Stolen Strawberries
The road to Mahabaleshwar curled through misty hills like a ribbon, and Saarth leaned against the car window, his hoodie pulled tight around his face. He wasn’t sure why he had agreed to Rishi’s invitation. Maybe because the city had become unbearable. His nineteen-year-old life was becoming a burden. Every corner reminded him of Aarya, the girl who had left him for someone, she claimed understood her better. He had replayed their last fight a hundred times: her voice trembling, his silence louder than any scream. She had accused him of being too detached, too lost in his own world of music and unfinished poems. He had wanted to tell her that detachment was the only way he knew to survive, but the words never came. Now, every song he wrote felt like a ghost of her, every line a wound he couldn’t stitch.
By afternoon his group reached Rishi’s sprawling farmhouse and almost immediately all of them stripped and jumped into the pool.
Saisha arrived at the farmhouse later that evening with her friends. With the arrival of her group, The setting was complete. The farmhouse was filled with the teenage laughter, meaningless jokes and loud music.
Saisha was in her regular torn denims and jacket. She wore a smile on her face but her eyes carried the weight of a relationship she couldn’t escape. Her boyfriend, Ketan, was a handsome charming man. He was the kind of man who filled rooms with his laughter. But with her, he was controlling, dismissive, and quick to anger. He was ambitious, magnetic and liked by her parents. His parents liked Saisha… the relationship was assumed. She had tried to leave twice, but each time he had pulled her back with promises and apologies that dissolved within days. Her friends told her she deserved better, but she felt trapped in a cycle of guilt and fear.
Coming to Rishi’s farmhouse was her rebellion, a small act of defiance against Ketan’s constant surveillance.
Rishi, the खानदानी रईस that he was, greeted them with his usual warmth, his family’s farmhouse sprawling across strawberry fields that glistened under the fading sun.
“C’mon guys all of us need this break,” he said, handing mugs of steaming tea and snacks. “Forget the city, forget the drama. Just breathe.”
Saarth and Saisha were part of the cacophony, but quietly carried their shadows with them.
Later that night, as the group sat around a bonfire, amidst singing, food and laughter echoing against the hills, Saarth noticed Saisha sitting apart, her gaze fixed on the flames. He walked over to her with two glasses of wine. She looked up at him as his sneakers crunched on the gravel.
“Hi”
“Hi”
“Rishi didn’t introduce us. I’m Saarth”.
A silence followed and Saarth raised his eye brows enquiringly.
“I’m Saisha”.
“And all’s well? You look like you’re somewhere else,” he said softly.
She smirked faintly. “I’m always somewhere else. It’s easier than being here.”
Saarth tilted his head. “Ok. That’s heavy. What’s wrong with being here?”
Saisha shrugged. She turned towards him and with a fake smile she said, “Here feels temporary. Like I’m borrowing time I’ll have to return.”
He studied her face. “Borrowed time can still be real, you know.”
She sighed. “Real doesn’t last. At least not for me.”
“Maybe lasting isn’t the point,” Saarth said, in an understanding voice. “Maybe it’s about what feels alive right now.”
She paused. Her eyes softened. “Alive is a luxury. Most days I just survive.”
He leaned closer. “Yeah! Survival is exhausting. But, don’t you ever want to just… stop pretending?”
Saisha’s lips trembled. “Every day. But stopping feels dangerous. Like he’ll find me and remind me I belong to him.”
Saarth’s voice was steady. “You don’t belong to anyone. Not him, not anyone.”
Her gaze lingered on him. “Then why do I feel like a prisoner?”
He nodded, understanding more than he wanted to admit. “I get that. I’ve been there… stuck in the past. My ex left, and I keep replaying it like a bad movie.”
Saisha turned to him, her eyes sharp yet vulnerable. “At least yours left. Mine won’t let me go.”
They sat in silence. She was surprised that she dropped her defences so quickly, he was still trying to understand how he confided in a stranger.
The silence between them was heavy, but not uncomfortable. It was the silence of two people recognizing each other’s pain.
Hours later, after dinner, restless and slightly drunk from the wine Rishi had poured too generously, Saarth suggested a walk. Saisha followed, her boots sinking into the damp earth. The farmhouse garden stretched endlessly, rows of strawberries glowing faintly under the moonlight.
Saarth handed her a small cardboard box. “Here, take this. We’ll pick some strawberries.” He said.
“They look like jewels,” Saisha whispered, reaching out to pluck one.
Saarth grinned. “Then let’s steal some. Rishi won’t mind.”
They began picking and sharing strawberries, laughing like kids as the juice stained their fingers. For a moment, the heaviness lifted, replaced by the thrill of rebellion. But their laughter was cut short when the gardener appeared, his lantern swinging angrily.
“अरे पोरांनो, काय करताय हिथं?” he shouted, his voice echoing across the fields.
Saisha froze, guilt rushing through her. Saarth stepped forward, trying to explain. “काही नाही दादा आम्ही फक्त टेस्ट करतोय.”
The gardener scowled. “टेस्ट बेस्ट काय नाय. रात झालतीया. हिथं साप विंचू असत्यात. माघारी जा. मालक रागावतील.”
