THE POISON WAS PATIENT

CHAPTER 2

Back in September 2018, Disha was still the kind of girl who believed attendance could somehow save her future.

“Disha, I had some work. Could you please send me the lecture notes?” Anhita had texted her that morning, already knowing the answer before Disha replied.

Where are you going now, yaar? You bunk classes twice a week.

Please manage it, Anhita sent back, followed by a laughing emoji and absolutely no guilt.

By the time the second lecture began, Anhita was already standing near the last classroom window, glancing once over her shoulder like a thief checking for witnesses. The professor’s voice droned on behind her, something about assignments and internal marks, but none of it mattered enough to keep her in place.

With the ease of someone who had done this before, she slipped one leg over the window ledge, then the other, and jumped.

She landed badly—one foot twisting slightly, a curse escaping her lips before she could stop it.

“People usually use doors for that.”

The voice came from a few feet away.

Anhita looked up, startled.

A boy was leaning against the corridor wall outside, arms folded, amusement resting carelessly on his face as if he had just been handed the most entertaining part of his day. He was tall, dressed in a black shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, and there was something infuriatingly self-assured about the way he stood there, watching her as though girls jumping out of classroom windows was a perfectly normal thing to witness.

For a second, Anhita said nothing. Then she straightened, brushed the dust off her kurta, and lifted her chin.

“And people usually mind their own business,” she shot back.

The smile on his face widened instead of disappearing.

“Fair enough,” he said. “But if you were trying to make an elegant exit, I should tell you the landing ruined the effect.”

Anhita glared at him, more because he was enjoying this than because he was wrong.

“Do you always stand around outside classrooms waiting to comment on strangers?”

“Only the interesting ones.”

That answer should have annoyed her. Somehow, it didn’t.

She narrowed her eyes. “Who even are you?”

“Raghav,” he said, as if that alone should mean something. “Final year.”

Anhita gave him a blank stare. “Good for you.”

He laughed then—an actual laugh this time, not the irritating half-smile from before—and pushed himself away from the wall.

“And you are the girl who jumps out of windows to avoid lectures.”

“Anhita,” she said before she could stop herself. “Second year.”

Raghav nodded slowly, as though storing the information somewhere he would return to later.

“Nice to meet you, Anhita.”

She wasn’t sure why the way he said her name made her suddenly aware of the loose strand of hair stuck to her cheek, or the dust still clinging to the edge of her sleeve.

“It’s not,” she replied quickly, trying to recover whatever dignity she had left.

But when she turned to leave, she could still feel his eyes following her, amused and curious in equal measure.

That was the first time Anhita met Raghav —outside a classroom she escaped from, with dust on her clothes, irritation in her voice, and absolutely no idea that the boy laughing at her awkward landing would one day become the centre of her life, and later, the reason it fell apart.