3.

Chapter 3 of 'So Far, So Close'.

I didn’t know what to think, let alone what to say. I went completely blank. Mixed emotions erupted like tiny magnesium flares inside of me.

“IS THIS SOME KIND OF JOKE!?” Kyra said after a while, breaking the silence, before I could say anything. Angry tears streamed down her face. Kyra cried a lot and I never cried much basically because I was usually like an emotionless, indifferent rock to everything most of the time. But this was enough to even make me cry.

“Nevaeh , say something.”

But I couldn’t. All I could do was stare at that lifeless piece of paper that felt to me like it had just stabbed me in the gut. I scanned the words over and over again, my mind running at a million miles a second. Oh, and we’ll make the soufflé. What did that even mean!?! How was there a we in that sentence, when all that was left of him was ash and untouchable memories that would gradually fade with age? And 3:33 pm? I checked my watch. It was 3:35. The letter must have arrived right at that time. Who would do something like this? Why would someone do it? And coming back? What did he mean? And no one apart from Kyra knew about the soufflé. 

“Nevaeh ?” she said.

“Th-This can’t be a joke.” I said.

“What?”

“This can’t be a joke. No one else knew about the soufflé. No one else knows about it, apart from you and me.”

“What do you mean?” she looked like someone was forcing her to believe that the earth is triangular instead of round. “You’re trying to say that Aditya, Aditya Avasthi, is coming back from the dead?”

“No.” I said. I didn’t know what I meant. I didn’t know what I should have meant. 

“Neevy, It’s-it’s not possible.” She said, this helpless frown on her face that made her look like everything inside of her was crumbling. But then, it was. “It must… it must be a nasty joke. There’s no letter coming tomorrow. This is not PS I Love You.”

“Look.” I said, “Let’s just wait until tomorrow. Let’s not expect anything, but we’ll just wait.”

She sighed, “Okay.” Silence. “But what if a letter does come?”

“We read it.”

No, of course, I wasn’t believing that Aditya Avasthi, (status: dead, residence: wherever dead people go, occupation: being dead and making people cry) was coming back. No, that couldn’t have been happening. Maybe he did write the letters before he died. Maybe a friend was getting them delivered. 

“That doesn’t look like his handwriting.” Said Kyra all of a sudden, and I had to agree. It was hastier, messier. And Adi’s handwriting slanted towards the left. Always had, always did. The one on the paper didn’t. It looked more like Kyra’s than his. My heart sunk, for some reason. I felt an actual physical contraction in my chest, like a lump had suddenly decided to reside under the undeniable safety of my ribcage.

“It’s not.” I said.

“If we get another letter,” Kyra said, looking me dead in the eye, “We’re looking for whoever drops it. Neevy, we’re going to trace it.” 

I nodded. We shook on it. 

***

I was more than terrified. A letter from my dead best friend, promising that he was going to come back, from wherever he was supposed to come back, and that he’d make soufflé with me like he promised before he died. What sense did that make? It was impossible not to think about anything but that all day, and impossible to fall asleep with the letter in my brain. So I spent until dinner thinking about Adi, by pushing myself not to think about him.

“Who was it at the door today?” Mum asked me at the dinner table.

“Erm,” I paused to take a sip of water and make an excuse, “Nothing. Pizza Hut. You know, distributing new menus.”

“Oh. You should have told me earlier, I was thinking about grabbing some pizza. I want to see their new ones. We’ll order some tomorrow night for dinner.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.” I said, and flashed a quick fake smile.

***

3:33 pm the next day. I was going crazy. I waited, swinging on the swing in the garden, for the exact moment. I started thinking back to myself and my life to pass the time, somewhere along the way.

My maternal grandparents were religious people. Not orthodox or strict, but religious. My Mum was going to marry my father when she got pregnant with me. Nobody knew, not even Mum. And then, a big fight happened and they split up. But then there was me, of course. It was hard, living in Delhi, everybody knowing, all those things going on. So my grandparents moved, with my Mum, to Dehradun. And that’s where I was born and raised. My Grandma named me. She named me Nevaeh (pronounced Nee-vaah. The e is silent or something.) Because when spelled backwards, it became ‘Heaven’. That always led me to wonder if that meant that I’m hell, you know, with the backwards spelling, and the opposite of the word. “That means your Earth, darling,” My Mum had explained, when I was old enough to understand, “You’re here and now. You’re certain and real. With a little piece of heaven in you.” Mum’s always been good with words. 

But, a little piece of heaven? There was a little piece of death coming to hit me right in the face at 3:33, and it had even told me that it was going to come. I literally had literal physical proof written on literal paper with a literal Reynolds pen (I know it was Reynolds because I use that one). And I wasn’t taking it well. My little piece of heaven part wasn’t really kicking in yet, you know, with handling death and angels and dead angels properly.

I checked my watch. It was 3:36. Had I missed the deliverer? The doorbell hadn’t rung, and neither had any postman come by. I ran to the mail slot. And sure enough, there was a letter there. The same white envelope, the same name and the same address. I couldn’t believe I had missed him. But then-I hadn’t. I hadn’t missed him. Sure, I let my head wander, but I was paying attention to the gate and for any postmen-or anybody-to come by. They couldn’t have been that discrete.  

“Damn it.” I muttered out loud, frustrated that I had missed him.

I didn’t open the letter. I was too afraid to. It sounded pathetic but the various scenarios swimming in and out of my head included one in which the letter would say ‘LOL I was just f*****g with ya. The boy’s dead, get over it.’ I sat down on my bed, with my legs crossed, and kept the letter right before me, the side with my name and address on it, upwards. And then I just stared at it, like a complete retard. I stared at the hasty handwriting, the slightly crumpled edges and the single short piece of cello tape that sealed the end. To Nevaeh Jacob. It was stupid of me just to stare at it, but I couldn’t bring myself to open it. Not by myself. 

So I called Kyra.

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi. Can you come over?” I asked, a little too desperate than I thought I would sound. 

“It’s 3:39… oh s**t.” 

“Yeah.”

“You haven’t even opened it yet, have you?” 

I smiled, “No I haven’t.” 

“Fortunately, the driver’s free. I’m coming over in ten.” Kyra’s Dad was a businessman and her Mum owned a hair salon, so they were pretty busy. The only person who was really home all day was her nineteen year old brother Avinash, who was cool with her coming to my place any time. 

“Oh and Kyra?” 

“Yeah?”

“On your way, will you please pick up a sheet of Pizza Hut’s latest menu?”