Part 1: The Beginning of “Us”

I don’t know if it started as a joke, or if fate has a messed-up sense of humor.

What I do know is — I never planned on falling for anyone. Especially not like that.

It all began with Anurag — someone I had grown close to in college, someone I considered like a brother. The day he suddenly proposed to me, I was stunned. Not touched. Not flattered. Just… confused. I rejected him without hesitation. Because how do you see your brother one day and your boyfriend the next? You don’t.

Sana and I were walking that evening when his name came up. She teased me gently, “You should try being in a relationship. It’s not that dangerous. Maybe you should’ve just said yes to Anurag.”

I remember laughing it off, brushing the thought away like dust off my sleeve.

I told her flatly, “No. Anurag is a friend. Nothing more.”

She paused, smiled mischievously and said, “Then maybe you’ll try with someone else.”

And I replied — jokingly, recklessly — “Who would even want to be in a relationship with me? No one.”

I didn’t think she’d take that seriously. But Sana did.

I had no idea that later that night, she actually reached out to her cousin Kunal and started playing matchmaker behind the scenes. I wasn’t in on any of it. To me, it was just another fleeting conversation, lost and forgotten.

Turns out, one of Sana’s cousins — Kunal — had somehow been Facebook friends with me already. I barely noticed. There were whispers about him and Riya in some kind of messy situationship, so I hadn’t paid much attention to him at all.

Then one evening, a message popped up.

“Are you really looking to be in a relationship?”

I blinked. What?

I immediately messaged Sana — “Did you tell someone something?”

That’s when it all came tumbling out. She had told Kunal, and he had told Ritvik. She said she and Kunal had discussed two guys — Ritvik and Neel— but Neel was out because we were from the same caste. So apparently, they had already sent my photo to Ritvik… and he agreed to talk to me.

That’s how it began.

Kunal messaged me again and said, “Ritvik is a good guy. He’s my friend, and this would be his first relationship too. Just accept his friend request and talk.”

That night, I panicked.

This wasn’t supposed to be serious.

Not for someone like me — someone with a messy childhood, someone who grew up watching her parents’ marriage slowly fall apart like old walls in an earthquake.

I had made a silent promise to myself: Never love. Never marry. Never go near that fire.

I messaged Sana, telling her I had just been joking. But she insisted, “Just talk to him. If it doesn’t feel right, stop.”

So I took a deep breath and tried to be brave.

I accepted Ritvik’s friend request.

His first message was simple: “Hey.”

I replied, “Hey.”

We made small talk — he told me he was from Kathmandu, I told him I was from Biratnagar. We talked about relationships. He said he was looking for something real, something with a future.

I told him I was trying out this “love thing” for the first time — and if it didn’t work, I’d never try again.

That was it for the night. Just a few messages, and we said goodnight.

The next morning, I woke up to a message that left me speechless.

Ritvik had proposed to me.

Already.

I stared at my screen, half-convinced I was being pranked. Was this some weird setup from Sana and Kunal? I asked him straight up — “Is this a joke?”

He said no.

I was shaking. I messaged Sana again. She said, “Maybe give it a try. He’s a good guy, and he won’t hurt you.”

Kunal too started pressing for a quick answer — as if love was a yes-or-no question on a form.

“Just answer,” he said. “If yes, then great. If not, we move on.”

I later found out they had given Ritvik the same pressure — to propose quickly before he missed his chance.

Still, Ritvik didn’t say I love you — he said, I like you. And that made it feel… maybe not safe, but at least softer.