The invitation came by WhatsApp, from a number she'd saved as Priya College 🎂. She stared at it for a long time.
Five-year reunion! Everyone's coming. Please say yes, Kavya, I haven't seen you in SO long, where have you even BEEN?
She had kept in minimal contact with her old friends — sporadic messages at Diwali, the occasional liked post. Not enough to repair the abruptness of her leaving, but enough to keep the thread alive. Priya had forgiven her, or seemed to have, in the way warm-natured people forgave things without requiring explanations. Disha the same. Sahil sent her a thumbs up when she posted bakery updates and she'd found that inexplicably moving.
She thought about not going.
She thought about it for three days.
Then she thought: she was twenty-five, not twenty. She had a bakery, a life, a small fierce peace she had built for herself. The flat she now lived in had pictures on the walls and a plant on the windowsill that she had not killed. She was not the girl who had run from a corridor, hands shaking.
She RSVPd yes.
She spent some time, more than she would admit, wondering if he would be there.