Author pov :🍀🍀🍀================

But everything changed when Meera turned 15

Her mother, Sita, who had always been a pillar of strength and warmth, fell gravely ill. It began with a persistent cough, one that she brushed off with a tired smile.

“Just the changing weather,” she would say, stirring dal over the small stove, her hands trembling slightly. Meera watched her, worry pressing like a weight in her chest. “Don’t look at me like that, beti. I’ll be fine.”

But it wasn’t the weather.

After some days:🏵️🏵️🏵️____________________

the cough turned into fever. Her breath grew shallow. Her skin grew pale. By the time Meera convinced one of the other maids to fetch a doctor, her mother was barely conscious.

The doctor came too late.

One morning, Meera woke to silence. Her mother’s chest didn’t rise. Her hand, when Meera touched it, was cold. The scream that tore from her throat echoed through the walls of the servants’ quarters.

No one came right away.

And when they did, they didn’t bring warmth. They brought towels. Instructions. A stretcher.

The Oberois didn’t come.

Only Veer, Aarav’s older brother, appeared for a moment, watching from a distance with a somber, unreadable expression.

Mrs. Oberoi gave her verdict with the air of discussing laundry.

“She can stay,” she said to the butler. “But she’ll take her mother’s duties. We need hands.”

From that day, Meera became invisible.

She rose before dawn and worked long after the others slept. She scrubbed floors, washed linens, polished banisters, dusted chandeliers. Her childhood vanished in the steam of boiling laundry and the sting of soap in her cuts.

She believed—foolishly—that her bond with Aarav might still survive.

But the first time she saw him again, he didn’t speak. Didn’t look at her like he used to. Just walked past.

“Aarav,” she said softly.

He stopped. Turned.

For a moment, she thought she saw something break in his expression.

“You shouldn’t call me that,” he said sharply. “It’s disrespectful.”

“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“You’re not who you were,” he snapped. “You’re a maid now. Act like one.”

Her heart twisted. She bit her tongue, bowed her head.

From that moment on, he was cold. Distant.

She was cleaning the grand staircase one morning when he descended, boots caked with mud from the garden.

“Missed a spot,” he said, stepping deliberately in her path.

Later that week:🌺🌺🌺____________________

she served him coffee on a tray with trembling hands. He took one sniff and flung the cup across the floor.

“Did you touch this?” he asked, glaring at her.

She blinked. “I… I always do, sir—”

“Don’t speak unless spoken to. I don’t drink from filthy hands.”

She knelt, hands shaking, picking up the broken pieces as blood bloomed from a nick on her finger.

He didn’t speak.

the next morning :🍁🍁🍁_______________________

there was a pair of new gloves in her cupboard—soft leather, clearly expensive.

No note.

Just silence.

Another time, she was in the garden, carrying a tray of glasses, when she tripped over a hose. The glasses crashed to the ground, slicing her arm.

Aarav was there before anyone else moved.

“Are you all statues?” he barked. “Get something to stop the bleeding!”

Then, softer, to her: “Can you sit? Does it hurt much?”

She stared at him, too stunned to speak.

He wrapped a handkerchief around her arm, hands surprisingly gentle.

But as soon as another servant arrived with cloth, he stood.

“Be more careful next time,” he said, voice clipped. “We can’t keep replacing glassware for your clumsiness.”

that night : 🌸🌸🌸________________

when she returned to her small room, she found a salve—the same kind her mother used to apply when she scraped her knees as a child. Minty. Familiar.

No one else knew that.

It was him.

Another evening :🪷🪷🪷______________________

she was lighting candles in the dining room when the flame caught the edge of her sleeve. She cried out, patting it down. The burn was small, but painful.

Aarav entered just in time to see her flinch.

“What the hell happened?” he demanded.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled.

“You’re shaking.”

“I said I’m fine, sir.”

He moved closer. “Let me see.”

She didn’t move.

“Let me see, Meera.”

She held out her wrist. His fingers brushed her skin, and she felt him pause.

Then he dropped her hand and stepped back.

“You should’ve known better than to lean over the flame like that,” he said coldly. “You’re not a child anymore.”

She swallowed the sting, nodded.

But the next morning, her tasks were mysteriously lighter. No stair duty. No scrubbing.

And on her pillow, a small tin of aloe cream.

No note.

Just him. Always him. Cruel one moment, tender the next.

She didn’t know which version of him to believe.

Once, she caught him watching her in the corridor. His eyes weren’t cold then. They were lost. Haunted. As if he wanted to say something.

But when she opened her mouth, he turned and walked away.

Later that night : 💮💮💮_____________________

while she swept the empty veranda, he passed her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” he muttered, pausing.

“Like what?”

“Like you still think I’m the boy you used to know.”

Her voice cracked. “Because sometimes I think you still are.”

He didn’t answer.

Just looked at her for a long, aching moment, then said: “You’ll never be more than what you are, Meera.”

Then he walked off, shoulders rigid.

But that night, it rained. Her room leaked. She curled up in a damp blanket, teeth chattering.

When she woke the next morning, someone had placed a dry woolen shawl over her.

And outside her door, muddy footprints led away.

She knew those shoes.

She remembered the boy who held her hand under the mango tree.

And though the world had turned cold, she couldn’t stop believing he was still in there—buried beneath ice and silence.