Inaya.Months passed, and RT's letters became a permanent fixture in my life.
Like brushing my teeth or obsessively checking if I locked the door after leaving.
Every night, I'd write to him. Every afternoon, his reply would be waiting.
Soft. Quiet. Constant. Like the kind of companionship, no one warns you you'll start needing.
But now?
Now things have changed. Not practically — I'm still a chai-guzzling chaos gremlin who cries over poetry —
but technically.
I'm in New York now.
Yeah. THE New York.
Land of bagels and yellow cabs and people who walk like they have somewhere to be even when they don't.
Me, Kavya, and Arnav packed up our Delhi days and hopped across time zones. It was for a student exchange semester — exciting, terrifying, and very much what the hell am I doing?
And you know what the weirdest part is?
I haven't told RT.
He still thinks I'm somewhere in India — writing from my corner of a hostel room, fairy lights flickering, dogs barking in the background, tea in hand.
But now? Now I'm in a dorm that smells like overpriced detergent.
With ramen packets instead of samosas.
And for once, the silence around me feels foreign — not familiar.
Should I tell him?
That I'm here.
That technically, we might be closer now than we've ever been.
That maybe...
just maybe...
this story is shifting into something real.
And god — what if he's here too?
"Bitch you zone out like crazy these days!" Arnav whined like some three-year-old kid.
"What if he walks past me on the street and we don't even know it? What if I've already seen him... and didn't realize it was him? What if the next letter I write to him isn't across oceans... but just across boroughs?" I questioned still in a daze.
"Zoning out and then blabbering nonsense classic Inaya," Kavya said hugging me from behind.
"Guess who is never beating the lesbian allegations? You BOTH" Arnav sulked feeling left out.
Kavya smirked, still hugging me like I was her emotional support pillow.
"You mad I get more cuddles than you, Arnav?"
"I'm mad you two look like a sapphic indie film and I'm the unpaid production assistant." Arnav huffed.
Rabin.The airport was loud. Not Delhi-bazaar loud. Not Tokyo-station loud.
Just… foreign.
A different kind of noise. One that made your bones vibrate and your thoughts scatter.
"Jet lag is a scam. I slept on the plane and still feel like a disassembled IKEA shelf," Hideya muttered beside me, dragging his suitcase like it had personally offended him.
I didn't respond. I was too busy scanning everything — the signs, the faces, the skyline peeking through glass walls.
New York City.
The city where everything is supposed to begin.
Or unravel.
Or both.
"We made it," Hideya announced like we were characters in a drama that actually had a plot.
"How do you feel?"
"Like I forgot how to breathe," I said honestly.
"You always feel like that. Welcome to the club. It's called Being Alive."
Classic Hideya — emotionally supportive, but in the same way a brick is supportive if you cry on it.
We stepped outside into the chaos of honking cabs and cold air.
Everything smelled like bagels, ambition, and exhaust.
"You okay?" Hideya asked, eyeing me like he already knew I wasn't.
"You've got that 'I left something behind' look again."
"Maybe I did," I whispered.
"You mean IM?"
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
He knew.
She was here. Somewhere.
In this city.
In this blur of sirens and skyline.
And the worst part?
I could be walking closer to her than I ever have… and still not know it.
"You think she's real?" Hideya asked suddenly.
"Or are you just in love with the way she writes?"
"I don't know," I replied, looking up at the skyline like it might hand me answers.
"But I'm about to find out."
Inaya.First things first:
I wore the perfect outfit.
Sweater that says I read sad books for fun, jeans that scream I might have unresolved trauma, and sneakers I could totally run away from expectations in.
Main character vibes: achieved.
Confidence level: delusional.
Mental state: spiraling in five languages.
The hallways were long. Too long.
And everyone here looked like they already had a New York Times feature.
Someone walked by wearing a trench coat. At 8:45 a.m..
Another girl was balancing an oat milk latte, a law textbook, and an aura of superiority like it was her birthright.
"This place is built to humble you," I whispered, clutching my tote bag like it had answers.
Arnav appeared at my side, looking like a lost tourist in a hoodie.
"Why does everyone look like a depressed philosopher?"
"Because they probably are, Arnav."
First class: Introduction to Literature.
Which sounded chill. Until the professor walked in like he was about to conduct a spiritual awakening with a grading scale.
"You will not pass this class by existing," he said within the first 30 seconds.
"Participation is not optional. Neither is reading. I suggest you start unlearning now."
Oh cool!
Just what I needed to hear while I was already fighting for my life internally.
I looked over at Kavya, who was scribbling furiously.
She thrives under chaos.
I, on the other hand, was trying not to cry over the fact that I forgot my favorite pen.
It's always the pen, you know?
I made it to my second class with only one near-panic attack and a granola bar.
A girl held the door open for me.
The professor called me "thoughtful" when I gave an answer.
Arnav didn't get kicked out for making a joke about Shakespeare.
