Chapter 6: Searching for Shimla

Ira had always believed that people were stories waiting to be told �" some with loud beginnings, others with quiet endings.

But Aarav Verma?

He was a story told in reverse.

The more she spoke to him, the less she understood. He wasn’t unreadable. He was overwritten �" like someone had edited himself so many times the original script had vanished beneath the revisions.

She couldn’t stop thinking about what he said.

> “If you want to know who I am, you’ll have to learn how to listen to the silence.”
“That’s where I buried it.”

It.

The most dangerous pronoun in the English language.

---

That night, Ira sat in her dimly lit room, legs tucked under her, laptop glowing in the dark like a portal. The city outside throbbed with honks and heat, but her world was suddenly much colder.

She opened her browser and typed:

> Aarav Verma Shimla

She expected nothing. Maybe an old vacation post. A mention in an alumni blog. But the internet, when whispered to gently, has a way of listening.

There it was.

A small, almost invisible mention in a Shimla Times archive from five years ago.

> "Local woman Sanya Kapoor involved in minor avalanche scare. Architect Aarav Verma, tourist and family friend, aided in search. No injuries reported."

Aarav. Sanya. Avalanche.

Three words that sounded like fiction but felt like a secret.

Her heart kicked up a little. Not because of the avalanche. But because he hadn’t mentioned it. Not in the transcript. Not at coffee. Not even indirectly.

Why?

---

Ira clicked deeper.

Sanya Kapoor.

Social media was sparse �" an old Instagram profile last updated in 2020. Pictures of pine trees. Coffee mugs. One blurry photo of a man in the distance who looked suspiciously like Aarav, though the caption read only:

> “Some silences are colder than snow.”

Ira stared.

There it was again �" that theme. Silence. Always silence.

She scribbled a note in her journal: Aarav doesn’t hide �" he subtracts. Not lies. Just... gaps.

---

The next morning, she found herself back at the College Street café. Aarav hadn’t agreed to meet again �" not explicitly �" but he’d said she could ask questions.

And right now, her questions were starting to scream.

When he arrived, fifteen minutes late, Ira was already on her second coffee and third existential spiral.

He looked tired. Not disheveled �" Aarav never looked disheveled �" but as though sleep had visited, seen the clutter in his mind, and left.

“You look like you haven’t slept,” she said.

“Sleep’s overrated.”

“Silence too?”

That made him smile faintly. “Touché.”

---

She took a breath.

“I Googled you.”

“I figured.”

“I found Shimla.”

His face didn’t change, but something in the air did.

“I saw the article,” she added. “About the avalanche.”

Still nothing. No surprise. No panic. Just a slow exhale.

“So,” he said, voice flat. “Now you know.”

“No,” Ira replied. “Now I know you didn’t tell me. That’s different.”

A beat.

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Because it wasn’t about you?”

“Because I didn’t want it to be.”
---

There it was again.

That infuriating, composed detachment. Like he’d already had this conversation with himself, and she was just catching up.

But she didn’t let go.

“Who was Sanya?”

Aarav’s jaw tensed. Not much. Just enough.

“She was... the last person I tried to be honest with.”

“And?”

“And she left.”

Ira leaned in. “Because of what happened in Shimla?”

“No,” he said softly. “Because of what happened after.”
---

The silence that followed wasn’t peaceful.

It was jagged.
It cut.

“Ira,” he said finally, looking at her �" really looking. “You want to write a story. But stories have arcs. Resolutions. Redemption. I’m not sure I have any of those.”

She didn’t look away.

“Maybe you’re not the ending,” she said. “Maybe you’re still the middle.”

Aarav blinked. Once. Then looked out the window, into the hazy brightness of afternoon traffic.

“I don’t know what scares me more,” he murmured, “you writing me into something I’m not �" or writing me exactly as I am.”

Ira’s grip tightened on her pen.

Maybe, she thought, she wasn’t writing a story anymore.
Maybe she was standing inside one.

And it was colder than she expected.