longer. Whatever that note meant, it had clearly stirred something in him. But Aarav, with all his ease and sketches, was someone who carefully built walls behind every word.

Maybe that’s why she trusted him.

Because she did the same.

The next few days passed in a flurry of designs, late-night notes, and silent moments shared beneath diagrams and concept drafts. Aarav brought scraps of wood and wire; Rhea brought words and ideas. Slowly, their installation took form: a giant tree, half of it lush and blooming, the other half dry and leafless. Visitors would walk through it, triggering recordings of voices—some joyous, some heavy.

It was titled “Roots and Ruins.”

“Memories,” Aarav had explained, “aren’t just what you remember. They’re what grow from what you forget.”

Rhea had paused, looking at him like she wanted to ask something. But didn’t.

That night, she sat alone on the cherry blossom bench, sketchbook in her lap.

She opened it.

The paper plane note slipped out.

She stared at it, rereading the line.

You can’t draw over the truth.

Something about it made her chest tighten. She didn’t know Aarav’s truth yet. But she had a feeling it was messier than he let on.

Still, she folded the paper again and tucked it back in gently.

If he was hiding something…

She’d wait.

Not to push.

But to be there when he needed someone who wouldn’t walk away.

---