Chapter 1
I was walking around the mall, lingering in the ladies’ section, trying to pick out the best quality I could find. *Definitely for my date.*
The woman at the MAC store held the tube up to the light and said, “This shade was made for your skin tone, madam.” I swiped it across the back of my hand, watched the pigment glide like butter.
Beside me, my friend hesitated. “How much does it cost, btw?”
“Around 5999 rupees.” The saleswoman answered while looking at my face instead of hers.
“Ah!” My friend turned to me. “Isn’t that too expensive?”
“Priya never told you, did she?” I kept my voice smooth. “I don’t see price tags. But don’t worry—it’s your first time shopping with me, right?”
She shut her mouth. That cute young teen, my bestie’s younger sister. Nisha.
---
Priya wasn’t with me now. She always was, but not today.“I received a message and then moved toward the back of the mall. Then, I quickly left Nisha there.”
I found her outside the mall instead, sitting on the low concrete ledge near the parking lot, scrolling through her phone with the kind of blank expression that meant she’d been waiting long enough to get bored.
“You could’ve come inside,” I said.
“And watch you debate the difference between crimson and ruby for twenty minutes? I’d rather sit here and watch pigeons fight over a samosa.” She pointed. “See? That one just stole the whole thing. Absolute menace.”
I sat down beside her. The concrete was warm from the afternoon sun. A pigeon strutted past us with a piece of something in its beak, and Priya threw an imaginary crumb at it.
“That’s the same pigeon from last week,” she said. “I recognize his energy. Very fuck-you confidence.”
“He’s a pigeon, Priya.”
“And you’re a snob. He and I have an understanding.” She looked at me, then at my shopping bag. “Let me guess. Lipstick.”
“How did you—”
“The bag is tiny and you’re glowing. It’s either lipstick or you finally bought that overpriced eyeliner you were crying about. Either way, I want to see it.”
I handed her the bag. She pulled out the tube and examined it with the seriousness of a museum curator.
“5999?”
“Around.”
She whistled and handed it back. “For that price, it should apply itself. It should whisper affirmations while you wear it. ‘You’re doing great, sweetie. Your eyeliner is even today.’”
“Maybe it does. I haven’t tried it yet.”
“Let me know. If it talks, I’m converting.”
We sat there for a few more minutes, watching the pigeons. Priya told me about a man on the metro who’d been carrying a live chicken in a backpack. The chicken had escaped. Chaos had ensued.I laughed. It was easy, sitting here with her, not thinking about anything in particular. The October heat pressed down on us, and somewhere in the distance a vendor was calling out prices for roasted corn, and Priya was doing an impression of the chicken owner’s face that was probably inaccurate but made me laugh anyway.
Then her phone buzzed. She glanced at it, and something in her expression tightened before she pocketed it.
“Everything okay?” I asked.
“Yeah. Mom’s test results got delayed again. Hospital’s saying maybe next week.” She forced a smile that didn’t quite hold. “She’s fine, they said. It’s just... you know. The waiting.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed. Her knuckles were cold despite the heat.
“Aba knows some people at Max,” I said. “I could ask him to—”
“Mysha. Stop.” She softened the words. “You can’t fix everything with your dad’s phone calls.”
“I can fix some things.”
“Not this.” She squeezed back, then let go. Her gaze drifted past my shoulder, toward the mall entrance. “Anyway. Show me what you bought. I need to live vicariously through someone today.”
The words were light, but there was a weight beneath them.
We walked to the glass counter inside. She leaned against it, arms crossed.
“You’re buying another one? Didn’t you just drop four thousand on that serum last week?”
“Five,” I corrected, not looking up from my wrist. “And yes. This one’s different. It’s for date night.”
“Date night.” Priya rolled her eyes. “You and Kabir have been together three years. You’re telling me he still notices your lipstick shade?”
I capped the tester and handed it to the saleswoman. “He notices when I want him to.”
Priya laughed, bright and unguarded. “God, Mysha. You’re terrifying.”
“I know.”
