Arpan_Patil

When She Turned Around
A Real-World Love Story

Arpan Patil has always lived life from the backseat—quiet, unnoticed, and perfectly comfortable being a shadow in a classroom full of stars. He never expected anything to change, especially not in his final year of school.

But everything shifts the day Samruddhi Shyam Bhakre—the class topper, the teacher’s favorite, and the girl who seemed lightyears out of reach—is asked to sit beside him. What begins as an awkward seating change becomes the axis around which Arpan’s world starts to turn.

She’s disciplined, driven, and dazzling in ways Arpan never dared to dream. He’s messy, misunderstood, and quietly poetic. And yet, in stolen glances, shared silences, and accidental moments, a fragile thread begins to weave between them.

As the pressure of board exams, family expectations, and unspoken fears build around them, Arpan and Samruddhi must choose whether to follow the script they were handed—or write their own story.

A tender, nostalgic tale of teenage love, When She Turned Around is about the one moment that can change everything… and the courage it takes to look back.

"When She Turned Around"

The alley was quiet, lit only by the red neon sign of a sweet shop that had long since shut down.

Two boys stood beneath it—Arpan, younger, raw, untamed. And the other... taller, quieter, with a scar under his right eye and hands stained from too many fights.

His name was Rivan.

They were brothers, not by blood—but by blade, by bruise, by promise.

"We rule the streets one day, Ghost," Rivan had said, tapping his chest. "You and me. You think three moves ahead. I burn the board down. Balance."

But Ghost had chosen silence over loyalty.

And Rivan vanished.

Samruddhi backed away from the boy she once thought had died in a fire set by rival gangs.

"I begged him not to leave me behind," Rivan said, stepping into the room of mirrors. "But Arpan chose strategy over survival. He called it necessary. I called it betrayal."

Samruddhi trembled. "Why me? Why this?"

"Because you're his heart. And the only way to break a mind like his... is through the one thing he'll never sacrifice."

Elsewhere, Arpan moved deeper into the compound.

Hallways curved like mazes, and every door he opened was empty—until one wasn't.

A single folder lay on the floor, placed perfectly in the center of a bloodstained table.

He opened it with trembling fingers.

Samruddhi, smiling.

Taken from outside her window—three weeks before they met.

Standing beside Arpan, laughing, arms slung around his shoulder.

And one sentence scrawled in red ink beneath the image:

"The ghosts you bury don't stay dead, Ghost. They just learn how to haunt better."

The walls around him lit up—screens flickering on.

Each showed a different version of Rivan.

Rivan held Samruddhi by the throat.

Arpan lunged forward, but it was a recording. A warning.

"You thought you could build love on ruins, Arpan."

Rivan whispered in Samruddhi's ear, "You still don't get it, do you?"

The door behind Arpan slammed shut.

[To be continued...]

The One He Left Behind