[POV: Divya]
Time wasn't a line anymore. It was a broken thing. One second, I was screaming, my voice tearing up my throat. The next, I was silent, the world muffled as if someone had shoved my head underwater. I could see the police moving, their mouths opening and closing. I could see Rajesh's arm around my shoulders, a rigid, heavy bar anchoring me to the spot. I could feel the rough blanket someone had draped over me, scratchy against my bare arms.
But none of it connected. It was all just… noise. A silent film projected on a screen a million miles away. The only real thing was the lump under the white sheet. The shape of him.
They were moving him now. Two men in dark uniforms, not police, from some private service, moved with a practiced, gentle efficiency that was somehow worse than roughness. They unfolded a gurney, its wheels squeaking on the broken asphalt. The sound was obscene.
Don't cover his face, a part of my brain that still worked whispered. Please, don't cover his face.
But they did. The sheet was adjusted, lifted. For a horrific, fleeting second, I saw a hand. His hand. Limp, palm up, fingers curled slightly. Unnaturally still. A dark smudge against the white.
And then it was gone, swallowed by the sheet as they lifted him. A transfer of weight. A soft, final thud as the body—his body—settled onto the gurney.
Something small and metallic glinted, catching the strobe of a blue police light. It slipped from beneath the sheet, from that hand, and fell. It didn't clatter. It just tinked once, softly, against the ground, and rolled.
It came to a stop against the toe of my bare, dirty foot.
My eyes, dry and burning, dropped.
The world didn't just freeze. It crystallized. Shattered. And re-formed around that one, tiny object.
It was a bracelet. A simple chain of silver links, but on it hung three small, hand-stamped charms: a heart, a half-sun, and a tiny, clumsy star.
I'd made it. In the metalworking studio last semester. My fingers had filed the edges of the charms smooth, I'd soldered the jump rings, I'd polished the chain until it shone. I'd given it to him for his 18th birthday, my hands shaking. "It's stupid," I'd mumbled. "It's not expensive."
He'd put it on immediately, his smile brighter than anything I'd ever crafted. "It's the best thing I own. I'll never take it off. Promise."
He never had.
And now it lay against my skin, still warm from… from him.
A sound escaped me. Not a sob. Not a scream. A raw, gut-punched exhale, like all the air, all the life, had been stolen from my lungs forever.
I bent. The movement was slow, robotic. The scratchy blanket slipped from my shoulders. The night air bit into me. My fingers, numb and trembling, closed around the bracelet. The metal was warm. I could feel the tiny grooves of the stamped designs.
Proof.
Final. Visceral. Undeniable.
The last piece of him, falling to me. A message from the dead.
My knees gave out.
But I didn't hit the ground. Rajesh was there. His arms went around me, hauling me back up, pulling me against his chest. I didn't fight. There was nothing left to fight with. I was an empty shell, clutching a piece of jewelry that held more soul than I did.
"I've got you," he was saying, his voice a rough, shattered thing close to my ear. "I've got you. Don't look. Just don't look."
But I was looking. I was watching them wheel the gurney away. The white sheet. The shape. The man who was my sun, being loaded into the back of a vehicle that wasn't an ambulance. It was a van. A dark, unmarked van.
"Where are they taking him?" My voice didn't sound like mine. It was a child's voice, thin and lost.
"For… for the postmortem. The procedures." Rajesh's words were clinical, but his voice was shaking. "Then to his grandparents. For the rituals."
Procedures. Rituals. Words for things that happened to other people. To stories. Not to Amit. Not to the boy who laughed so hard he'd snort. Not to the boy who kissed me in the rain and said the universe had designed the monsoon just for us.
A police officer approached, a woman with kind, tired eyes. She started talking. Questions. Forms. Identification. Next of kin.
Rajesh answered. All of it. His voice was flat, hollowed out, but it functioned. He gave Amit's full name, his grandparents' address, his own number. He told them about the party, about him being missing. He was the CEO, managing the crisis. The crisis of my life ending.
I just stood there, the bracelet cutting into my palm. The charms dug into my skin: heart, sun, star.
I'll never take it off. Promise.
He'd kept his promise.
[POV: Rajesh]
Getting her into the car was like maneuvering a sleepwalker. She didn't resist, but she didn't help. She slid into the passenger seat, her eyes fixed on nothing, the filthy blanket still wrapped around her, her fist clenched so tight around that damn bracelet her knuckles were bone-white.
I shut her door. The sound was too loud in the now-quieting night. The crowd was dispersing. The news vans were packing up. Another tragedy filed away.
I stood for a moment outside the driver's door, my forehead pressed against the cool glass. I tried to breathe. The air tasted of dust and despair. My phone had been buzzing incessantly in my pocket. I finally pulled it out.
Twenty-seven missed calls. Twelve from Dad. Eight from Mom. Seven from unknown numbers—probably reporters who'd already dug up the connection.
There was one new text, from an hour ago, from Aunt Meera.
Aunt Meera: Rajesh, beta. Tell me.
Just three words. And they broke me more than the police lights, more than the doctor's words. I had to tell her. I had to say it out loud. Make it real.
I got in the car. The interior light felt like an interrogation lamp. Divya didn't blink.
I started the engine. The gentle purr felt like a mockery. I drove, navigating back to the real world on autopilot. The city lights began again, smearing across the windows. Normal people in normal cars, going to normal places. The universe, violently indifferent.