---
We left the mall at seven. The Delhi air was thick and damp.
A girl passed us on the sidewalk. I recognized her instantly—Riya, a first-year. She’d stood across from me at a debate podium last semester and smiled while dismantling every argument I’d made. She poked her friend and whispered something. I turned my face sharply toward Priya.
Priya hadn’t noticed. She was still talking about the chicken. “—and the man was just standing there, holding an empty backpack, staring at the metro doors like his whole life had just unraveled. I think about him sometimes. I hope he’s okay. I hope the chicken is okay too.”
“Priya.”
“What?”
“You’re still talking about the chicken.”
“It was a very important chicken.” She looked at my face, then followed my gaze toward the sidewalk. “Oh. Her. Forget her.”
“I already have.”
“Liar.”
I didn’t answer. My fist clenched at my side, nails pressing into my palm.
“I won’t be available tomorrow,” Priya said, making an X with her fingers. “Mom’s appointment.”
“I’ll pray to Allah about your mom.”
She nodded. “Actually—wait, no, never mind. I was going to ask if you could come, but that’s stupid. You’ve got Kabir. Forget I said anything.” She waved the thought away before I could respond.
The BMW was waiting. Priya glanced at it the way she always did—not with envy, exactly, but with the quiet awareness of someone who’d take the metro home.
“Same time as last time?” she asked.
“Can’t. Kabir’s taking me to dinner.”
“Three years and he still does dinner?”
“Three years and he still does dinner.”
She shook her head, smiling, and walked toward the metro station. I watched her for a moment—the straight line of her back, the worn strap of her bag—before sliding into the leather seat.
---
Kabir arrived at eight, wearing the blue kurta I’d bought him for his birthday. He stood in the doorway, weight shifting from foot to foot.
“You’re early,” I said.
“You’re beautiful,” he replied.
I waited for the lilt in his voice. It didn’t come.
I let it slide. We were three years in.
The café was warm and amber-lit. I’d been coming here since my first week in Delhi. Kabir and I had sat at the corner table by the bougainvillea more times than I could count. Tonight, he’d chosen a different table—one near the back, away from the windows.
A man near the ordering counter glanced over. Big shoulders, familiar face. I looked away, toward Kabir, toward the candle flickering between us.
“Remember our first date?” I asked.
“The dhaba near campus.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “You wore that green kurta and complained about the plastic chairs.”
“It was blue.”
“What?”
“The kurta. It was blue. You always say green.”
He blinked. “I could’ve sworn—”
“You couldn’t.” I smiled, but something in my chest tightened. Three years. “It’s fine. Go on.”
He hesitated. “You observed loudly about the chairs, is my point.”
“I didn’t complain. I observed.”
“You observed loudly.”
We laughed. It felt almost normal. Outside the window, an auto rickshaw blared its horn.
Kabir looked down at the table, tracing patterns in the condensation from his glass. He’d been doing that a lot tonight—looking at things that weren’t me.
" “You know what I was thinking about today?” he said. “PM Modi.”“Modi?”“Yeah. There’s this video of a German guy—you must have heard about him. He talked in short videos and long videos about how things are going, and how India is heading toward a crisis and stuff like that. You know I’m neutral, but the data was disturbing enough—especially after COVID.”“That’s… very random. You’ve never talked politics with me before. Did you
“Yeah.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I don’t know why I told you that.”
“It’s okay. I like little bit of politics masala.”
“It’s not my opinion. Just thinking about living in this country or not.”
“No prob, my Honey.”
He smiled, a real one this time, then it faded. The candle flickered.
“I was thinking,” I said, setting down my glass, “about after graduation. We should stay in contact. You’ve got that offer—off campus, right?”
“Mysha.” His voice cut through mine. “We need to talk.”
I stopped.
“About what?”
He looked down. His hands went still. Too still.
“About us.”
I didn’t say anything. I’d learned, watching my father negotiate, that silence is a weapon. People rush to fill it.
But Kabir didn’t rush. He just sat there, fingers pressed against the table’s edge, and let the silence stretch.
