tantrayaan

  The Howey lecture hall was a fridge, or maybe it just felt that way after the te morning sun had roasted them through their walk across campus.

  Bharath and Marisol entered side-by-side, their conversation still bouncing lightly from the CS lecture they’d just survived.

  “I still don’t get how you understood all that object nonsense,” Marisol said as she chose a seat in the middle row. “It was like English until she said ‘instantiate’ and then it became Egyptian.”

  Bharath gave a small, embarrassed ugh. “I’ve just... read, that’s all.”

  She sat and slung her bag under her chair, raising an eyebrow at him.

  “You read ahead?”

  “Well, yeah. I got a Java book back home. I didn’t think I’d get into Tech, so I started early.”

  “Wow,” she muttered, opening her notebook. “You’re like if a cinnamon roll came to life and coded.”

  Bharath blinked. “Is that a compliment?”

  “It means you’re nice and secretly badass. Take it.”

  He smiled sheepishly and opened his own notebook.

  The lecture hall was filling up fast now, at least eighty students, mostly undergrads, all filtering in with the usual mix of caffeine, earbuds, and calcuted indifference.

  Then, just as he was uncapping his pen, he caught the faint whiff of something familiar - a citrus-floral perfume with a sharp, expensive edge.

  He didn’t need to turn.

  Ayesha.

  Her voice reached him first, low and amused as she was with her companion Zara.

  Zara said, “So, where are we sitting?”

  “Anywhere away from people who think GPA stands for ‘Good Personal Aroma.’”

  Zara giggled. “Is that a cab guy sighting? Hey FOB… We’re talking about you mister”

  Ayesha chuckled, “Apparently he’s decided pretending to be the strong and silent type is attractive now.”

  Bharath froze for just a breath. He didn’t look up. Didn’t flinch. But the edge of his page crumpled under his grip.

  Marisol caught it.

  Her eyes narrowed. She followed the sound, the tone, the deliberate flick of sylbles meant to wound without taking credit.

  Zara and Ayesha settled a few rows behind them, talking loud enough to be overheard - but just soft enough to maintain pusible deniability.

  It wasn’t the first time Bharath had heard that tone since nding in Atnta.

  But it still stung.

  “Ignore them,” Marisol said, voice low and even. “Some people peak in high school. They’re just mad they have to climb again.”

  He didn’t answer.

  So she added, “And for the record, cinnamon roll or not, you could run circles around most of the guys in this room.”

  That earned a small twitch of his lips. Close to a smile.

  Professor Rhodes arrived shortly after - a gangly, absentminded man in his early sixties who looked like he’d been asked to teach math on his way to a jazz concert. He wore a wrinkled grey bzer over a yellow T-shirt that said, "Limits do not exist."

  “Alright,” he said, adjusting his gsses. “Who here actually remembers limits from Calc I? Be honest.”

  Only a few hands went up. Bharath was one of them.

  Marisol, meanwhile, was busy drawing a doodle of a drowning man beled “Me.”

  The professor unched into the review with a dry humor that made the math almost tolerable. He scribbled equations with practiced ease: derivatives, Taylor series, integrals like waterfalls.

  Then came the css exercise.

  “You’ll find problem sheets taped to the back wall,” he said. “Grab one. Pick a partner. Let’s see how rusty we are.”

  Marisol groaned. “Math trauma time.”

  They both got up, fetched a sheet, and returned to their seats.

  Bharath read the first question and started sketching a graph.

  Marisol blinked. “Wait - you already - ?”

  “Do you want to try first?” he offered.

  She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “You’re just going to be polite and secretly do it in your head anyway.”

  He looked guilty.

  “You’re hopeless,” she said, but smiled as she slid her notebook toward him. “Alright, sensei. Walk me through it.”

  He did - gently. Not as someone showing off, but like someone sharing something that made sense to him, hoping it would make sense to her too.

  Marisol found herself unexpectedly... absorbed.

  He didn’t lecture. Didn’t condescend.

  He just showed.

  And when she got something right, he lit up - like he was genuinely proud of her for figuring it out.

  Zara, watching from behind, leaned in toward Ayesha.

  “Okay. That’s weird. Are they like... friends? Isn’t she way too attractive for him?”

  Ayesha stared at Bharath’s side profile. His steady hand. The quiet focus. Marisol’s easy ughter.

  Something about the whole thing rubbed her raw.

  “I give it a week,” Ayesha muttered. “He’ll overstep. Guys like him always do.”

  Back at the desk, Marisol tilted her head and tapped her pencil against her notebook.

