The arm buzzed at 5:30 a.m.
Bharath groaned.
Jorge didn’t even pretend to get up right away. “Five more minutes,” he mumbled, face buried in his pillow.
“No,” Bharath said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bunk. “You said we’d go. You made me promise.”
“I hate past me,” Jorge groaned.
But ten minutes ter, they were walking through the dewy morning toward the Georgia Tech Student Athletic Complex, water bottles in hand and gym bags slung over tired shoulders.
What greeted them made them both stop in their tracks.
“Holy... shit,” Jorge whispered.
The gym was magnificent.
High ceilings. Massive open floors. Rows and rows of gleaming machines. Dumbbells were arranged like modern art. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors. Even the flooring smelled new - a mix of rubber, lemon-scented disinfectant, and ambition.
And the people.
Men with sculpted arms. Women with abs sharp enough to cut gss. Sweat glistening like it had been hand-painted by lighting assistants.
“Are they... students?” Bharath asked.
“Or superhero cast rejects,” Jorge muttered.
A friendly-looking trainer in a Georgia Tech shirt noticed them hovering near the bench press stations and approached.
“New here?” he asked.
They both nodded.
“Alright. We’ve got beginner programs for you. First step - what are your goals?”
Bharath hesitated. “I want to tone. Condition. Maybe build a little muscle.”
“Same,” Jorge added. “Except… a lot of muscle.”
The trainer smiled. “Great. I’ll get you started on a split routine. Push-pull-legs format. Three days a week. Compound lifts. You’ll learn the form. Rest and recovery are just as important.”
They both nodded, though Bharath wasn’t entirely sure what a “compound lift” was. Still, it felt good to be taken seriously.
After a brief orientation and a few ughably clumsy attempts at squats, t pulldowns, and assisted push-ups, their session ended with protein bar samples and a promise to return Wednesday.
They headed to the communal showers, muscles already sore.
Bharath opened the door and sighed. “No curtains. Again. Don’t people ever want to bathe alone in this country?”
“America,” Jorge said dramatically, untying his towel. “Land of the free. Home of the shower shame.”
A quick scan of the room only deepened their discomfort.
The men here were jacked.
Big shoulders. Veins on arms. Towel-snapping confidence.
Bharath sighed. “Back to the gym tomorrow.”
“Absolutely,” Jorge agreed.
After the quickest rinse of their lives, they returned to Smith Hall to drop off their bags, now fully awake and already ravenous.
The dining hall wasn’t any more appealing than it had been yesterday.
Scrambled eggs that looked bleached. Bacon floating in grease. Something called hash browns that squeaked when bitten into - like an aloo tikki, only inedible. Again, the cereal bins ruled over the breakfast zone like sugary tyrants.
Ravi waved them over, two slices of toast in hand and a bowl of Cheerios already half-eaten.
“Idhar bhai (Here bro),” he said, gesturing to a seat. “You’re alive. Impressive.”
Bharath sat down and pointed at the eggs. “We’re going to die if we eat this every day.”
“I can live off cereal,” Ravi said. “Toast. Jam. Done.”
“I want protein,” Bharath muttered.
“Boiled eggs,” Jorge said, stacking three onto a pte. “Let’s hoard.”
Bharath grabbed milk. Jorge grabbed more eggs. Ravi stuck to toast.
Then Bharath spotted a bottle of Tabasco at the condiment station and snatched it like a man who’d found water in the desert.
“I thought I saw this yesterday,” he said, pouring a heavy stream over his eggs.
Ravi and Jorge followed suit.
Five minutes ter, the three of them were downing the fire-spiked eggs with milk chasers, sniffing but smiling.
“This is it,” Jorge said. “Breakfast salvation.”
Tyrel walked past with a biscuit sandwich in hand and paused.
He stared at their ptes.
“Are y’all trying to die?”
Ravi shrugged. “We’re just making this country’s food edible.”
Tyrel chuckled and sat down. “You guys are wild. That much hot sauce? Before 8 a.m.? You need Jesus.”
