TWENTY-FOUR Ravi

TWENTY-FOUR

Ravi

Ravi hadn't vaped in so long that the first pull on his pen left him dizzy and nauseous. But his body soon remembered the sweet, addictive taste, and he quickly worked through the first small cartridge he'd purchased that night.

He rarely spent Saturdays alone at home. In the three years he'd been on campus, he could probably count on one hand the times his weekend nights involved sitting on his balcony, smoking. But here he was, looking down at the traffic on the street below his condo building, hearing the soft hum of the TV he'd left on behind the glass doors.

Ravi wasn't ashamed that he'd come back to his condo, stripped out of all of his clothes, and then cried in the shower for his broken heart and his broken love. He felt like he was being ripped to shreds, when in reality, they hadn't been together long at all. One semester. No, half of a semester. The first half was just them circling each other. Then their differences became enough to separate them for good.

He took another slow pull from the pen, then let out a stream of smoke that unfurled into the dark night. It had all happened so fast, but it felt like a lifetime. He knew her quirks, her likes, her dislikes, her habits. He understood her hopes and dreams, and he'd shared his own, which he'd never done with anyone before. And that was an intimacy that was so rare for him to have with anyone that it was inevitable he'd start to fall in love with her.

The letter sat beside him, tucked under a crystal whiskey glass filled two-thirds of the way with dark-amber liquid. Just as he was about to take a sip, there was a sharp knock on the door inside.

Who the hell was coming over at midnight?

He crossed the room and looked into the peephole before cursing.

"I know you're in there," Arjun called out. "I heard you swearing."

"These fucking doors suck," he said, then unlatched the chain to let in his brother, wearing a rumpled suit and bags under his eyes. "What are you doing here, bhai? How did you even know where I live?"

Arjun shrugged. "I assumed you're drinking whiskey alone, so I figured I'd come and join you. And we all know where you live. You're dumb enough to send Diwali presents to us from this address."

Shit.

"You've known all this time? And you want to now join me for whiskey?" Ravi was taken aback by this unexpected proposal. As adults, he and his brother had never spent time alone together. While they had relied on each other's company as kids, in the last few years, it had always been Ravi pitted against his father and brother.

Arjun nodded as if this were a completely normal occurrence. "Dad is shit company lately, so I'm choosing the lesser of the two."

"Considering Jessie and I just broke up, you may have chosen wrong."

"Ahh," Arjun said. He rocked back on his heels.

"Happy?" Ravi said ruefully. "I bet that's what you wanted."

In a surprising move, Arjun clasped Ravi's shoulder. "I'm sorry. But it's better that it happens now than later."

Ravi turned toward the liquor cart and picked up a half-empty bottle. "How does it feel to be exactly what Mom and Dad always wanted?"

Arjun cocked his head as he slipped out of his suit coat. "I don't know, since Mom and Dad have always been critical of me, too."

"Bullshit," Ravi said bitterly.

Arjun took the glass that Ravi handed him. "Can I tell you something?"

"As my older brother, I feel like you're going to regardless of what I say."

Arjun shrugged. "You're not wrong. Come on. Let's go sit outside."

Ravi didn't feel like he had a choice, so he led his brother into the cold November air. Arjun took a seat and picked up one of the vape pens.

"Do you mind?" he asked.

"I guess not."

Arjun settled in, took half of Ravi's blanket, and as if it were a totally normal occurrence, he vaped and drank in silence next to Ravi's side.

"I guess I didn't have any idea how lucky I was. I knew that I wanted to be a part of the family business since I was a kid," he finally said. "I heard what you said to Dad today, and I realized that if I was in your shoes, it would suck not having someone on my side."

"It does," Ravi said. He studied his brother's profile. "And I don't resent you for wanting to be like Dad. But I do resent Mom and Dad for not realizing that I'm different than you."

"And I've been pushing you, too."

Ravi gave him a rueful smile. "You've been an absolute dick."

There was another stretch of silence, leaving Ravi to wonder if his brother had always been so contemplative.

"If you want to go to grad school," Arjun said slowly, "then go to fucking grad school. Stay here as long as you want with Jessie. But you'll have to deal with the consequences and prove that it's worth the sacrifice."

