It was 3:17 PM when the rain tapped on her window, like a friend knocking after too long away. She'd been waiting all week, her phone sweaty in her hand, ginger tea steaming up between her fingers—spicy and warm, the way her mom used to make it. The monsoon always brought him closer; the signal got strong, the world got quiet, and her heart started thumping like it knew something big was coming. Seventeen days he'd been gone—seventeen days of nothing but her own thoughts—and then, right as the sky opened up, there he was: Mann, lighting up her screen.
*"Kasam se, main tere bina saans nahi le pata,"* he wrote, the words tumbling out all shaky, like his hands couldn't keep up with his heart. (I swear, I can't breathe without you.) She'd never seen him, not once, but she could feel him—his lip chewed raw when he was nervous, that little scar she made up above his eye, a piece of him she'd stitched into her dreams. They'd never met—not when he sent her poems scratched into the margins of old books, not when she mailed him seashells with her perfume soaked into the wrapping, not even when he called her last winter, voice all rough with fever, asking her to paint the snow for him over the phone.
*"Ek nayi kavita likhi hai tere liye,"* he typed, fast and eager. (I wrote a new poem for you.) *"Par pehle bol—aaj blue pehna ya yellow?"* (But first tell me—blue today or yellow?)
She laughed, the sound bouncing off the rain, loud and happy. How did he do that?
*"Blue,"* she texted, tugging at her sleeve like he could see it. *"Har baar kaise pata chal jaata hai tujhe?"* (How do you know every time?)
*"Kyuki jab tu blue pehenti hai, Cassette,"* he shot back, quick as a wink, *"meri left wrist mein chubhan hoti hai, jaise koi dhaga bandha ho."* (Because when you wear blue, Cassette, my left wrist stings, like there's a thread tied there.)
Her breath caught. Cassette—he'd started calling her that after the tape he made, like she was the music he couldn't shake. She rubbed her own wrist, grinning, half-believing she'd feel it too. What if they were tied like that, a string pulling tight across all the miles? The tea went cold, but she didn't care—she was too busy smiling at the thought of him out there, feeling her in his bones.