I barely slept two hours.
Every time I shut my eyes, my brain replayed Meera standing in the middle of the canteen, looking Priya dead in the face and saying, "He's my boyfriend."
Over and over. Like a glitching reel on loop.
By 8:45 AM, I was already standing outside the front gates of BSSS. My palms were sweaty despite the cold morning breeze, and I'd checked my phone's front camera at least six times to see if my hair looked stupid. It did, but there wasn't much I could do about it now.
Around me, Bhopal was just waking up. City buses were spitting diesel smoke at the turn, autos were honking for no reason, and batches of students were drifting through the gate with half-asleep faces and folders tucked under their arms.
Normally, nobody gave a damn about me. I was just that quiet guy in the second row who never answered unless the professor took attendance twice.
Not today.
Every few seconds, someone walking past would slow down, nudge their friend, and look straight at me. Two girls from Priya's batch whispered something behind a notebook, giggled, and stared.
Great, I thought, pulling my collar up. The canteen gossip made it to WhatsApp. I'm dead.
"You look like you're about to throw up."
A voice spoke right next to my ear.
I flinched so hard my shoulder hit the brick pillar.
Meera stood there, adjusting the strap of her canvas bag. She was wearing a simple dark green oversized Hoodie , faded jeans, and white sneakers, with her hair tied in a loose clip. She hadn't bothered with makeup or anything fancy, but somehow, two guys walking in through the gate almost tripped over the speed breaker just staring at her.
She looked entirely too relaxed. It pissed me off a little.
"You startled me," I said, my voice cracking slightly. I cleared my throat, embarrassed. "And I don't throw up."
"Could've fooled me. You're shaking."
"I am cold."
"It's twenty degrees, Veer." She tilted her head. "So. Ready for day one?"
"Day one of what? Ruining my life?"
Meera let out a soft laugh, genuine and low. "Come on. Look around. Yesterday you were the guy Priya dumped on in public. Today, people are looking at you like you pulled off a bank heist. You're welcome, by the way."
"They're looking at me because they think I hired you," I muttered.
"Did you?"
"I don't have enough money in my Paytm to hire anyone."
Before she could roast me again, a loud, obnoxious yell sliced straight through the crowd near the guard cabin.
"OYE! VAQZY!"
My stomach dropped straight into my shoes.
Oh God. Not Rohit.
Rohit came charging through the turnstile like a runaway bull, holding a crushed samosa paper in one hand and his phone in the other. His jacket was half-zipped, his curly hair looked like an exploded bird's nest, and his eyes were wild.
"Bhai, tu sunega nahi—college group pe kisi ne likha tha ki tu aur—"
He stopped dead in his tracks. Three feet away.
His mouth stayed open.
A piece of samosa crust tumbled out and hit his shoe. He didn't even notice.
He looked at me.
Then he looked at Meera.
Then at how close Meera was standing to my side.
Then back at my miserable face.
"Huh?" Rohit muttered.
One second passed.
"Huh?!"
Two seconds passed.
"HAAAHHH?!" Rohit's voice cracked so loudly that an uncle parking his scooter outside looked over in concern. "WHAAAT?!"
"Rohit, chup kar yaar," I hissed, lunging forward to grab his arm. "People are looking."
"CHUP KAR?!" Rohit slapped my hand away, completely losing his mind. He pointed a shaking finger at Meera, then at me, looking like his nervous system had short-circuited. "Vaqzy... bro... tell me this is a sick joke. Tell me you made an AI deepfake. WHO IS THIS? WHY IS SHE WITH YOU?"
Meera took half a step forward, smiling with the kind of sweet, polite confidence that made me want to hide behind a bus.
"Hi, Rohit. Veer talks about you all the time."
Rohit looked like someone had hit him with a cricket bat. He grabbed his own cheeks, squeezing his face in horror. "She knows my name. The transfer student knows my name. Veer, did you get amnesia? Did Priya's rejection give you brain damage? Are you being blackmailed?!" "Bro, shut your mouth before I punch you," I pleaded.
"No way. No bloody way." Rohit grabbed my shoulder with one hand and pointed across the street with the other. "Attendance goes to hell. Both of you. Cafe. Right now. I need answers or I'm calling your mom."
Meera didn't even argue. She just glanced at me, gave a little shrug, and said, "Lead the way."
The small tea-and-snack cafe across BSSS was cramped, dimly lit, and smelled like burnt coffee and fried Maggi. It had old plywood booths where seniors carved their initials with compass needles.
At 9:15 AM,
only two uncles in the corner were reading the newspaper.
