Between Her Lines

Chapter 1 - The Connection

Some stories begin with a meeting.

Ours began with a notification.

It was an ordinary day at college.

Nothing special had happened.

Classes had gone by the way they usually did-some interesting, some boring, and some that made me look at the clock more times than I would like to admit.

By the time I had a little free time, I opened LinkedIn.

I wasn't looking for anything in particular.

I was simply scrolling.

Post after post.

Achievement after achievement.

Internships.

Certifications.

People announcing things I barely understood.

And then I noticed something.

A name I didn't recognize had liked my friend's post.

I paused.

Not because there was anything particularly interesting about the post.

I just wondered...

Who is he?

I tapped on his profile.

His name was Arjun.

Final-year B.Tech IT.

Same college.

I stared at his profile for a few seconds.

There was something oddly familiar about him.

I couldn't explain it.

I had never spoken to him.

As far as I knew, we'd never even properly met.

And yet, looking at his profile gave me the strangest feeling-as though I had seen him somewhere before.

Maybe it was just my imagination.

I closed his profile.

A few minutes later, I opened it again.

I don't know why.

Curiosity, perhaps.

I looked through his profile for a little while.

He seemed focused.

Academically good.

The kind of person who actually knew where he wanted to go in life.

I closed the app again.

That should have been the end of it.

It wasn't.

A little later, I received a notification.

Arjun viewed your profile.

I smiled without realizing it.

"Okay..."

I opened his profile again.

Then his profile disappeared from my screen.

I put my phone down.

A few minutes passed.

I picked it up again.

Nothing.

I laughed at myself.

Why was I even checking?

Then, later that day-

You have a new connection request.

I already knew who it was.

Arjun.

I stared at the request.

Usually, I accepted requests without starting conversations.

I wasn't someone who randomly messaged people I didn't know.

Accepting was one thing.

Talking was another.

But for some reason...

this time felt different.

I accepted.

And that should have been it.

Except my fingers were already hovering over the message box.

I hesitated.

Why am I doing this?

I could simply leave it.

He probably wouldn't even expect me to say anything.

But then I thought about the strange familiarity I'd felt when I first saw his profile.

Maybe I just wanted to know who he was.

Maybe it was curiosity.

Maybe it was something I wouldn't understand until much later.

So I typed.

Hi! I'm Nila. I think we're studying in the same college. Can I know a little about you? Could you tell me about yourself?

I read it once.

Twice.

Then pressed send.

The message was gone.

My heart suddenly felt a little louder than it should have.

I placed my phone beside me and tried to act normal.

A few seconds later-

Arjun is online.

I blinked.

And almost immediately, the reply appeared.

Hey! Sure. I'm Arjun...

I smiled.

He began introducing himself.

Final-year B.Tech IT.

His interests.

His plans.

His dreams.

The things he wanted to achieve.

I asked questions.

He answered.

Then he asked something about me.

I answered.

One question became another.

Then another.

The conversation slowly stopped feeling like two strangers introducing themselves.

It felt easy.

Comfortable.

Natural.

I didn't notice the time.

Neither did he.

We just kept talking.

Until, somewhere in the middle of the conversation, I looked at the clock.

Four hours.

Four hours had passed.

And neither of us had eaten lunch.

I stared at the screen in disbelief.

Then I laughed.

"Okay, enough. Go eat."

He said the same thing to me.

We finally agreed to leave.

Neither of us knew it yet...

but that was the first time our ordinary lives had crossed.

And neither of us knew that a simple LinkedIn conversation would eventually become a chapter neither of us would know how to forget.