SEVENTEEN Jessie

SEVENTEEN

Jessie

It was reckless, and absolutely wild to have sex with Ravi Kumar. But there she was, lying in bed for the second day in a row, wearing one of his shirts while playing with his hair as he rested his head on her stomach. His fingertips stroked her thighs, and the scruff of his jaw rubbed against the soft skin of her abdomen. Her first time had been perfect, and the second even better.

"We're supposed to be studying and reading more letters," she said. She felt drugged with sensation. Was this what it was like to be in love? Was this what people were so scared to find?

No, she thought. This was what people were so scared to lose. She had to prepare herself now because one day, this would be a memory and she'd have only the echoes of feeling to keep her comfortable at night.

"Read one," he said, his voice gruff as he continued to savor her, as if he couldn't have enough. She shifted, feeling the delicious soreness, the aches at the apex of her thighs from his touch. She felt different, but the same all at once.

Jessie reached to the left to grab the book she'd brought to bed and flipped open the cover, where the letters were neatly stacked in chronological order. She picked up the next letter and unfolded it. With her fingers carelessly running through Ravi's hair, she began to read the letter aloud.

"‘Dear Jaan, today, I was caught slipping my letter into your book. I stood in the kaleidoscope room, early in the morning before anyone else came to study, and had reached the second level when Gayatri Singh entered, calling my name. She's been my best friend since we began at the university, and I had to tell her why I was in the tower.'"

Jessie froze, her entire body tensing just as Ravi's did the same. He sat back on his knees, shirtless, with only a pair of boxers on. His eyes were wide as he glanced back and forth between Jessie and the letter.

"Did you say Gayatri Singh?"

"I did," Jessie said. She handed him the letter.

"Gayatri Singh," he said softly. "It says here that Divya asked her to help keep their secret, which Gayatri promised to do. We have a name."

"We have a name," Jessie said. "Oh my god. If we find this person, maybe we can verify whether or not Divya's story is the one that became campus legend. What do you think?"

Ravi carefully put the letter aside, then, with a grin, pulled Jessie into his arms so that she sat on his thighs and wrapped her legs around his waist. "I think we should go and find Gayatri Singh," he said, then kissed her until they were both breathless again.

"In a minute," she whispered as they both lay back onto the rumbled sheets. "We need a minute."

It took a few hours before they were up, showered, dressed, and ready to find Gayatri Singh. Jessie was so glad she'd saved the yearbook archives, which made it easier to look up her records.

"Edison, New Jersey," Ravi said, reading the computer screen from over Jessie's shoulder. "Great. That makes it infinitely harder to find her. Why can't she be from some remote town in the Midwest?"

"Because Gayatri Singh couldn't thrive in the Midwest back in 1972."

They started with Facebook and began reviewing the Gayatris that followed the university page. There were over fifty, and some of them had pictures of their kids or pets as their profile image, which made it impossible to identify their likeness to a yearbook photo from the seventies.

"This is going to take forever," Jessie said.

Ravi pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. "We have time."

She paused at his words. Why did they feel like a reference to their relationship instead of a complicated search for Divya Das's friend? She'd have to tuck that thought away for later.

He rounded the island and opened his fridge, perusing its sparse contents, while she watched him out of the corner of her eye, continuing to scroll through her laptop. That's when a face that looked oddly familiar appeared on her screen.

"Is that you, Gayatri?" she murmured as she clicked on the profile. The details that appeared were limited, since this Gayatri Singh had kept her information private. But there were a few photos that she was able to see, one of them from a hospital picnic six months ago.

Jessie followed the information trail until she found the hospital's social-media account and scrolled until she found the picnic. There was a photo of a pretty South Asian woman surrounded by children, perhaps her grandchildren. Her hair was streaked with orange and white. She wore traditional Punjabi clothes.

But there was something in her eyes. Jessie cleaned closer. "Oh my god," she whispered. "I think I found her."

Ravi came around the counter and looked at the side-by-side images Jessie had pulled up on the screen: the blurry black-and-white photo from the yearbook and the color image of a woman fifty years older.

"I think that's her, Jessie," Ravi said. "I mean, there's a good chance it's not, and the woman we're looking for doesn't even know how to operate a computer, but she might be the one. Is there a way you can reach out to her? Through email or something?"

Jessie checked her contact fields, which were all blank. But she was able to check to see if she followed her children.

"There," she said, and then tapped the screen at the family connections. "Her daughter is on Facebook and has a public profile. She's in her early forties. Do you think she'd mind if we reached out to her about her mother's connection at the university?"

"We might as well try," Ravi said. "Do you want me to send the message? I can use my name."

Jessie took a minute to think about the potential impact of using Ravi's name. The woman was older, so there was a chance that a tech conglomerate family name didn't resonate with her, but it was worth a shot.

She twisted in her chair and looked up at Ravi. "Do you think you could ask her for an interview for a story you're working on or something? I don't want to scare her away by mentioning a school project."

"Sure," Ravi said, then dropped a kiss on the tip of Jessie's nose. It was amazing how easy it felt to be with him this way. His touch was the most natural feeling to her now that they'd been together, and she wanted more of it. It felt comforting to her, and the imprint of his fingertips were reminders of how delicious he made her feel.

"Okay," Jessie said. "Let's message Gayatri Singh and see if she's willing to talk to us. Edison, New Jersey, isn't too far from here, so if she won't chat on the phone, then it won't be too difficult to rent a car or something and drive out to see her."

"Let's do it now, then," Ravi said. "Then we should get some homework done. Not that I don't want to spend the rest of the night with you; it's just that I don't want to be the reason your grades slip after you've been working so hard."

Her cheeks warmed. "Thanks," she said. "I care about your grades, too."