chap 03

The Next Four Days

For the next four days, Divya became Nikita’s personal English tutor.

And she quickly discovered something she had never realized before.

Teaching English to schoolchildren was easy.

Teaching English to her forgetful best friend was a completely different battle.

“Repeat after me,” Divya would say.

“Repeat after me,” Nikita would repeat.

“No! I mean the sentence!”

“Oh.”

And then they would start all over again.

By the fourth day, Divya was convinced that getting Nikita through the interview would require a miracle.

Interview Day

“Nikita, hurry up!” Divya shouted. “All this work was supposed to be done today. You’ve been running around like a madwoman since morning!”

“I’m nervous, babe!”

Nikita was pacing around the room.

“What if I go there and forget everything? Today might be the final day of my life. What if I suddenly start speaking Chinese instead of English? I swear, I’m terrible at interviews. My stomach starts doing somersaults the moment someone says ‘viva.’”

Divya grabbed her shoulders.

“Listen to me. It’s just an interview. If it goes well, great. If it doesn’t, there will be other opportunities. Whatever happens, you accept it and move forward. That’s it.”

She pointed toward the door.

“Now, are you going or not?”

“Yes, Mom! I’m going.”

Nikita picked up her bag.

“With a best friend like you, why would I be scared of an interview? The only person I’m scared of is you.”

Divya's eyes narrowed.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing!”

Nikita immediately smiled innocently.

“My red chili, I was only joking.”

Then her expression softened.

“But honestly, if you hadn’t been here, I don’t think I would have learned even half of what you managed to teach me in four days.”

She hugged Divya.

“Why don’t you just move to Mumbai permanently and stay with me?”

Divya pulled away and shook her head.

“A trip is fine. But permanently? Never.”

She smiled.

“Assam is my home. I love it more than anything. That’s where I feel comfortable. And besides, I don’t trust these non-Assamese people around here.”

Nikita raised an eyebrow.

“Excuse me?”

Divya laughed.

“Anyway, I took so many days off from school just for you. Doesn't that count for something?”

Nikita's smile faded into something softer.

“It counts for everything, babe.”

She looked at her friend with affection.

“You’ve done so much for me.”

Her voice became nostalgic.

“Remember school? Whenever my aunt sent me to school with stale rotis, you used to bring an extra lunchbox just for me.”

Divya smiled.

“Of course I remember.”

“I miss those days.”

Nikita hugged her again.

“I have friends here, but none of them are like you. And honestly, I’m going to be incredibly jealous of the man who eventually becomes your husband.”

She laughed.

“He’s going to be so lucky.”

Divya rolled her eyes.

“There you go again. Somehow every conversation ends up at my marriage.”

She grabbed her bag.

“Come on. Are we leaving, or should I start performing the evening prayer?”

Nikita laughed.

“Okay, okay. Let's go.”

The two best friends climbed into an auto-rickshaw and headed toward the hotel.

Neither of them knew what awaited them there.

Neither of them knew that the interview was about to become the beginning of something far bigger than a job.

And Divya certainly didn't know that her fifteen-day trip to Mumbai was going to change her life forever.

She hadn't come looking for anything.

She hadn't asked for anything.

Yet sometimes, fate doesn't wait for permission.

Sometimes, it simply walks into your life…

…and leaves you with no choice but to change.

Five minutes had passed since Nikita had gone in for her interview.

Divya sat in the waiting area, casually scrolling through her phone, trying to keep herself occupied.

Then, for no particular reason, her eyes drifted toward Nikita's bag.

A corner of a blue file was sticking out.

Divya froze.

Her eyes widened as realization struck her.

“Oh, no…”

She remembered.

Nikita had specifically kept that file in Divya's bag before leaving.

“Babe, keep this with you. I have a feeling I’ll forget my files if I carry everything myself.”

And somehow, Divya had completely forgotten about it.

“That idiot!”

She immediately stood up.

Without wasting another second, Divya grabbed the file and rushed toward the elevators.

She remembered Nikita had told her that the interview was being conducted on the eighth floor.

The hotel seemed enormous, and for a moment, Divya had no idea where she was supposed to go.

She quickly approached the receptionist..

“Excuse me! The interview rooms? Eighth floor?”

The guard pointed toward the elevators.

“Thank you!”

Divya hurried toward them.

Just as the elevator doors were about to close, she slipped inside.

There was already someone standing there.

A man.

Divya stopped for half a second.

He was tall—easily around six feet—with an imposing presence that immediately made the small elevator feel even smaller.

The man glanced at her.

Not a casual glance.

His eyes lingered for a moment, as if he were trying to understand what someone like her was doing in a place like this.

Divya instinctively looked away.

Something about him felt…different.

She couldn't explain what it was.

Maybe it was simply the way he looked at her.

Or perhaps it was that strange instinct people sometimes get when they meet someone for the first time—the inexplicable feeling that tells you whether a person feels safe, warm, dangerous, or simply unfamiliar.

Divya had always trusted that instinct.

And right now, something about this man made her uneasy.

She discreetly looked at him again.

He was dressed in a perfectly tailored black blazer, paired with immaculate trousers. His shoes were polished to a shine, and every detail of his appearance looked deliberate.

His hair was neatly styled.

His posture was straight.

There wasn't a single wrinkle in his clothes.

For a fleeting second, Divya wondered if he had walked straight out of a fashion magazine.

Who is he?

She quickly lowered her gaze toward the blue file in her hands.

She wasn't here to investigate mysterious men.

She had a much more important problem.

Nikita's interview.

The elevator doors slid shut.

And as the numbers above the door began to change—

1… 2… 3…

Divya had no idea that this seemingly insignificant elevator ride was about to become the first moment of a story she would never be able to forget.