“Unwritten Verses”

( C ) All right reserved by the author

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Part One: The Spark

I never expected my summer job to change my life, but I suppose that’s how fate works—it sneaks up on you when you least expect it. It was the kind of humid July afternoon where the air felt thick, clinging to my skin like an invisible weight. I had just finished my shift at the bookstore, wiping my hands on my jeans as I stepped outside. The scent of fresh paper and coffee still lingered on me. And that’s when I saw her.

She was leaning against a red convertible, flipping through the pages of a novel, lost in her own world. There was something effortlessly magnetic about her—the way her sun-kissed skin glowed against the fading afternoon light, the wavy chestnut hair that framed her high cheekbones, the intelligent eyes that seemed to carry the weight of stories untold.

I don’t know what compelled me to walk up to her. Maybe it was curiosity, or maybe it was the electric pull of something I didn’t yet understand. “That’s a good book,” I blurted out, pointing at the Hemingway novel in her hands.

She looked up, her lips curving into a knowing smile. “It is. But I don’t think most teenagers would agree.”

I grinned, a little bolder than I should’ve been. “Well, I’m not most teenagers.”

Her laughter was soft, like the chime of wind through leaves. “Clearly.”

And just like that, the world tilted.

RAJAT CHANDRA SARMAH

Guwahati , Assam , India 

21/02/2025