As I settled in, the reality of our situation began to sink in. I, the younger brother, was now responsible for looking after my sister-in-law, a woman who was practically a stranger. We were confined to that small flat, two souls caught in the middle of a global crisis and a family drama that felt increasingly complex. The filter coffee, for now, was the only constant. The rest, I knew, was about to change. I didn’t know where this new chapter would lead, but I knew, deep down, that it would be far from ordinary.
The chipped mug warmed my hands, but not my soul. The lukewarm coffee tasted like ash, a fitting metaphor for the past month. Vinay, hunched over his laptop across our tiny kitchen table, typed with the ruthless efficiency of someone utterly unburdened by heartbreak. He was the opposite of me, a perpetual motion machine humming with productivity, while I felt like a discarded battery.
It was ironic, really. For four years, through countless late-night study sessions and awkward hallway encounters, I’d avoided moving in with Vinay. It wasn’t because I disliked him; we were good friends, even if our personalities were as different as oil and water. No, I’d clung to the sterile comfort of the hostel, the shared bathrooms and paper-thin walls, all for the nocturnal symphony of phone calls with Sarah.
Sarah. Just the name was a dull ache in my chest. We’d been inseparable for two years, our relationship a secret garden bloom of late-night whispers and stolen moments. Four years of engineering classes together, yet I’d only confessed my feelings after graduation, terrified of jeopardizing the fragile equilibrium of our friendship. Those late-night calls, the ones that stretched into the early hours of the morning, they were precious to me, a lifeline in a world that otherwise felt mundane.
They were also a secret, a secret I guarded fiercely. My family, conservative and unwavering in their traditions, wouldn’t have approved of my relationship with Sarah, a girl from another religion. So, the hostel was my sanctuary, the neutral ground where I could be both their son and Sarah’s lover.
But destiny, that capricious beast, had other plans. One month ago, Sarah had ended things. There was no dramatic showdown, no grand betrayal, just a quiet, heartbreaking admission that we were on different paths. The pain that followed was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of grief, each breath a struggle. I was on the precipice, teetering on the edge of depression.
My psychologist, a kind woman with gentle eyes, suggested I surround myself with more positive influences, a happier environment. As if that was easy. I’d tried walking in the park, I’d attempted to take up yoga, but the overwhelming sadness clung to me like a persistent cough.
Then, just when I thought things couldn’t get any worse, the world went into lockdown. Covid hit, and suddenly, the hostel was a ghost town, its doors locked, its inhabitants scattered to their various homes. I had nowhere else to go but Vinay’s flat. The place I had so meticulously avoided was now my prison.