‘Aunty V, how’s Raghu?’ I asked her, the words slipping out. The fool had just gone silent and was ignoring me completely.

She didn’t seem to find my question strange. ‘He’s tired. He wants to come back here, but his father won’t let him.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked alarmed.

‘He wants him to study for GRE. He blames me for letting Raghu take it easy this year. Thinks I should have pushed him and not given him time to figure things out.’

‘Well, it’s important for Raghu to figure out what he wants,’ I said, annoyed at his father.

She shrugged.

I had another disturbing thought. ‘He won’t force Raghu to go away abroad or something, no?’

‘No, I too had wanted Raghu to go abroad for further studies,’ she said. ‘But . . .’

‘But?’ I prompted her, holding my breath.

‘I can see how happy he is at the restaurant. I’ve been rethinking my plans for him. I want to ask him if he wants to do a hotel management course instead.’

That would be cool, I thought, as she walked away. Raghu would be doing what he loved. I felt happy and envious of him at the same time.

Now, I turned to Nisha.

‘How about I just change my profile DP. He’ll see it then,’ I said.

She rolled her eyes. ‘How’s that going to help? You’ll never know if he’s seen it.’

I gave in to her reluctantly. We took some group photos and then a couple of selfies together. We sorted through them and I picked out the most flattering of them in which I was with Nisha and Anirudh. I had my arms around them and I was right in the middle, a wide smile on my face. It was a happy smile. It showed that I had a life here and friends who cared about me.

Before I could overthink it, I sent it to him.

He replied a little later with a thumbs-up emoji, which annoyed me. But what had I been expecting? I decided I wouldn’t respond to him.

But later that night, he messaged me again. ‘Sorry, was busy when you messaged. Looking at everything carefully now.’

I frowned. What was he looking at carefully? I sent him a question mark.

‘All the messages I got earlier today,’ he replied.

Oh, okay. From his many friends in Mumbai and probably his girlfriends and ugh . . . that lame selfie from me. Why had I listened to Nisha and sent it to him, I thought, shutting my eyes when my phone buzzed again.

‘You guys looking good. What’s the occasion?’ he asked.

‘Farewell in college,’ I typed back.

He went silent after that. I kept looking at my phone until I fell asleep.