Book 2 chapter 1
The Doorstep
If someone had told me I'd leave home without a plan, just two changes of clothes, bus fare, and a phone barely charged, I wouldn't have believed them.
But here I was.
Drenched in rainwater, standing under a stone archway with lion carvings older than my mother, ringing the doorbell of a house I hadn't visited since I was a child.
A house I knew too well.
Mathan's house.
The rain hadn't stopped since morning. I took two buses and a train to get here. Crossed three cities. No call. No warning. I just showed up. Because I couldn't stop thinking about him.
It had been a month since we last saw each other. Since that night.
Since I held him in my bed like it was the last time.
And then… silence.
New term. New city. New schedule.
I started college , you know medicine, as planned. My mother transferred jobs to a clinic nearby. We were settling into this new life. I was doing everything right.
Except my heart was still in the past.
The heavy doors creaked open.
Two maids stood on the other side, both startled by the sight of me soaked through, shivering slightly, bag slung over my shoulder.
"I'm here to see Mathan," I said quietly, my voice a little hoarse from the cold.
Before they could respond, I heard footsteps from inside.
Then I saw them.
His parents.
And him.
Standing in the grand foyer like a portrait, his father stern, his mother unreadable, and Mathan in the middle of them. Wearing a loose sweatshirt and socks. He hadn't expected me. That much was clear.
But he didn't look away.
His eyes locked on mine like I'd stepped out of a dream and into the room.
"Mathew?" he breathed.
I didn't speak. I couldn't. My throat felt tight.
The silence that followed was cut by his mother's voice, sharp and clean:
"What is he doing here?"
I saw something flicker across Mathan's face
not fear. Not shame. Something harder.
His jaw tightened.
Then he stepped forward.
And for the first time in weeks, I heard his voice not in memory, but here!! alive and defiant.
"He's here because I love him."
His father's brow twitched. "Watch your mouth."
"No," Mathan said, voice firm. "You don't get to scare me into silence anymore. Not about this."
I stood frozen in the doorway, dripping rainwater onto their marble floor, heart pounding so loud I could hear it in my ears.
Mathan crossed the space between us.
"He's not some mistake I made in school," he added. "He's mine. He always has been."
"Mathan," his mother hissed. "This is not the time.. "
"Actually," he interrupted, "it's the perfect time."
Then he turned to me. He didn't look nervous. He didn't even look surprised anymore.
He looked like a boy who'd decided.
"You came all this way for me?" he asked, voice gentler now, eyes soft.
I nodded, barely.
Without another word, he stepped past both his parents, reached for my hand, and pulled me fully inside the house. His fingers were warm. Sure.
"Let's go," he said.
"Mathan… " his father started.
But he didn't stop walking.
And neither did I.
He led me through the wide corridor like he'd done when we were kids, when we'd sneak candy from the kitchen
Except now, I wasn't some childhood friend. I was his.
And this time, he was walking beside me like nothing in this house could touch us.
Not even them.