Page 95 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
By the time he dragged his feet back inside the hospital, fully soaked, Vir had fallen irrevocably in hate with the rain.
Twenty Five
Goat-Nori and the Wedding
Four Years Later, January 2023:
Shoja, Himachal Pradesh
Vir
Amusky, sweet aroma filled the kitchenas Vir carefully chopped a single ripe guava into neat little crescents. He scraped the seeds off each slice before carrying them to the small table by the window, where his breakfast sat waiting for him.
It had been raining all of last night, and the grueling sound had kept him up till the early hours of the morning. He considered calling in sick, then quickly decided against it. He was going to need the distraction today.
Placing his half-eaten toast back on its plate, Vir picked up his coffee and took a sip.
Strong. Bitter. Perfect.
“Good morning, Billie,” he spoke softly, turning to his landlord’s fat white cat as she appeared on the windowsill. Landing with unmatched grace, Billiesauntered towards him and began head-butting his elbow to ask for her routine morning scratches.
Vir obliged.
“Rrrrreeow.” Billie squinted at him affectionately, purring like a running motor the entire time.
He chuckled, squinting back at her. “I love you, too.”
Once satisfied, Billie hopped off the table and trotted away to her bowl of kibble that Vir kept filled for her by the electric fireplace.
He took another sip of his coffee before letting out a sharp exhale as he unfolded the month-old newspaper he’d swiped from the university library. His eyes darted to the black-and-white picture at the bottom right corner: a candid shot of Nori with her arm looped around Ryan’s; both laughing as they glanced sideways at each other.
It was a wedding announcement. The date was set for exactly a month from when it was published.
Renowned nano-biotechnology scientist, Dr. Nori Arya, set to marry childhood sweetheart Dr. Ryan Matthews in…
Today. Nori was getting married today in another part of the world, while Vir sat continents apart, sulking in his apartment, hating the weather, and professing his love to a cat.
Billie was a lovely cat, though. He had no regrets there.
Vir reluctantly nibbled on another piece of toast before he gave up and pushed the plate away. He’d slathered on enough butter to feed an army, but the thing still tasted like dry cardboard in his mouth.
At least she looks happy.He folded the newspaper back with a sigh.That’s enough.
Glancing around his empty living room, he considered skipping work again. Billie caught him watching and squinted from atop the kitchen island where she sat loafing peacefully.
He squinted back at her in response.
“If a cat makes eye contact with you,” Nori had told him once, while showing him a demonstrative video of her cat, Goober, “and blinks slowly, that is him saying ‘I love you’ in cat-speak.”
Vir lurched to his feet, his chair scraping against the floor.
“Rrrrroow,” Billie chirped without moving from her comfy position on the counter.
Tossing the untouched guava slices onto a paper towel, Vir grabbed his things and left the apartment for work.
“Nori!” He called out as he passed by his landlord’s front yard below, and an overly cheerful goat with a small bell collar came hopping towards him. Unfolding the paper towel, he crouched to offer her the sliced fruit, then chuckled at goat-Nori’s excited bleats at the sight of her favorite snack.
He couldn’t recall exactly when it had started to become a habit, but at some point, during the past few years—on days he missed Nori more than the usual amount—he’d started buying guavas to cut them the way she used to like. Since Vir couldn’t eat those, he’d just toss them out afterwards.