A familiar itching sensation crept up the base of his spine, an uneasy discomfort that always resurfaced when discussing his future with his family. "Do you know why I chose media studies?"

Arjun rolled his eyes. "To piss off Dad?"

"No, that's never been my goal despite what you both think. It's because I get to tell stories. I get to analyze what tech companies do and craft a narrative about it. That was as close to a compromise as I could make. Be true to myself and also study something that may one day be applicable to the family business."

"Yeah, the marketing department might benefit from—"

"Arjun," Ravi said, cutting him off. "If there is one thing I've learned, it's that compromising isn't going to work. Dad is still going to be unhappy. You'll still be critical of everything I do. So if media studies doesn't make all of us happy with my role in supporting the family, I might as well say ‘fuck it' and do what makes me happy and just deal with your disappointment. Because as Desi as we all are, I'm privileged enough to be able to walk away from the Kumar family if I want."

Arjun let out a deep breath and took a sip of his whiskey. "Okay."

Ravi stared at his brother. "Okay? What do you mean by ‘okay'?"

"I mean, as long as you're willing to deal with the consequences. I'll try to support you. Even if I disagree. You may go down a few wrong paths, but hopefully you'll pick yourself up and move forward."

The words had an ominous tone to them, and then he realized what Arjun was trying to do. "Is this a fucking segue to my love life?"

"That it is," Arjun said cheerfully. "That it fucking is."

Ravi closed his eyes and rested his head on the back of his patio chair. "There's nothing to discuss. Like I said, Jessie broke up with me."

"Is there anything you can say or do to make her give you another chance? Flowers? Gifts? A singing telegram?"

"Wait, I thought you didn't like Jessie," Ravi said, sitting up in his chair.

Arjun shrugged. "Look, I'm not a great brother, and we both know that. But you're dating an engineer. If that's as close as you're getting to the family business, then I guess we'll have to take it."

For the first time in years, Ravi laughed without reservation. He still remembered the harsh words that they shared at dinner, the raw feelings they had about each other, but in this moment, their connection superseded all of that.

His thoughts circled back to Arjun's question about Jessie. "I don't know what I can do to convince her," he said. "She thinks that we come from these completely separate worlds, and in a way, she's not wrong. But she's so afraid of who we'll be after we graduate. I think it's because she sees me leaving college before her and going back West, leaving her behind."

"Is that why you're considering graduate school? So you can stay with her?"

"It's mostly for me," he said. But Ravi would be lying if he didn't admit the obvious perk of being able to stay with Jessie, too. They'd had such a short relationship over the course of one semester, but it was enough to solidify his feelings about her. "I think she sees our fate as being entwined with Christian and Divya's."

"Who?"Arjun asked.

Ravi laughed. He'd been so engrossed in the mystery that he hadn't realized there were people outside of Hartceller who had never heard of the legend. "Here's a problem that your code will never be able to solve," Ravi said.

He gave Arjun the rundown: the campus legend, where the letters were found, what they said, and their interviews with Gayatri and Professor Barnard. When he was done, their glasses were empty and the cartridge was almost finished. The wind had picked up, and it was freezing now.

"I think you should write Jessie a letter," Arjun said. "I think that's the best way you can get things across to her. Just like your Divya Das wrote letters to Christian."

"I already have. I poured my heart out, man. And I doubt another letter could fix things. I mean, look what happened with the last letter between Divya and Christian."

He picked up the folded envelope from under his glass and handed it to Arjun. In the dim overhead lighting of his balcony, Arjun took a few minutes to read the missive carefully. He brought it so close to his face that his nose practically touched the ink. He raised an eyebrow and gave a low whistle before laying it down.

"What did he say?"

Ravi tilted his head. "What did who say?"

"Christian. What did he say in response to her intention to break up?"

"I don't know. We only have Divya's letters."

"Did you look for Christian's?"

Ravi felt a tickling sensation in the back of his throat. "No," he said slowly. "We left the library as fast as we could. The tower is locked because they're starting renovations over winter break." Had he really never thought about Christian's side of the story?