The silence in the car was a physical presence. It was the loudest thing I'd ever heard. It was the sound of Amit not being in the backseat, making a stupid joke to break the tension. It was the sound of a future that had just been erased.
I had to call. I connected to the car's Bluetooth, my hands slick on the wheel.
It rang once.
"Rajesh?" Aunt Meera's voice was tight, all pretence of dryness gone. Pure, undiluted fear.
"Auntie." My voice cracked. I cleared my throat, CEO mode activating on its last dying battery. "We… we found him."
A sharp intake of breath on the other end. Then silence, waiting for the rest.
"He's… he's gone." The words were ash in my mouth. "There was an… incident. At the old St. Martin's school. They think he… he fell."
I couldn't say the other word. The S-word. It was a lie. It had to be a lie.
The silence from the phone stretched. I could hear her breathing, shallow and ragged. Then a small, devastated sound. The sound of a strong woman breaking.
"No," she whispered. "My sweet boy. No."
"I have Divya," I said, because it was the only concrete fact I could offer. "She's… she's with me. She's in shock."
"Bring her home," Aunt Meera said, her voice firming with a monumental effort. "Just bring her home, Rajesh. Don't stop anywhere. Just come here."
"We're on our way."
I ended the call. The silence rushed back in, even heavier.
"She knew." The voice from the passenger seat was a ghost's whisper.
I glanced over. Divya was still staring straight ahead, but a single tear had tracked through the grime on her cheek.
"What?"
"Aunt Meera. She knew something was wrong. During the dance. She was giving us permission to leave." Divya's head turned slowly toward me. In the passing streetlights, her eyes were bottomless pits of pain. "Why did we dance, Rajesh? Why did we waste time dancing?"
The question was a knife twisted in a wound we both shared.
"Because we're idiots," I said, the bitterness flooding my mouth. "Because we follow stupid rules. Because we didn't want to believe…"
"That he was already gone." She finished the sentence, her voice flat. She looked down at her clenched fist. Slowly, painfully, she pried her fingers open.
The bracelet lay on her palm, gleaming dully.
"He was wearing it," she said. "He was wearing it, and he jumped off a building."
"He didn't jump." The words were out before I could stop them. Sharp. Certain.
She looked at me, a flicker of something in the void of her eyes. "The police said—"
"I don't care what they said!" I snapped, my control fraying completely. "I don't care what it looked like! Amit did not kill himself. He wouldn't. Not today. Not ever. Do you understand me? He. Wouldn't."
I was yelling. At her. At the universe. At the ghost in the backseat.
She flinched, her hand closing over the bracelet again. "Then what, Rajesh? What happened? Did he slip? Did he fly? What's your brilliant corporate analysis of my boyfriend's death?!"
"I don't know!" I shouted, slamming my hand against the steering wheel. The horn blared, a short, angry outburst. "I don't know! But it wasn't that! It wasn't him giving up! He loved you! He loved… he loved everything too much to just… leave!"
The truth of it, the sheer wrongness of the official story, was the only thing keeping me from driving the car into a wall. The anger was fuel. It was better than the howling emptiness.
Divya stared at me, her chest rising and falling in quick, shallow hitches. The tears were coming freely now, silent and relentless. "He promised," she choked out, looking at her fist. "He promised he'd never take it off."
And then the dam broke.
The quiet crying turned into great, heaving sobs that racked her whole body. She curled in on herself, her forehead touching the dashboard, the blanket falling away. She cried for the boy who kept his promises. She cried for the dance they never had. She cried for a future that was now just a ghost limb.
I didn't know what to do. I couldn't touch her. Our truce was too new, too born from catastrophe. Words were useless. So I just drove. I let the sound of her grief fill the terrible silence of the car. It was the most human sound in the world, and it was the only thing that proved either of us was still alive.
We reached the farmhouse. All the fairy lights were off. The house was a dark, mourning silhouette. Only the porch light was on.
Aunt Meera stood there, waiting. She looked ancient in the yellow light, her face crumpled in a way I'd never seen.
I came around and opened Divya's door. She was still crying, the sobs reduced to weak, exhausted shudders. She didn't move.
Aunt Meera approached. She didn't say a word. She just leaned into the car, gathered Divya into her arms, and pulled her out. Divya went limp against her, a child again.
"My baby," Aunt Meera murmured into her hair, her own tears falling. "My poor, brave girl."
Over Divya's head, Aunt Meera's eyes met mine. They held a world of shared sorrow, and a question.
"I'll take care of everything," I said, my voice hoarse. "The police, the… the arrangements. With his grandparents. I'll handle it."
She nodded, a sharp, grateful movement. "Come inside, Rajesh. You shouldn't be alone."
I looked at the dark house. At the two women clinging to each other. At the space where Amit should have been, laughing and filling the doorway with his light.
"I can't," I whispered. The confession felt like weakness, but it was all I had. "I just… I need to… I'll call in the morning."
I turned and got back into my car. Before I shut the door, I saw Divya lift her head from her aunt's shoulder. Her tear-streaked face was turned toward me. In her open hand, the bracelet caught the porch light one last time.
Then the door closed, and I was alone with the engine's hum and the screaming, absolute certainty in my head.
Amit didn't jump.
Someone pushed him.
And I was going to find out who....