Rohit shoved me into one side of the booth, forced Meera to sit next to me, and sat across from us like a police inspector about to crack a murder case.
The boy running the counter brought over three cutting chais without us even asking. Rohit slid a five-hundred-rupee note across the counter without looking, grabbed his glass, and leaned across the laminate table until his face was six inches from mine.
"Start. From the beginning. And if you lie, I will personally throw your laptop in the Upper Lake."
I swallowed dryly.
My shoulder was pressed against Meera's. I could feel the heat radiating from her sweater. It was distracting, terrifying, and making it very hard to string two Hindi words together.
"It's... exactly what you heard yesterday," I started, fumbling with my cardboard cup. "We're... dating."
"Dating." Rohit repeated the word like it was a foreign language. "You. Veer Sharma. The guy who spent all of last Saturday night sending me sad memes about unrequited love and eating cold Parle-G in his room. You're dating Meera. The girl half the third-year seniors have been trying to get numbers from since July."
He slammed his flat palm on the wood.
"Bhai, tu pagal hai kya? How?! Since when?! She joined three weeks ago! You haven't even talked to a girl properly since eleventh standard!"
"Hey," Meera interrupted. Her tone was light, but there was an edge to it that made Rohit freeze. "Don't sell him short."
Rohit blinked, turning to her. "Behen... sorry, Meera ji... you don't know this guy. He gets nervous ordering momos."
"I know enough," Meera said calmly.
She picked up her tea, blew gently on the surface, and leaned her chin on her left hand. Her voice was smooth, relaxed, and so completely convincing that for a split second, even I wondered if I had forgotten my own life.
"It wasn't just a sudden thing, Rohit," Meera said, looking straight at him. "You remember in the canteen, when someone bumped into me near the counter and my notebooks went flying?"
Rohit's eyes suddenly popped wide open. He pointed a finger between the two of us. "Wait—THAT WAS YOU?! Bro, I was literally standing two steps behind Veer near the water cooler when he panicked, picked up your papers, and muttered 'Okay, you can go now' like a complete idiot!"
"Exactly," Meera laughed, shaking her head. "A couple of other guys tried to rush over to act like heroes, but Veer was the one who actually helped without staring or trying to act smooth. And when he told me 'You can go now,' looking completely terrified of me, I honestly couldn't stop smiling. It was the first time a guy on this campus didn't try to immediately flirt with me."
"I told you I was nervous, yaar," I mumbled, staring down at the table while my cheeks burned.
"Then later," Meera continued smoothly, turning her gaze toward me with a soft, affectionate look that felt dangerously real, "we ended up running into each other right outside this very cafe. We started talking, and when we were heading down, my heel slipped on those steep cafe stairs. Veer caught my arm just in time before I took a terrible fall."
My eyes widened. Wait—she's turning my clumsy reflex into a full romantic scene?!
Before I could say anything stupid, Meera's sneaker gave my foot a firm, warning kick under the table. She didn't miss a beat.
"He didn't brag about it, and he didn't ask for anything in return," she told Rohit softly. "He just made sure I wasn't hurt. It's rare to find someone who's just genuinely decent and protective without an ulterior motive."
The small wooden booth fell completely quiet.
Rohit looked at her, then back at me. The suspicious look in his eyes slowly faded into something else—something quiet and genuinely surprised.
"Most guys in this college try so hard to look like heroes," Meera said, her fingers tracing the edge of her tea glass. "They puff out their chests, talk loud, and act like they're doing you a favor just by existing. Veer didn't care about looking cool. He was just genuinely decent. So after class, I waited near the gate and asked for his number."
She paused, looking Rohit straight in the eyes.
"And yesterday, when I saw Priya and her friends trying to make a joke out of him in the canteen... it disgusted me. She rejected him? Fine. That's her choice. But trying to embarrass him just to make herself feel big? No. I wasn't going to let that happen to someone who actually treated me with respect."
Dead quiet fell over the booth.
Only the sound of the tea stall stove hissing outside filled the space.
Rohit sat there, his mouth slightly parted. For the first time in the three years I had known him, the guy had nothing stupid to say.
He slowly picked up his tea, took a sip, and put it down.
"Bhai," Rohit whispered, shaking his head slowly. "Tu... tu sach mein aage nikal gaya."
"Rohit..."
"No, listen to me," Rohit cut in, his voice dead serious now. He reached across and grabbed my wrist. "Last week, seeing you after that confession... you looked dead inside, man. You weren't eating, you weren't coming to gaming cafes, you just sat there taking Priya's taunts like you deserved them. It made me so angry because you didn't deserve any of that crap."