“I love you,” he said finally. “I’ve loved you for three years. But I don’t know if I can keep doing this. We need to grow now, like you said. We have to do—”
“Do what?”
“Not be the person you want me to be. Change my—no, that’s not what I mean.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I need to figure out who I am. Without you . Without... this.” He gestured vaguely at the table, the wine, the candle. “Does that make sense? I don’t even know if it makes sense.”
It didn’t, entirely. But I could see the effort on his face, the way he was reaching for something he couldn’t quite name.
“I’ve never asked you to be anyone else.”
“No. You haven’t.” He looked up, his eyes wet. “But you’re you, Mysha. You’re this... force. And I’m just me. I don’t know how to keep up.”
I reached across the table and took his hand. His fingers were warm and still, and he didn’t pull away, but he didn’t curl them around mine either.
“Then don’t keep up,” I said. “Just be here. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
He didn’t pull away. But he didn’t hold on, either.
That was the beginning of the end. I just didn’t know it yet.
---
The apartment in Gulmohar Park was quiet when I got home. The blue sofa was my choice. The bookshelf, my mother’s. The photo of Kabir on the fridge, mine.
I took off my earrings—gold, a birthday gift from Aba—and set them on the counter. The apartment smelled like sandalwood and old coffee.
At nine o’clock, my phone rang.
“Beta.” Aba’s voice was steady. “How was your day?”
“Good. I bought a lipstick.”
“A lipstick.” He sounded amused. “How much?”
“Not enough to bankrupt you.”
“Alhamdulillah.” A smile in his voice. “And your studies?”
“Fine. Exams are coming. I’m prepared.”
“Kabir?”
“Still Kabir.”
A pause. I knew, somewhere in the quiet, that this relationship could go nowhere—not toward intimacy, not toward the future my father imagined. Maybe he knew it too.
Then, softer: “You’re happy?”
It wasn’t a question he asked often.
“Yes, Aba. I’m happy.”
“Good. I’ll call tomorrow.”
“Nine o’clock?”
“Nine o’clock.”
The line went dead. Outside, the city hummed. Inside, the apartment was still.
I didn’t know it was the last normal conversation I’d have with him for a long time.
---
The text arrived the next day, at 3:47 PM.
I was in the library, spine pressed against the cold concrete wall. The phone buzzed.
*This isn’t working anymore. You’re too much. Sorry.*
Three lines. Seventeen words. Three years, finished.
I read them fourteen times. Maybe more. The phone said 3:47, then 3:49. I couldn’t remember if I’d blinked.
*Too much.*
I’d heard that before. From my mother, about my grades. From friends I’d collected and lost. Now from Kabir, who’d held my face two weeks ago and called me the only thing that made sense.
I pressed my palm against the fake wood grain. The library smelled like dust and cold metal. Fluorescent lights buzzed.
I called Priya. Once. Twice. Three times.
Voicemail. *Mom’s appointment.*
The tears came before I could stop them.
---
I don’t know how long I sat there. Long enough for the light outside to shift from gold to grey. Long enough for the library to empty out around me.
When I finally looked up, I saw a girl across the room.
She was sitting alone near the window, head bent over a sketchbook. People were gathered around her, two or three other students, watching her work. One of them laughed. Another leaned in, pointing at something on the page. The girl didn’t look up. Her hand kept moving, steady and unhurried, as if the small crowd around her was just weather.
I couldn’t see her face. Just the curve of her shoulders, the way her hair fell forward, the cream-coloured cardigan draped over the back of her chair.
The girl paused. She lifted her head slightly, and for a fraction of a second, her profile caught the light—round glasses, dark hair, a smudge of graphite on her cheek. There was something in the tilt of her head, as if she’d known I was there before I’d noticed her.
Then she bent back over her sketchbook, and the moment passed.
I didn’t know her name yet. I didn’t know she’d been looking at me as if she’d expected me.
I just knew the tears were still wet on my face, and my phone was still clutched in my hand, and somewhere outside, the city kept moving, indifferent and blind.But I felt it.
