It was too late at night to be typing anything serious. That was my first mistake.
The second was not checking who I was sending it to.
‘It’s done. I’m ready to burn it all down. You in?’
I sent it, like you send anything when you’re tired enough and your head’s not on straight. Meant it for Nikhil — he’d get it. He always did. Our 2 a.m. talks about quitting, disappearing, leaving behind the sarkari building we worked in, its flaking ceiling fans, the smell of overbrewed tea, and people who said “please revert” in every email.
But the message didn’t go to Nikhil.
It went to someone saved only as “R.”
Just that.
No name. No DP.
Nothing to make it familiar.
I blinked, thinking maybe I had imagined it. Checked again. The name stayed the same: R.
I texted fast.
‘Sorry sorry. Wrong person. Ignore.’
I waited. My heart was making this thud-thud sound in my ears. I could hear the fridge humming from the other room.
Then the ticks turned blue.
Buzz.
‘You don’t get to take that back. What’s the plan?’
~~~
You’d think I would have laughed. That I would have rolled my eyes and said, “Okay, cool prank.” But no. That reply felt wrong. It wasn’t a joke. It didn’t feel like one, anyway.
It felt… patient.
Like they’d been waiting.
I turned my phone face down and tried to sleep. I listened to the ceiling fan doing its lazy circles. There was a gap in the blades, like one of them had dipped lower than the others.
Outside, the rain was falling in that Bangalore way — fast, slanted, with a smell like moss and fuel.
~~~
In the morning, I did what I always did. Walked to the chai stall on 7th Cross. The guy there, Sadiq, always smiled too much for 8 a.m. Maybe because he added extra sugar and thought that was some act of rebellion.
I was halfway through my second sip when my phone buzzed again.
‘You always come here. Same tumbler. Same shirt. That one with the hole near the collar. Still hasn’t been stitched, huh?’
I dropped the tumbler. Hot chai splashed all over my slippers. Burned a bit.
I looked up. Around. Behind me. The fruit vendor. The schoolboy eating chips. Nobody was looking at me, not really. Except maybe the security guard near the builder’s office. His eyes met mine, just for a second.
I went home without finishing my tea.
~~~
Back in the flat, Mira was making dosa. She always came in like this. Said Chennai was too hot. Said the gas was cheaper in Bangalore. Sometimes I think she just didn’t like sleeping in her own silence.
“You okay?” she asked, flipping the dosa without looking up.
“Yeah.”
“You look like you haven’t slept.”
“I haven’t.”
“Work?”
I didn’t answer.
“Your phone kept vibrating last night,” she added.
I blinked.
She shrugged. “Maybe it was mine. They both buzz the same.”
~~~
I called Nikhil that afternoon.
“You know anyone saved as R in my phone?”
He laughed. “One of your ghost exes?”
“I’m serious.”
“I mean… no. Why?”
“Nothing.”
“Agastya,” he said. “You’ve always had a habit of poking ghosts.”
I paused.
“You remember Rohan?”
Silence.
“Yeah,” he said finally. “You mean—”
“Yeah.”
“You think it’s him?”
“No. I don’t know. Maybe.”
“Come on, man. That was years ago.”
“I know.”
He exhaled.
~~~
Rohan. I hadn’t said his name aloud in over a decade.
We were friends. Then we weren’t. College did that to people.
There was a rumour about exam cheating. And a scholarship only one of us could win. I didn’t start the rumour. But I didn’t stop it either.
He was quiet after that. Didn’t shout. Didn’t accuse. He just left.
Later, when I got the scholarship, he didn’t show up to the award function. Mira was there, though. She clapped too hard, said it made her palms sting.
~~~
That night, something pulled me into my old Gmail account. I don’t even use it anymore. The password was still saved.
In the drafts folder: a message.
Subject: none.
To: no one.
‘I’ll burn your life down, Rohan. You’ll see.’
I don’t remember writing it. It sounded like something I might’ve said in my head, not out loud. Definitely not typed. But it was there. With a date. Ten years ago.
~~~
Buzz.
New WhatsApp message.
A photo.
My apartment building. The main gate.
Photo taken from across the road.
Timestamp: 10:47 p.m.
‘You can’t undo it. Finish what you started.’
I typed:
‘Who are you?’
No reply. Just:
‘You know.’
I think my chest hurt a little.
~~~
I stopped sleeping. Like completely. I started hearing things. Not voices. Just… pressure. The fridge hum felt louder. The fan sounded like it was spelling words I couldn’t catch.
At work, Priya asked if I was sick. I told her no. She looked unconvinced.
In the office group chat, someone sent a GIF of a man drowning. The caption said: “Mood.” I turned off my data.
~~~
Some mistakes don’t send. They wait.
That sentence kept repeating in my head like an error message.
I remembered the day Rohan helped Mira with a school project. She had a crush on him. Obvious. She’d made an extra laddoo just for him during Diwali. He took it without knowing the weight it carried.
He was kind to her. Kinder than I ever was.
~~~
I messaged “R” again.
‘Let’s meet. Café on MG Road. 6 pm. Yellow chairs.’
The reply came fast.
‘Sure. Bring your guilt.’
~~~
The café was the kind that tried too hard. Fusion filter coffee. Mismatched chairs. A shelf of books no one read.
I took the seat near the window. Ordered black coffee. No sugar.
Every person who entered made me twitch.
6:05.
6:10.
Then the buzz.
‘Nice try. I’m closer than you think.’
I left my coffee untouched.
~~~
Back at home, Mira was sitting in the balcony, watering a dying basil plant.
“Did they come?” she asked.
I stared at her.
“Who?”
“Whoever you were meeting.”
I shook my head.
She hummed something. A tune from an old Telugu serial. I couldn’t place it.
~~~
Later that night, I asked her, “Did you ever talk to Rohan after college?”
She blinked.
“No.”
“You were close.”
“Not really.”
“You cried when he left.”
She didn’t respond.
~~~
I went back to my room. Opened WhatsApp.
The chat with “R” — gone.
Deleted. From both ends.
A new message waited. From Mira’s number.
‘You never told me everything. Did you?’
There was a photo. A Polaroid from school.
Me. Mira. Rohan. Smiling.
His face was scratched out with a black pen. Angry lines across where his eyes should’ve been.
~~~
The next morning, I watched her from the kitchen. She was buttering toast. Calm. Like someone who’d slept better than I had in weeks.
“You want tea?” she asked.
I nodded.
She poured it into the cup with the chipped handle. My old cup.
“Anything else?”
I wanted to say yes.
Wanted to ask if she was “R.”
Wanted to ask if she knew what it felt like to carry a secret like a stone inside your mouth.
But I didn’t say anything.
She placed the cup in front of me. The handle pointed the wrong way. A small detail. But it felt important.
~~~
That night, I couldn’t stay in the flat. I walked for hours. No destination.
The city never sleeps. Just pretends to.
Autos rattling. Dogs barking at shadows. A watchman half-asleep with a stick in his hand.
I thought about deleting everything. Formatting my phone. Moving cities.
Then I remembered that Mira knew where I’d go. She always did.
~~~
Back home, her door was closed. But the light underneath was still on.
“You should sleep, bhaiya,” she said from behind it.
Her voice was soft. Kind.
But it stayed with me longer than it should have.
~~~
‘Some mistakes don’t send. They stay.’
‘Sometimes in your inbox. Sometimes in your childhood.’
‘And sometimes… in the next room.’
~THE END~
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