"I can almost see it,
that dream I'm dreaming,
But there's a voice inside my head saying
You'll never reach it"
~ The Climb - Miley Cyrus
June 29th
Mid-June in California felt like borrowed time.
Kashvi stood in her room, holding her guitar. She was trying to play a song she loved, one she had heard many times before. She wasn't writing music—just singing along, the way she always did. Still, something felt off. The tune didn't sound right today. Neither did she.
Outside her window, the neighborhood was busy with summer sounds. Kids rode their bikes down the street. Families laughed in their backyards. It was a life she never wanted and never thought she would be living.
Suddenly she heard her aunt calling her, "Kashvi, aaja khana kha le."
(Translation: - Kashvi come and have your dinner)
She didn't reply immediately. Just kept playing her guitar.
The room around her told the story she'd never speak aloud. Pictures of her favourite actors & singers pinned just above her bed. Her guitar stand propped in the corner. And leaning against her closet her bike's helmet, still bearing the scuff marks from that night she'd taken a turn too fast, chasing the kind of freedom that only came at seventy miles per hour with the wind drowning out her thoughts.
Her phone buzzed on the desk, pulling her back to reality.
REMINDER: - College starts, July 13th- 2026, Westridge Central College
Kashvi exhaled slowly, setting her guitar back to its place. In exactly two weeks she'd be starting at Westridge Central College as a fashion design major. Full-ride scholarship. The future she'd worked her ass off for while everyone back home the ones who still remembered she existed probably assumed she'd crumbled into nothing.
She hadn't.
She'd survived. Barely, some days. But she'd survived.
Westridge was supposed to be her fresh start. The place where she'd finally build the career she'd been dreaming about since she was thirteen, sketching designs in the margins of her textbooks during boring lectures. But the thought of it crowded lecture halls, group projects, people who'd inevitably want to know her story, ask why she lived with her aunt instead of her parents, wonder why she flinched at sudden loud noises made her stomach twist.
"Kashvi!" Her aunt's voice came again, more insistent this time. "Food's getting cold!"
"Coming, Bua!" she called back, her voice rusty from disuse. She'd barely spoken to anyone all day. Again.
She grabbed her phone and went to have her dinner. A fresh start at college awaited her.
FOLLOW ME!! 😄
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