I stared at the message until the screen went dark.
Then I turned it back on and stared some more.
Your father is alive.
My father had walked out when I was twelve. A Tuesday. I remember because it was garbage day, and the cans were still at the curb when he drove away. No note. No explanation. No goodbye. Just the sound of his car engine fading into the distance and the sight of my mother standing in the doorway, not crying, because she'd used up all her tears on other Tuesdays.
We never talked about him after that.
Not once.
When people asked—teachers, relatives, well-meaning neighbors who didn't know better—my mother would smile and say, "It's just us now." And that was the end of it.
Just us.
Until it wasn't.
"Who sent this?" Aarav asked, looking over my shoulder.
I shook my head. "I don't know. The number's blocked."
"Can you trace it?"
"I don't know how."
He took the phone from my hands. His fingers moved quickly, typing something, searching for something. I watched him work—the concentration on his face, the way his brow furrowed, the way he bit his lower lip when he was thinking.
It should have bothered me, him touching my phone. Going through my messages. Seeing parts of my life I hadn't shared with anyone.
But it didn't.
Because in the last hour, I'd shared something more intimate than any text or photo. I'd shared my grief. My anger. My desperate, aching need for the truth.
"You really think he's alive?" I asked. "My father?"
Aarav looked up. His expression was careful—the kind of careful that meant he was choosing his words very, very deliberately.
"I think someone wants you to believe he is."
"Why?"
"I don't know yet." He handed me back my phone. "But I'm going to find out."
I didn't go home that night.
I couldn't. The thought of returning to my apartment—my dark, empty, watched apartment—made my chest tighten and my breath come short.
So I stayed.
Aarav made tea. Real tea, not the instant kind—loose leaves in a ceramic pot, honey on the side, cups that didn't match but felt right anyway. We sat on his balcony, wrapped in blankets, watching the rain fall on a city that never really slept.
"My father," I said finally. "If he is alive... what do I do?"
Aarav was quiet for a moment. The steam from his tea curled up between us, disappearing into the night.
"You don't have to decide that now," he said. "You don't have to decide anything now."
"But I can't just—"
"You can." He reached over and took my hand. His palm was warm against mine. Grounding. "You can do nothing. You can wait. You can take as much time as you need."
"And if I never decide?"
"Then you never decide." He squeezed my fingers. "Some questions don't have answers, Maya. Some wounds don't heal. Some doors stay closed forever, and that's okay."
"Is it?"
"No." He smiled—that small, sad smile I was starting to recognize. "But it has to be."
I leaned my head against his shoulder. It felt strange—being close to someone who was practically a stranger, someone whose family had destroyed mine, someone who made my heart race and my stomach twist in ways I didn't understand.
But it also felt right.
Like coming home to a place I'd never been.
"Tell me something true," I said.
He was quiet for a long moment. The rain filled the silence, soft and steady, like a heartbeat.
"When I was seventeen," he said, "I fell in love with a girl. Her name was Priya. She was beautiful and smart and she made me laugh in a way no one else ever had."
"What happened?"
"She died." His voice didn't change. Flat. Empty. "Car accident. She was driving home from my house. It was raining—like this. She lost control on a turn."
I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say.
"I held her hand in the hospital," he continued. "While the doctors tried to save her. I held her hand and I told her everything would be okay. And then she was gone."
"I'm sorry."
"Me too." He took a breath. "After that, I stopped feeling things. I went through the motions. I did what my father wanted. I became who he needed me to be. But I wasn't really there. I was just... existing."
"And now?"
He turned to look at me. His eyes were dark, deep, full of things I couldn't name.
"And now I feel everything," he said. "Every moment. Every memory. Every possibility. And it's terrifying."
"Why?"
"Because I have something to lose."
CLIFFHANGER:
I woke up the next morning on his couch, wrapped in a blanket that smelled like him.
He was sitting in the armchair across from me, watching me sleep.
"You should go," he said. His voice was strange. Strained.
"What? Why?"
He held up his phone.
On the screen was a news article.
"Ahuja Industries CEO Announces Expansion," the headline read.
But it wasn't the headline that made my blood run cold.
It was the photograph.
My father.
Standing next to Aarav's father.
Shaking hands.
Smiling like they were old friends.