There was something sacred about the summer after turning seventeen. Time moved differently. Slower. Softer. As though the universe knew these were the last days before life would stop being kind.
Rihanna Thompson spent most of that summer barefoot on the rooftop, her sketchbook balanced on her knees and her playlist of heartbreak songs echoing from a tiny Bluetooth speaker. Her dreams spilled in shades of ink and graphite—eyes she'd never seen, cities she'd never touched, stories that didn't belong to her.
But there was one story she hoped would become hers.
Aarav Mehta.
He wasn't extraordinary in the way novels described—he didn't drive fast cars or speak in riddles. He was the boy with quiet confidence, the one who played rhythm guitar in the local church band and smelled like old books and rainy evenings. His voice was gentle, like lullabies and trust. His laughter didn't try to impress anyone.
He noticed Rihanna before she even realized she wanted to be seen.
It started simply.
A shared umbrella during an unexpected monsoon. Her journal got soaked. His sketch of her face on a café napkin the next day. A shy note tucked between her English textbook pages.
"You don't realize it yet, but you're the kind of girl people write tragic poetry about."
It should've been a red flag.
But for Rihanna, it was the kind of line that made her heart sprint. Because that's what she believed love was supposed to be—tragic, poetic, unforgettable.
They fell into something. Maybe not love, not yet. But something delicate, something charged. Evening phone calls that stretched into midnight silences. Secret glances during tuition classes. Touches that lingered just a little too long. That dangerous kind of hope only first loves carry.
"You always look like you're waiting for something bigger," Aarav said once as they sat under a rusting bus stop awning, rain tapping like secrets around them.
"Maybe I am," she whispered.
He looked at her then—really looked. "You don't have to go looking for storms, Ri."
But Rihanna didn't believe that. Not really.
She had always craved chaos disguised as romance.
In her journal, she wrote:
"I want a love that makes me forget where I end and he begins. I want intensity, obsession, depth. The kind of love that burns."
And Aarav… he was warmth. But not fire.
Still, they kissed for the first time behind an abandoned bookstore, her heart pounding like it was writing poetry on its own. He cupped her cheek like she was precious. Like he was afraid to break her.
And maybe that's why it didn't last.
She needed to be broken. She didn't know it yet—but she was aching for something to destroy her, to prove she could survive it.
Aarav's love was too safe.
So when he left for Delhi to pursue engineering, they both pretended it didn't hurt. She smiled through their final hug. He said he'd write. She said she'd wait.
Neither kept the promise.
But that night, alone on her rooftop, Rihanna stared at the stars and whispered into the wind,
"Next time, I want it to feel like war."
She didn't know that the next time…It would be.
And she'd lose.