The Time We Almost Had
They thought college was their Plan B. They never expected to find each other there.

Aarav had a plan.

Build a career in cybersecurity. Become successful enough that his mother never has to worry about money again. Create the future his father never got to see.

Riya had one too.

Build her career in data analytics. Become fiercely independent. Prove—to herself more than anyone else—that one failed dream could never decide the rest of her life.

Neither of them wanted to begin college carrying the disappointment of the future they had imagined.

And neither of them expected a crowded notice board, a lost blue pen, and one terrible first impression to change everything.

What begins with arguments slowly becomes friendship.

Friendship becomes late-night conversations, Bus 7 rides, ridiculous flirting, shared dreams, stupid fights, quiet hand-holding, and eventually—

love.

Not the perfect kind.

The ordinary kind.

The kind hidden inside “Did you eat?”
The kind that remembers how you take your chai.
The kind that makes an ordinary college day feel like something you'll miss forever.

But four years don't last forever.

Soon, internships become placements. Dreams become deadlines. Packages become comparisons. Calls become shorter. “We'll talk tomorrow” becomes a little too common.

Aarav and Riya are both fighting desperately for the futures they've always wanted.

They just don't realize what it might cost them.

Because sometimes, losing someone doesn't begin with goodbye.

Sometimes it begins while you're both still in love.

The Time We Almost Had is a contemporary coming-of-age romance about first love, friendship, ambition, family, college chaos, career pressure, and the thousands of ordinary moments that become extraordinary only after they're gone.

For anyone who has ever wondered whether the right person can still arrive at the wrong time.