5:47 AM.
His eyes cracked open. The sky outside was a sheet of faint silver.
He didn't leap out of bed.
He lay still for a moment.
Listening.
To the hum of the fan. The distant rattle of a milk van. The weight of silence.
Then he sat up.
No scroll. No snooze.
Just a breath.
One.
He slipped off the mattress and lowered himself to the floor.
Two.
Palms flat. Arms stiff. He hadn't done this in weeks.
Three.
A push-up. Elbows shook. Chest barely cleared the ground.
Four.
The guilt spoke up: What's the point? You ruined it already.
Five.
He whispered back: "Still showing up."
He stood up. Sweat beaded on his temples.
The day hadn't started. But something already had.
---
9:25 AM.
Chinmay stood outside the CET centre, shoulders squared but stomach tight.
Chemistry today. Hydrocarbons.
He remembered failing a test on this chapter last year. 3 out of 35. His teacher had asked if he was even trying.
And the worst part? He wasn't.
But now?
Maybe today I do try.
The shutter rolled up.
He walked in.
Second row.
Notebook open. Pen uncapped.
I will not be perfect. But I will be present.
---
9:31 AM.
The teacher started fast. No intro, no ice-breaker.
Alkanes. Alkenes. Electrophilic addition.
His pen moved like a machine with rusted gears — slow, awkward, noisy.
Halfway through, his shoulder burned.
He paused.
The voice returned: Just stop. You won't keep up. Others are better. It's too late.
He tightened his grip.
And wrote anyway.
Not beautifully.
Not everything.
But something.
He circled what he missed. Marked it with a shaky star. "Tonight," he promised.
---
2:06 PM.
Back home. Lunch half-eaten. Eyes heavy.
He saw the couch. Heard the fan.
It would be so easy to nap.
But instead, he washed his plate. Brushed his teeth again.
Then sat at his desk.
"Twenty minutes," he told himself.
Rewrote the reactions. Understood two.
Blanked on one. Googled. Scribbled it beside the original.
Thirty-four minutes later, he blinked.
He was still at the desk.
That's new.
---
7:42 PM.
His father was watching TV. His mother folding clothes.
No one called him.
He took his notebook to the dining table.
Not his desk.
Not the study corner.
Just the dining table—brightly lit, cluttered, real.
Right in the middle of home life.
He didn't isolate.
He just opened the book, pushed aside a bowl of oranges, and started revising.
This time, he color-coded the reactions.
Red for alkynes. Green for side notes. Blue for questions.
It was messy. But alive.
The kind of mess that comes after stillness.
His mother glanced at him once. Didn't say a word.
But something softened in her face.
---
10:11 PM.
He turned off the light.
Lay back.
No ache for the phone. No guilt.
Just that steady hum of someone who didn't win the day, but showed up for it.
And sometimes, that's even harder.
---
To be continued in Chapter 24 – A Quiet Kind of Win