  “Okay. That one made sense. Wait... that actually made sense.”

  Bharath smiled. “It’s just visualizing it like motion. You’re good at connecting patterns.”

  “Fttery will get you slightly fewer sarcastic comments from me,” she said, smirking.

  Then, softer: “Thanks.”

  He looked up. “For what?”

  “For being... not like the others.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that.

  So he just smiled again and got back to the problem set.

  By the time css ended, Marisol had filled almost two full pages. Her notes weren’t perfect, but she understood what she’d written. More than she’d expected.

  As they packed up, she nudged him.

  “Study group is officially doubling as Calc support group. Congratutions, you’re our TA now for that as well.”

  Bharath looked mildly armed. “Do I get paid?”

  “You get chips.”

  “Jorge’s chips?”

  “Possibly.”

  She slung her bag over one shoulder. “Come on. Let’s grab something cold before I spontaneously combust from both math and drama.”

  He gnced back once as they walked out.

  Ayesha was still seated.

  Her eyes locked onto him for a split second - something unreadable flickering behind them - before she looked away.

  He turned back and followed Marisol out the door.

  Whatever it was? It could stay behind.

  The lecture hall had mostly emptied, the scrape of chairs fading into hallway murmur and fluorescent hum.

  But Ayesha remained seated.

  Her notebook sat unopened on the desk. The page still bnk. The cap of her pen, slightly chewed.

  Across the aisle, Zara was fixing her lip gloss in the reflection of her compact. Her voice was a faint buzz.

  “You good?” she asked, not looking up.

  Ayesha nodded. “Yeah. Just tired.”

  Zara snapped the compact shut with a click. “God, this css is going to kill me. I need espresso and zero math for the rest of my life.”

  Ayesha smiled faintly - the kind that didn’t reach her eyes. She watched Zara gather her bag and sway down the aisle in confident strides. Already moved on.

  But Ayesha didn’t move.

  Her gaze had drifted - not to the board, not to her notes - but to the now-empty seats across the room.

  Bharath had been sitting there.

  Beside him. That girl.

  The beautiful Latina with the sharp eyes and don’t-touch-me confidence and goddess level boobs. The one who walked like she owned the floor and didn’t need anyone to tell her so.

  Marisol.

  Ayesha had seen them together the whole css - ughing softly, heads bent close. Not flirting, exactly. But familiar. Like they had a nguage no one else was privy to. She had watched Marisol slide into the seat next to him like it was hers by right.

  And the worst part?

  He hadn’t even looked up when Ayesha entered the room.

  Not once.

  Two days ago, she’d waved at him in the dining hall and he’d practically lit up. Now he was smiling at her like it meant something.

  Ayesha folded her arms tightly, pressing her notebook to her chest.

  Why did she care?

  She didn’t like Bharath. Not like that. He was sweet, sure. A little awkward. Polite in a way most guys here weren’t. She’d actually liked that about him - the quiet way he held himself. The nervous charm. The way he’d looked at her like she wasn’t just another girl in a hoodie.

  And now... he wasn’t even looking at her at all.

  Why did I say those things? she asked herself, wincing internally.

  The GPA joke. The FOB comment. The smirk she wore like a mask.

  She hadn’t been like this in high school.

  She’d always thought she was better than that kind of girl - the ones who needed to hurt someone to feel powerful. But tely... she didn’t know.

  Was it really about him?

  Or about how she felt invisible when he wasn’t watching her?

  Why wasn’t he watching her?

  Why wasn’t he orbiting her like the others always had?

  And why… why… was that Marisol girl smiling like she actually liked him?

  She had to be using him. That had to be it. Maybe it was some weird freshman strategy. Befriend the nerd. Milk his GPA. Laugh at his jokes. Graduate with honors.

  Except… except he had looked so genuinely happy.

  So comfortable in his skin in a way she’d never seen before. Not around her.

  And that smile Marisol gave him?

  It hadn’t looked fake.

  Not like hers did.

  Ayesha stared down at her hands, fingers still curled tight around the edge of her notebook. Her knuckles were pale.

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  She didn’t know.

  But something about the way Marisol had looked at Bharath - like he was worthy - had shaken something loose in her. Something small and ugly. Something she hadn’t wanted to admit lived in her.

  And now... she wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  She stood slowly, adjusting the strap of her bag on her shoulder. Her face was back to neutral, perfect, unreadable.

  But her heart?

  A little cracked.

  And behind the practiced smirk and sharp one-liners, something very real was beginning to flicker:

  Doubt. Jealousy. And maybe, just maybe... regret.