Vedant's POV
I've never liked rehearsals.
Too performative.
Too exposed.
Too many chances to get it wrong.
But tonight, I was the one who offered to run the opening scene.
The one based on my mother.
The silence.
The tea.
The memory she never spoke aloud.
Arohi volunteered to play the other half.
She didn't ask.
She just stood, notebook in hand, and walked to the center of the room like she belonged there.
We didn't need props.
Just two chairs.
One silence.
I sat.
She sat beside me.
Not facing me.
Just close enough that I could feel her breath shift when I spoke.
"I brought you tea," I said, voice low.
She didn't respond.
Just stared at the imaginary cup in her hands like it held something heavier than liquid.
I waited.
She didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
And suddenly, it wasn't a scene.
It was real.
I could feel the weight of her silence pressing against mine.
Not empty.
Not passive.
Alive.
She turned slightly, just enough for her shoulder to brush mine.
Not a mistake.
Not a flinch.
A choice.
I forgot my next line.
She looked at me then.
Not dramatically.
Just… looked.
And I saw it.
The shift.
The same one I'd felt in class when she sat beside me instead of across.
She was affecting me.
Not loudly.
Not obviously.
But in the way that makes your pulse change rhythm.
In the way that makes you forget what the scene was supposed to be about.
I said the next line.
"I didn't ask what was wrong."
She whispered, "You should've."
And I swear, it didn't feel like acting.
It felt like confession.
I looked at her.
Really looked.
Her hair was pulled back loosely, a few strands falling forward.
Her eyes—sharp, unreadable—held something softer tonight.
Her fingers rested on her lap, still.
But her presence wasn't still at all.
It was movement.
It was tension.
It was gravity.
I wanted to say something.
Not as the character.
As me.
But I didn't.
Because she was already looking away.
Already back in control.
And I realized—
She wasn't just playing the scene.
She was rewriting it.
And I was letting her.