Mira Ganguly pressed her palms against the peeling wooden rail of the metro as it screeched into Kalkaji. Her fingers smelled faintly of ink; she’d been scribbling story ideas all the way from her PG to Ramanujan College. Delhi had been both a dream and a trap so far — loud, glittering, endless — but she was still the same quiet girl from Barrackpore, shoulders tucked in under her bag straps, always hoping to blend in.

At five-two and seventy-one kilos, she often imagined herself taking up more space than she deserved. Her dense curls bounced as she walked through the college gates, trying not to stare at the knots of students laughing over chai. Everyone seemed to already know someone. She had her books.

Inside the English department library, the world softened. Rows of dusty volumes, the whir of the ceiling fans, the faint citrusy smell of someone’s perfume. She slipped into her favourite corner desk near the window, where a patch of sunlight fell across the table like a blessing.

She pulled out a copy of Wuthering Heights and her notebook. In her neat, slanting handwriting she wrote:

“Maybe obsession is just another word for loneliness.”

A chair scraped across from her. She looked up.

He was sitting there as if he’d always been. Tall, lean, a dark olive shirt rolled at the sleeves, hair a shade too long to be neat. His eyes were… strange. Sharp, almost analytical, yet they flickered over her face as though she were a riddle. She glanced away quickly, heat rushing to her cheeks.

“Sorry,” he said, voice low but clear. “Every other seat’s full.”

It wasn’t true. Half the tables were empty.

“That’s okay,” she murmured, hugging her notebook a little closer.

For a while they sat in silence. He opened a thick volume of Sanskrit texts, but she could feel his gaze, small glances like touches. She tried to focus on Heathcliff’s brooding but her skin prickled.

When she packed up to leave for her next class, a folded slip of paper slid out from between her pages. She frowned. It wasn’t hers. On the front, in precise black ink, were three words:

“I see you.”

Her heart jumped. She turned, but the boy with the olive shirt was gone.

She unfolded the paper. Below the three words was a line of poetry she knew by heart — Tagore, from Shesher Kobita — but written in English:

“In our first meeting / The silent vow was made…”

She stared at the handwriting, neat as a printed font, her pulse suddenly loud in her ears. Who had put this there? When? And why did it feel less like a flirtation and more like a warning?

Outside, the campus noise roared back. Mira tucked the note into her notebook, not sure whether to be frightened or thrilled.

Somewhere across the quadrangle, leaning against a pillar, the boy in the olive shirt watched her go, a faint smile playing at his lips.