Just then, a burst of ughter erupted from a nearby table - sharp, deliberate, the kind of sound that was meant to be heard.
Bharath gnced over without meaning to.
There she was.
Ayesha.
Perched at the center of a table that looked like it had been airlifted out of a student fashion catalog - a circle of guys in fitted tees and perfect fades, girls in crop tops and ptform sandals who radiated the kind of effortless cool that made everyone else feel like background noise. They looked like they’d been here forever - as if Georgia Tech had been waiting for them.
Ayesha, of course, looked incredible. High-waisted jeans, a bck tank top, and hoop earrings that caught the light with every tilt of her head. But it wasn’t her outfit that made Bharath’s stomach twist.
It was the way she threw her head back ughing.
Like she had no memory of who he was. Like they hadn’t shared a cab ride from the airport just two days ago. Like she hadn’t leaned across the seat with that easy smile and conversation.
Now, one of the boys beside her leaned in and whispered something, half-covered behind his Red Bull can. Ayesha gnced in Bharath’s direction, didn’t even blink - then smirked and said, loudly enough for the whole corner of the room to hear:
“Some of these FOB guys look like they’ve never even seen scrambled eggs before. Look at that dweeb trying to drown his eggs in Tabasco.”
The table exploded with ughter.
And not the polite, nervous kind - the kind that stabbed.
Bharath froze.
The fork in his hand felt suddenly stupid. The scrambled eggs on his pte - too soft, too yellow, too foreign - looked like they were mocking him now.
He didn’t turn around. Didn’t rise to the bait. He just looked down, jaw tight.
The Tabasco he’d added earlier burned the back of his throat. But it wasn’t the same kind of heat now.
It was the kind that made your eyes sting.
To his left, Jorge went still. “Yo. That was - ”
“Uncalled for,” Ravi finished, mouth full of toast, his expression darkening.
Even Tyrel, who had just returned with a pte stacked like a Waffle House ad, paused and frowned. “What the hell’s her problem? She was all chill at the airport, wasn’t she?”
Bharath nodded, slowly. “We split a cab when we came to the airport at the same time. She seemed like a nice person then.”
“And now she’s trying out for some kind of telenove vilna?” Jorge asked, incredulous.
Tyrel shook his head. “Zara I get. That girl looks like she came out the womb judging people. But Ayesha? What’s her deal?”
Bharath picked up a piece of toast, then put it down. “Maybe… maybe I misread it. Maybe she was just being polite that day.”
“Dude,” Tyrel said, leaning forward. “If this is some twisted hazing thing, or her way of climbing the social dder - screw that. That’s her insecurity, not yours.”
Bharath didn’t speak for a moment. He just stirred his eggs slowly, like they might give him answers.
“She changed,” he said finally. “Or maybe I just didn’t see it.”
“Or maybe,” Jorge said, “she’s surrounded by people who treat being cruel like a personality.”
“Cssic case of ‘impress the cool kids by kicking down,’” Ravi added, rolling his eyes. “Oldest trick in the book.”
Tyrel narrowed his eyes in Ayesha’s direction. “Man… she looked at you like she didn’t know you. That ain’t just cold. That’s calcuted.”
Bharath chuckled under his breath - not from humor, but disbelief. “And all this… over eggs.”
They all ughed - a little bitterly, but still together.
Then Jorge said, “You know what? Let her keep her cool-kid table. I’d rather sit here with the breakfast misfits.”
“To the FOB table,” Ravi said, raising his paper cup like a wine gss.
“To scrambled eggs and biscuit diplomacy,” Tyrel added, clinking his syrup bottle against it.
Bharath smiled despite himself.
It still hurt. It still stung. But the sharpest edge of it had been dulled - not because it didn’t matter, but because he wasn’t alone in it.
He had friends now. Brothers in awkward assimition. Survivors of cafeteria injustice and social warfare.
And together?
They’d figure this pce out.
Even if it meant building their own table from scratch.