Chapter 2: Monsoon Encounters

When I pushed open the door and saw Arjun standing there, I thought the whisky hadn’t worn off and I was hallucinating.

He was still wearing the blue and white St. Xavier’s School uniform from ten years ago.

And just as foul-mouthed as ever, picking on me the moment he saw me. "Arrey, Meera! You look like you just lost a fight with the monsoon. Planning to scare the neighbours or what?"

The echo of his words—half mocking, half worried—sounded so real, I almost expected to see his muddy school shoes on the doormat. I could still smell the lingering petrichor from the rain outside, mixing with the faint scent of whisky on my breath. I remembered how, back in school, Arjun always had something cheeky to say, never missing a chance to tease.

I looked down at my phone.

I glanced at the date on my phone—June 2024. No magic, no time travel. Just me, my ghosts, and this messy present.

Thinking I was just seeing things, I was about to look up and check again, but a series of messages popped up.

The relentless buzz of the phone in my palm jerked me back to the present—this ugly, complicated present with too many secrets. I let out a tired sigh, glancing from the notification bar to Arjun’s ghost, wondering if one of them would vanish first.

"Miss Meera, congratulations on your engagement to Rohan as you wished."

"But compared to you, Rohan seems to like me more."

"He was with me for four hours tonight. Twice."

Attached was a post-coital, chest-to-chest photo of her and Rohan.

My stomach twisted, an old, familiar ache pressing behind my ribs. The kind that comes when you see something you’d rather not. The WhatsApp image loaded slowly—pixels blurring into a scene that burned. I could almost hear the distant traffic on Baner Road, a dog barking at nothing in the lane below, as if the city itself wanted to drown out my thoughts.

My fingers hovered over the reply button, but my hands felt numb. I wanted to scream, but all I could manage was a shaky breath. The ceiling fan’s lazy rhythm felt like a countdown to something breaking.

Before I could even look up, Arjun’s noisy voice rang in my ear again.

"Uff, what kind of photo is this, yaar? Yeh kya, full-on adult content, haan? Your phone’s gone mad, yaar."

"Meera, is your phone possessed or what?"

"Wait, fiancé? You’re getting married?"

"Engaged and still fooling around? You still want this kind of guy?"

"Hang on, your fiancé... why does he look so much like me?"

"Is this some sort of copy-paste romance? Meera, don’t tell me you like me? Hah..."

Arjun, nicknamed the Silent Groom.

The only male lead in the Kaveripur St. Xavier’s coming-of-age story.

When he kept his mouth shut, his face was perfect.

Too bad his mouth was rotten.

Snapping back at him was almost instinctive.

"Like you? Am I mad or what?"

As soon as I said it, Arjun froze.

So did I.

The next second, screams echoed through the flat.

"Aiyyo! I saw a ghost!"

"Aiyyo! Someone can see a ghost!"

Our shouts startled a stray dog downstairs, who started barking as if he’d seen a ghost too. The echo of our voices bounced off the old plaster walls, startling a pigeon off the balcony railing. My heart beat so fast it drowned out even the honks of the autorickshaw down the street.