My Tutor Became My Cold Senior
Chapter 1: Results and Goodbyes
When the board exam results were announced, I sent a message to my online girlfriend.
As I stared at my phone screen, heart pounding like the clatter of rain on a tin roof, I typed out my farewell. The dim yellow tube-light in my room flickered, and somewhere downstairs, Amma was shouting for the maid. For a moment, the world went oddly quiet, as if everything was holding its breath.
I can't get into St. Stephen's College anymore. Goodbye.
The message blinked back at me—a few plain words carrying months of anxiety and unsaid dreams. My thumb hovered over the screen, sweaty with hesitation. I remembered her voice notes, the way her laughter would crackle through the speaker late at night. What would she say if she read this? Would she send back a gentle joke, or would her silence say everything? My chest tightened with guilt and fear, but I pressed send anyway. The tension in my body eased, just a little, but not enough.
Then I turned around and went to IIT Delhi—and blocked her while I was at it.
My phone vibrated in my kurta pocket, almost lost under the noise of Amma’s serial blaring from the TV downstairs. I took a deep breath and looked at my IIT Delhi admission letter again, the ink slightly smudged at the corner from my earlier nervous hands. Delhi’s summer heat pressed down, making my shirt stick to my back, but inside, a chill ran through me. I didn’t want her to see where I’d gone.
But during my first year of practical training, the postgraduate student substituting for our class called out my name in front of everyone.
"You—come up and solve this problem. I taught you this before."
The sharp smell of sanitizer still hung in the lab, and the low buzz of classmates whispering filled the air. My heart thudded in my chest as I recognized her voice but couldn’t believe it was really her. Heads turned, and the lazy hum of the AC was drowned out by my own heartbeat.
Me: "..."
My mouth went dry. I could feel every eye in the room drilling into me. What kind of joke is this? Why is the online girlfriend who wanted me to get into St. Stephen's now showing up at IIT Delhi?