"Do you think his letters might still be in there? In the desk?"

Ravi shrugged. Considering everything he knew about Divya Das and her lover, there should've been more letters. The more he thought about it, the more he knew that there had to be letters. Because if Christian loved Divya as much as she loved him, then he'd express the same feelings on paper in return.

Ravi bolted to his feet. "I have to write a letter to Jessie."

Arjun rolled his eyes. "My work here is done. Maybe I'm not that much of a shit brother after all."

"No, no, it's not," Ravi said. "I can't write this letter without showing her that there's another side to the story. I have to find Christian's letters first."

"How are you going to do that?" Arjun asked. "Didn't you just say that Davidson Tower is locked?"

"Yeah." He grinned at his brother. "Hey, want to go on an adventure? Like old times when we were kids and stuck at home with the nanny? Think of the weekend we camped out in the treehouse and made ourselves sick on Fritos and Capri Sun. You know. Before you became an absolute douche like Dad."

Arjun smiled, and for a moment, he looked like their mom. "For you? I guess we can do it like old times."

Ravi picked up his phone and called Deep. "Yo!" he said into the receiver over the sound of a rave. "We need those library keys again. In, like, five minutes."

It was ridiculously easy, breaking into Davidson Tower for a second time. With Deep's keys in hand and his brother by his side, Ravi entered the library through the back service entrance and walked straight down to the basement. They crossed the floor behind the stacks and waited to make sure that there was no patrol before walking up to the locked doors of Davidson Tower. How many times had he looked through his study room into the tower to see the kaleidoscope-like stained-glass ceiling? How many times had he wondered what it would be like to study inside the tower? More importantly, how many times had he pictured Jessie sitting at the table, smiling at him when he walked in?

After using one of the metal keys on Deep's key ring to unlock Davidson Tower, Ravi pulled open the wood door and stepped inside. Arjun was ominously quiet behind him, taking in the dusty surroundings.

"The desk was upstairs," Ravi said.

Arjun made a slow circle, taking in the room. "We definitely didn't have anything like this at MIT."

"You didn't have to come, you know."

Arjun looked back at Ravi. "Yeah, I probably did. I still want to see Dad's face when you and your girlfriend stand up to him again about grad school."

"Ahh, my dickhead brother is back."

"I never left," Arjun said with a chuckle. "But this time, I'll make a case for grad school on your behalf, too. If we survive this haunted-tower bullshit."

Ravi shook his head. He doubted Arjun's brief moment of empathy would stop him from acting like an asshole for the rest of his life, so he'd take advantage of his brother's help while he could.

They made their way to the back of the tower room, then ascended the spiral staircase to the second level. Armed with a flashlight they had brought, Ravi carefully removed the sheet covering the desk and proceeded to check every nook and cranny—examining the drawers, the back paneling, the underside of the desk, and inside all the cabinet spaces.

Twenty minutes later, they were still empty-handed.

"I feel like I'm missing something," Ravi said as he sat back on his haunches in front of the desk.

Arjun nodded, then scanned the row of boxes behind them. "What were the letters stored in? The ones from Divya."

"A book," Ravi said. "An old copy of a Jane Austen novel."

"Maybe there's another Jane Austen novel that Christian put his letters in. I would try to make it as obvious as possible. I'm a software engineer, so my brain would want to find parallels."

"Another Jane Austen novel," he mused. Then he remembered the box of books that Jessie was looking at before he interrupted her. He flashed his light in their direction. The box labeled 1972 was sitting right where Jessie had left it, with its flaps open.

"There," he said. He handed the flashlight to his brother, then picked up the box to put on the desk. On the very top was a mirror copy of Jane Austen's Persuasion. He'd been so busy trying to get Jessie out of the library the last time they were there that he hadn't thought to dig any further.

"Bingo," Arjun said.

Ravi held his breath as he lifted the cover. Inside, there was a hollowed-out section fitted with a stack of letters just as thick as those from Divya Das.

Just like the first time he'd seen the letters, he felt a spark of hope. Maybe, just maybe, he could repair what he'd started with Jessie.

"Come on, Christian," Ravi murmured. "Help me get my girl back."