A Valentine’s Day story: The bane of instant messaging

“Shut up,” said Ronit.

But Lakshaya was right. Maybe she was. It hadn’t gone as planned, after all. Just an hour ago, he and Shailja were in the middle of a park, sharing a chocolate ice-cream cone because the man who sold it had only one left, and while they sat cross-legged on the grass, he had blurted out, “Will you go out with me?”

Her eyes had widened.

“Um,” she said.

“There’s no need to answer right now,” he stammered. “Take your time. Go home, think about it. There’s no rush.”

“Actually, I —”

“No, no, that’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

And he had promptly got up and walked home.

They hadn’t exactly talked since. When he got home, he found she had sent him a few memes and reels in the meantime. His heart beating loudly, he opened the chat to find they were just the usual: teddy bears holding daggers and preaching the virtues of self-care.

He sighed and waited. He had dinner. He called Lakshaya and moaned about being an awkward piece of shit. He spent the next hour scrolling Instagram and reading a book, while Lakshaya sat next to him on video call, his eyebrows furrowed in concentration playing PUBG. Lakshaya was exhausted too. All his advice — variations of “Do something else”, “Go for a walk”, and “She’s not going to respond faster if you keep hyperventilating” — had been soundly rejected.

“I think she’s actually writing a novel,” said Ronit nervously.

“Told you,” said Lakshaya, not looking up from his game.

Ronit’s phone pinged. He whipped it out and read the message.

“‘Hey’?” he said. “That’s all she could say? ‘Hey’?”

“Sorry, bro,” said Lakshaya.

“Oh my god, she’s typing again. She’s typing again.”

They waited.

“Anything?” asked Lakshaya, after a few seconds.

“Still typing…”

Lakshaya rolled his eyes and returned to the game. This went on for a while. Every now and then, a bubble would appear and disappear over her profile picture, Ronit would get excited, and no text would arrive. Eventually, Meher joined the video call.

“Why don’t you call her?” she suggested.

“Are you crazy?” said Lakshaya, done with his game.

“It’s better than panicking so much,” she said.

“I’m not calling her,” said Ronit. “Okay, I need to chill.”

He got into bed and tried to sleep. He couldn’t.

“Is everything okay?” he finally texted her.

“Ya ya,” texted Shailja. “Sorry! Just give me a minute.”

He gave her two. But no text arrived, and the bubble remained.

“This is getting weird,” said Lakshaya.

“And a little rude,” said Meher.

“A little? I’m furious!” said Lakshaya.

“Shut up, both of you. I’m muting myself,” said Ronit, and resumed pacing. He started typing a reply now. “It’s okay,” he wrote. “I understand. You don’t need to say all this, we can just go back to normal. If we could just forget I said anything, everything will be fine. I didn’t really know if I meant what I said anyway —”

Ping. A text arrived.

“SHE REPLIED!” he yelled and threw his phone on the bed.

Meher and Lakshaya didn’t respond.

“She replied!” he yelled, leaning close to the laptop.

Still no response.

“Why aren’t you —” he started saying, then his eyes travelled down to the mute button.

“Listen,” he said much more softly, unmuting himself. “She replied.”

“OMG!” said Meher. “What did she say?”

“I don’t want to see.”

“This man,” said Lakshaya.

“Listen,” said Meher. “You have to see it. Do it fast. Like a bandaid. Just rip it off.”

“So you think she’s said no?” said Ronit.

“No, not necessarily. I’m just saying —”

“Yaar, fine. The worst she can say is no.”

“Yes…” said Meher unconvincingly, watching as he picked up the phone, entered his password and read the message.

“I’m stupid,” he said, not looking up. “I’m so fucking stupid.”

“What did she say?” asked Meher.

“I’ve sent it to you,” he said. A ping went off in Meher and Lakshaya’s phones. They opened the text and read it. It wasn’t long:

“I’m sorry it took me so much time. I got anxious and wrote a novel, lol. Anyway, I wanted to say this before you ran off — my answer’s yes!!”