future is a word for the hopeful
kabhi alvida na kehna, rhea/dev, pre-movie but still contains some spoilers, pg-13. Karan Johar owns the characters. 500 words.

Dev doesn't have many friends that you know of. Some guys on the team, the kind who take him out drinking on the day before an important exam, so that the next day he calls you, not completely sobered up, and whines.

"Rhea, my head is killing me," he says, and you reprimand him and forgive him all in the same sentence, and in the exam he cheats off you, but still gets a C while you get an A.

You always wonder how he manages to do that. Of course, you're used to being good now. You're used to being nearly perfect. Dev needs you because you can do things, do them better than him. Most things, anyway. Football is not most things.

Dev needs you but doesn't show it. He calls you a nerd when you stay in studying one night, but you call it ambition and your parents agree. You call him the next morning, "Sorry I wasn't any fun last night," and ask him what he did, did he go out and party, but he just mumbles something back in Hindi. Typical.

During the last year of college you notice you've never asked Dev about his girlfriends, whether he has any, whether he's ever committed to someone, whether he'd like her to meet you. You just notice how you want to turn his head every time he looks at another girl, to say I'm here. I'm hot. Look at me, Dev.

He never does look at you. Not until you drag him to a party and dance with him until your feet are sore, and when he says, "Rhea, let's just go home," you take his hand and go home with him. He's surprised and you're slightly drunk, and you lean in and kiss him again, pressing both of your bodies against his dorm room door. Look at me, Dev.

"What is this?"

"Friendship," you reply, and know it's more than that. Your heart's been beating for him for too long, and you can't afford to lose him now.

It was confusing and new, but you're good at doing things and maybe it's because of this that after graduation, you could both go our separate ways and say goodbye because there might not be a place for Rhea in Dev's world now, or vice versa. But you don't, you keep in touch and he has his football life and you have your journalist life and you still love him like nothing else on this planet.

You meet again every now and then, go out for dinner or a movie, and one time you tell him, "Maybe it's time for another change, Dev."

You're good at doing things, making things happen, and so Dev looks at you (finally looks at you) and smiles just a little. The wedding will be in June, and he'll learn to appreciate you more, and love you so much it hurts his heart like your love for him hurts yours. Your life is made now.

You don't know how happy beginnings lead to sad endings. At least not yet.