He looked at Meera, his eyes weirdly shiny for a second before he blinked it away.
"Thank you, yaar. Seriously. Even if this idiot is awkward as hell, he's a good guy. Don't break his heart."
A sharp, guilty knot twisted right in the center of my chest.
Rohit was my brother. He had stayed up with me on phone calls till 3:00 AM when I was crying over Priya. Seeing him sit here, genuinely happy for me, believing this massive, manufactured lie... it felt like a kick to the ribs.
Under the table, a foot bumped against mine.
I looked down. Meera had slid her foot against mine, nudging me gently. Then, without breaking eye contact with Rohit, she slid her small, warm hand across the table and loosely laced her fingers through mine.
My entire body went rigid.
Her hand was soft, slender, and ridiculously warm.
"I won't," Meera said to Rohit, her voice quiet and steady. "He's stuck with me now."
Rohit looked down at our hands, grinned from ear to ear, and threw his hands up. "Bas, bas! Too much romance for an 9:30 AMtea stall. My diabetic soul can't handle this. I'm going to get some bun-maska before the economics professor locks the door."
He slid out of the booth, whistling, and headed for the counter.
The second he stepped away, I let out a breath that sounded like a dying balloon.
I looked down at our hands. Meera didn't pull away immediately. She waited for a second, then gently released my fingers, picking up her tea again as if nothing had happened.
My hand still felt warm where she had touched it.
"Darling?" I whispered, glaring at her sideways. "You told him I was a hero who picked up your papers?"
"You did pick up my papers," she said, taking a sip.
"And you made up the rest!"
"You needed a story, Veer. If we told him the truth, he would've blown our cover in five minutes. Look at him over there—he's already texting our batch group. By lunch, Priya will hear that we're madly in love, and she won't dare open her mouth again."
I leaned back against the hard wooden booth, staring at the ceiling fans spinning slowly above us.
"He was really happy for me," I said, my voice dropping. "It felt terrible lying to him."
Meera was quiet for a long moment.
When I looked over, she was staring into her glass, her thumb slowly circling the rim. The teasing look had vanished from her face.
"Not everything was a lie," she said quietly.
"What?"
She turned her dark eyes toward me. "The part about you being decent. I meant it. When you helped me in the canteen, you didn't ask for my Instagram. You didn't linger. You were just kind. In a place where everyone wants something from you, that's rare."
She offered a small, crooked smile—vulnerable, real, and completely devoid of acting.
"So don't feel guilty. Think of it as... an audition. We're just two people helping each other get through college without losing our minds."
I looked at her, the morning sunlight cutting through the cafe's dusty window and catching the edge of her face. The knot of guilt in my chest didn't completely disappear, but for the first time in weeks, the suffocating heaviness was gone.
"Okay," I said quietly.
"Okay?"
"Yeah. Let's do it."
She smiled—a wide, bright, gorgeous smile that made my stomach do another one of those stupid flips.
"Good. Now finish your tea, fake boyfriend. We have a ten o'clock lecture, and you're carrying my bag."
"Wait, that wasn't part of the deal!"
"It is now."
We both laughed,
walking out into the bright BSSS morning together.
Looking back, that morning felt so normal. So grounded. Just ordinary college drama, bad tea, awkward smiles, and the sweet, messy confusion of two strangers pretending to be in love.
I had no idea that time was already running out.
I didn't know that beneath the cracked stone floors of BSSS, something ancient and terrifying was beginning to wake up. And that very soon, the biggest problem in my life wouldn't be fake relationships or college rumors—it would be surviving a world that was about to shatter into pieces.
END OF Chapter 11:
Sometimes, when someone rejects you, it feels like your whole world has ended. You start believing that you weren't good enough, that you're just broken. But the truth is, rejection doesn't measure your worth; it just shows that you were looking for appreciation from the wrong person. When you stop begging the past to look at you, life has a strange way of putting someone new in your path—someone who sees the very things in you that others took for granted.
Author's Note
Hey guys,
I am so, so sorry for disappearing for so long without any updates.
The last few weeks have been the hardest time of my life. My grandfather was admitted to the hospital in critical condition, and our entire family was completely shaken. Unfortunately, we lost him. Dealing with his passing broke me, and I slipped into a really dark, depressed space where I couldn't focus on anything. Rest in peace I miss you every single day.
Grief is strange—when you sit idle, your mind just keeps replaying the pain and overthinking everything until you can't breathe. That's why I decided I needed to get back .. Diving back into Veer and Meera's world is my way of keeping my mind busy and trying to heal .
Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who checked up on me, waited patiently, and kept supporting the book. You guys give me the strength to keep going.