They retreated quickly, hearts pounding, clutching the strawberry boxes like contraband. Back at the farmhouse porch, they collapsed into laughter again, the absurdity of the moment breaking through their despair.
Saarth looked at her, the moonlight catching the strands of her hair. “Or maybe like stolen time. Something that isn’t ours, but feels perfect anyway.”
“Do you write?” she asked.
“I am an amateur” he replied.
Saisha leaned back, eyes half-closed. “I wish I could steal more than strawberries. Like hours, days… a whole life away from him.”
Saarth thought, “I wish I could steal back the version of me before she left. The one who believed love wasn’t a trap.”
She turned to him. “Do you ever think about just running away? No explanations, no closure, just disappearing?”
He smiled sadly. “Every day. But then I wonder if I’d still carry her ghost with me.”
Saisha’s voice trembled. “I carry Ketan’s shadow even when he’s not around. It’s like he’s wired into my thoughts.”
Saarth reached for another strawberry, handing it to her. “Ok. So let’s play a game. Tonight we can pretend we’re free. Just for a few hours.”
She took it, their fingers brushed. “Pretend feels real enough when you’re desperate.”
They looked at each other, realizing how broken they both were, yet how alive they felt in that moment.
Saisha smiled faintly. “You don’t judge me. That’s rare.”
Saarth replied, “You don’t try to fix me. That’s rarer.”
She laughed softly. “Yeah, maybe we’re just two broken pieces that fit for now.”
He leaned closer. “I don’t mind being broken if it means sitting here with you.”
Suddenly her eyes glistened. “I want to remember this. Even if tomorrow ruins it.”
He thought, “Then let’s not think about tomorrow.”
He turned his head and looked at her. The moonlight made her face radiant. She turned her head and looked at him with longing. The hesitant kiss followed, tender and trembling, filled with questions neither of them could answer. He knew it wasn’t love, not yet. She knew it was a rebellion. It was recognition, a mirror held up to their loneliness.
The air was cool, carrying the faint sweetness of strawberries from the fields. Saisha pulled her jacket tighter, her breath visible in the early chill. Saarth leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring at the faint glow that promised sunrise.
Saisha broke the silence first. “It’s strange, isn’t it? How a night can feel like a whole lifetime.”
He nodded slowly. “Yeah. Like we borrowed hours from somewhere else. Hours we weren’t supposed to have.”
She smiled faintly, though her eyes were heavy. “And now we have to give them back.”
Saarth turned to her. “Maybe not. Maybe we keep them. Not in the way people keep things, but in the way memories stay. Like old scars, that have become softer.”
Her voice trembled. “I don’t know if I want to remember. Remembering makes it harder to go back to him.”
He looked at her, the dawn light catching the tired lines of her face. “Then maybe remembering is the first step to leaving. To realizing you deserve mornings like this, not nights filled with fear.”
She swallowed hard, staring at the horizon. “You make it sound simple. But it’s not. He knows how to pull me back. He knows the words I want to hear, even if he never means them.”
Saarth’s thoughts drifted to Aarya…her laughter… the way she used to hum along to his guitar… and the way she had walked away without looking back. He whispered, almost to himself, “She knew the words too. And I believed them until they stopped meaning anything.”
The sun began to edge over the hills, painting the sky in streaks of orange and pink. The farmhouse fields glowed, strawberries glistening like tiny rubies. Saisha reached out, plucked one from the basket they had carried back, and held it up to the light.
“It’s funny,” she said softly. “This little thing… it’s just fruit. But tonight it felt like rebellion. Like proof we could still choose something for ourselves.”
Saarth watched her bite into it, juice staining her lips. “Maybe that’s what freedom looks like. Small, stolen and sweet.”
She laughed quietly, though her eyes shimmered with unshed tears. “You talk like a poet. No wonder she fell for you.”
He shook his head. “Poetry doesn’t hold back people. It just makes the leaving hurt more.”
They sat in silence for a while, as the sun unfolded before them. Saisha leaned her head lightly against his shoulder, and he didn’t move away. The warmth of her presence was fragile, like that last glow of the bonfire.
“I don’t want this to end,” she whispered.
“It doesn’t have to,” he said. “Even if we go back, even if nothing changes… this moment is ours. No one can take it.”
She closed her eyes, breathing in the morning air. “Then let’s hold it. Just for a little longer.”
The sun rose higher, and the world began to stir—the gardener’s footsteps in the distance, the clatter of utensils from the kitchen, Rishi’s laughter echoing faintly as he woke. Reality was returning, as inevitable as dawn.
Saisha straightened, brushing her hair back. “I should go before he calls. Before he asks where I am.”
They looked at each other, both knowing the day would scatter them back into their separate prisons. Yet in that fragile dawn, they had carved out a space where they were free.
Saisha stood, pulling her jacket tighter.
“Thank you,” she said simply.
“For what?” Saarth asked.
“For reminding me I’m still alive.”
He smiled, slipping a strawberry into her palm. “And thank you for reminding me sweetness can still be stolen.”
She walked toward the farmhouse, her figure dissolving into the morning light. Saarth stayed behind, watching the sun climb, clutching the strawberry like a secret.
Maybe some sweetness is meant to be stolen, not kept, he thought again, as the day began.
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