Kavya and I ate overpriced cafeteria pasta under a tree that looked like it knew secrets.
Tiny victories.
Stolen breaths.
Moments that made me think—
Maybe I can do this. Maybe I belong here after all.
Even if just a little bit.
Even if I still miss home.
Even if part of me still clings to letters and chai and a boy with no face.
My arms were full of books, my brain full of panic, and Kavya was talking at 1.5x speed beside me about how Freud was "actually just a dude with mommy issues and too much free time."
"Aya, are you even listening?"
"No. I'm having an academic crisis and I think my chai addiction is evolving into an actual coping mechanism."
I was flipping through the psych textbook as we walked, balancing it on top of two other books I didn't even remember checking out.
I wasn't watching where I was going. Of course I wasn't.
"Dude slow d—"
BAM.
The books flew.
My tote bag dropped.
I crashed into a literal wall.
Except — the wall breathed. And said "Shit. I'm sorry."
I looked up.
Dark hair. Tall. Clean hoodie. Cold hands. Warm eyes.
He blinked down at me like he wasn't sure what had just happened either.
Rabin.
I didn't see her.
I was scrolling through my course schedule, trying to remember where this Building B5 even was, when someone slammed into me like karma in human form.
Books hit the ground.
She did too, almost. I caught her elbow.
Our eyes met. There was something in her eyes. Like she'd read the same letters I've been writing.
And for a second —
The world went quiet.
"Sorry," she mumbled, brushing hair out of her face. "My fault. I wasn't looking."
She smiled awkwardly. The kind of smile that tries to laugh the embarrassment away.
And something inside me just… stilled.
She looked like a line I'd forgotten how to finish.
Like the last page of a poem I swear I wrote in another life.
"No harm done," I said, taking a small step back. "You good?"
She nodded, already kneeling to grab her books. Her friend — sharp eyeliner, sharp attitude — shot me a look like she was deciding whether or not to sue.
"You owe her a new wrist if that's sprained," she muttered.
"Kavya," the girl hissed, whisper-yelling.
I crouched, picked up the fallen textbook, and handed it back.
> "Psych minor?" I asked, glancing at the title.
"Tragically, yes," she said, rolling her eyes. "My sleep schedule hates me."
"Same." I smiled a little — just enough. "Good luck."
"Thanks. You too."
And just like that —
I walked away.
Back into the blur of the hallway.
Back into the silence I was used to.
Inaya.
We didn't even ask for names.
But his voice?
His face?
The way his fingers brushed mine when he handed over the textbook?
That's going to live in my brain rent-free for the rest of this semester.
"Girl," Kavya said slowly. "What the hell was that?
"I have no idea."
But part of me whispered:
You've written to him before.
"You okay?" Kavya asked, eyebrows doing that thing where they look genuinely concerned but also very amused.
"Uh-huh." I nodded like a liar. "Yep. Totally. Fine."
My heart was still tap dancing in my chest and my hands were trembling like I just watched my favorite fictional character die again.
I flopped onto my dorm bed like gravity owed me something.
"He was just a stranger. You've bumped into people before."
Yeah. But not like that.
He looked at me like he knew I was going to show up in his dreams tonight.
And the way he said "Good luck"?
Like it meant something. Like he wanted to say more. Like he already had, in another language.
"You're zoning out again," Kavya said, flopping beside me. "What's going on in that little dramatic Bollywood brain of yours?"
"I don't know!" I wailed into my pillow. "He just— he looked at me like I wasn't just a person who dropped her books. Like he heard something I didn't say out loud."
"You think it's him?"
"Who?"
"RT."
I sat up like my soul had left the chat.
"No. I mean— no, right? That would be insane. That would be cosmic fate-level insane."
"…But it would be so good," she whispered.
I stared at the ceiling.
I've written to him in metaphors.
What if I just bumped into the man behind the ink?
Rabin."You didn't even get her name?" Hideya asked, offended like he had personally planned the encounter and I ruined it.
"No. I panicked."
"Bro. You emotionally diagnose strangers over email and write sonnets in code. But you can't say 'Hey, what's your name?' out loud?"
"Correct."
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my screen.
Didn't open any assignments. Didn't scroll anything.
Just sat there. Thinking.
Her voice. Her eyes.
The way she said "tragically, yes" like she was used to being a walking punchline.
Like me.
"She felt familiar," I said quietly.
"Like… déjà vu?"
"Like a voice I've read before."
"You think she's—"
"I don't know."
But in my chest, where silence usually lived, something shifted.
She looked at me like she'd already heard my words before I spoke them.
And if that wasn't her?
Then what if the real her is even worse?
Or better?
I picked up my phone.
Opened her latest letter.
Read it again.
But now?
Now I couldn't separate the stranger in the hallway…
from the stranger who writes me letters.
If that wasn't her, I'm in trouble.
If that was her, I'm doomed.