There were exactly thirty-seven pictures of Aariv Khurana on Vanya Kapoor's old phone. Not one included her. Not one had her by his side. Every single image had been stolen—snapped from a distance, from behind curtains, from the safety of a crowd, where no one noticed her trembling hands.

She had first seen him at sixteen. Her father had just been offered a position on the Khurana estate, and she had tagged along nervously, clutching her dupatta like armor. Aariv was nineteen then, walking across the lawn with a cricket bat balanced on his shoulder, laughter spilling into the evening air. She had forgotten how to breathe.

From that day, he lived in her imagination, in the quiet corners of her mind.

Sometimes, late at night, she imagined their life together. She pictured him waiting in the kitchen as she brought in fresh chapatis, hair still slightly damp from the morning shower, sleeves rolled up, hands steady as he brewed her coffee just the way she liked it. She imagined their small arguments—him teasing her for leaving her books scattered across the living room, her scolding him for reading the newspaper too early, both of them laughing, quietly, like no one else existed.

She imagined elegant dinners in the estate dining room, candlelight reflecting off his sharp features. He would be impeccably dressed, calm, controlled, measuring every word, but every glance aimed only at her. She would lean across the table, fingers brushing his, and in the way he tightened his hand around hers, she would see trust, devotion, a man who could carry the weight of a legacy yet choose to carry her heart with equal care.

She imagined mornings in soft light, him reading the business pages while she sipped her coffee, the air filled with the quiet rhythm of shared life. The rain tapping against the terrace window, a monsoon that mirrored the storm of her own heart, and him turning to her with a smile that belonged only to her.

She imagined arguments too. Fierce ones. He would never raise his voice, never be careless, but he would stand firm, principled, taking responsibility for every misstep in the way that made her admire him even in disagreement. And when the argument ended, when they both softened, it would be tender—his hand finding hers, fingers intertwining, and she would feel both the fire and the calm, the passion and the restraint.

She liked men like him. Controlled. Mannered. Responsible. Sons who carried their family's name with quiet pride, who built empires with their minds and hearts equally, and who could love with deliberate, precise devotion.

And still... she kept the pictures. Still... she kept the hope.

Vanya Kapoor was not beautiful. She had known that since she was eleven, when a classmate had sneered "moti" and run off laughing. She wasn't delicate, fashionable, or "wife material." She was twenty-nine, plus-sized, chatty, happiest tucked under a fuzzy blanket, bingeing K-dramas. But she believed in love. Epic love. Fate. Slow glances. Sudden heartbeats.

To her, Aariv Khurana was everything. Harvard-returned. Impeccable. Thirty-two. Sharp, composed, always three steps ahead. The man who could elevate a name, a legacy, a life. The man who could, if she were lucky enough, one day turn his controlled, measured devotion to her.

She knew everything about him: butter chicken with extra spicy garlic naan, tailored shirts and Zara travel editions, hatred for ketchup but love for mint chutney, business thrillers, historical dramas, black coffee, neat whiskey, Tom Ford. Always.

She kept a journal. Aariv's World. Every book he mentioned, she read. Every outfit he praised, she noted. Every girl he dated—studied. Dimples, Pilates bodies, marathon runners. She tried it all. She cut her hair, dyed it, squeezed herself into shapewear, wore heels she couldn't walk in—all for him.

Not as a neighbor. Not as the cheerful, chubby professor. But as a woman. His woman. It wasn't obsession. It was hope. Destiny. Love, like in the movies.

And still, deep in the quiet of her heart, Vanya knew the truth: she lived in a world where he had never once looked back. Yet even that truth, unbearable as it was, could not dim the visions she nurtured, the life she dreamed of in stolen moments, or the ache that made her heart both fragile and infinite.

Life had continued, even after everything had changed. Five years ago, Vanya's parents had died in a car accident, leaving her untethered, alone in a world that suddenly felt too wide and too cold. She had been barely twenty-four, just beginning to navigate life on her own, when Mr. Khurana—Aariv's father—had stepped in. Quietly, efficiently, without fuss or fanfare, he had taken her under his wing.

She lived now in a small outhouse on the Khurana estate. It was modest, but it was home, and more than that—it was safety. Harish Uncle, her father's friend and his boss, checked in on her and made sure she had everything she needed. But nothing could replace her parents, and some nights she still found herself sitting in her small room, clutching an old photograph, imagining their laughter, their voices, and the warmth she had lost.

College offered a small, almost frivolous reprieve from the weight of that absence. Her friends were bright, teasing, and alive in ways she admired but could not entirely share. And of course, they knew. They knew about her crush on Aariv.

"You've been staring at him again, haven't you?" Priya had whispered, elbowing Vanya during lunch. "Do you even hear what anyone's saying, or are you too busy imagining him proposing?"

Vanya had laughed, a little too quickly, a little too loudly, cheeks warm. "I—don't be ridiculous," she had stammered, but her heart had leapt in a way it always did when Aariv's name crossed her friends' lips.

"Come on, Vanya," said Meera, grinning. "You literally glow when someone mentions him. It's pathetic—and adorable."

She laughed again, hiding the flutter in her chest. They didn't understand—how could they? Aariv wasn't just a handsome face at college or a name whispered in gossip. He was the man who had taken care of her when she had no one else, who carried the estate and its legacy with effortless authority, whose mere presence could make her pulse quicken. He was everything she had ever imagined in a man—controlled, mannered, responsible, the kind who could take a name to new heights and still notice the little things that mattered.

Yet, no matter how much she dreamed, he didn't see her the way she saw him. And still... she let herself hope. Because in her world, where her parents' laughter was gone and the house felt emptier than it should, hope—and Aariv—were the closest things she had to family.