Chapter 2 The Promise That Stayed
388 Words
The next morning, the terrace felt different.
Quieter.
Emptier.
Like someone had taken away its sunshine.
Arjun stood where Meera had sat yesterday, kicking a tiny pebble with his slipper. The chalk drawings were still there—clouds, suns, crooked stars, and that small heart in the corner.
But Meera wasn’t.
He pressed the red button on the pink keychain again.
“You will always be in my heart.”
The tiny speaker crackled, but the voice felt warm, like she was still sitting beside him. Arjun closed his eyes and listened again.
And again.
“Arjun!” his grandmother called. “Breakfast!”
He didn’t move.
“Arree baaboy, come down!” she shouted louder.
He sighed dramatically, stuffed the keychain into his shorts pocket, and trudged downstairs.
---
At the dining table
His grandmother looked at him suspiciously.
“Why your face looks like someone stole your cricket bat?”
Arjun poked his idli with a spoon.
“Meera went away.”
“Who?”
“The new girl. She said she will come every day. But she left.”
His grandmother nodded knowingly.
“Ayyo, paapa… People come and go. You must not feel sad.”
“But I promised I’ll play with her tomorrow,” Arjun mumbled.
His grandmother hid a smile.
“So you’re missing her that much?”
“No!” he snapped too quickly. “I mean… just a little.”
“Hmm,” she dragged the sound, teasing him. “Just a little.”
Arjun glared at his idli.
---
Later that day
Arjun took a notebook and drew the terrace.
Then he drew the stick boy and stick girl.
He added two clouds.
And a small heart.
But this time, he wrote something under it:
“Come back soon.”
He didn’t know where Meera was.
He didn’t know if she would ever return.
But he knew one thing—
He would remember her.
The girl who laughed like bells.
The girl who drew silly clouds.
The girl who gave him a keychain with her heartbeat inside it.
He pressed the button again.
“You will always be in my heart.”
Arjun looked up at the terrace door.
He didn’t understand much about promises.
But he understood this:
He wanted to keep hers.
---
End of Chapter 2
- Writer
