Can We Be Strangers Again?

There was a pause. In the background, I heard a metal shutter rattle and an announcement crackle through a speaker.

“Bandra station. Near the west exit. I can’t find the pharmacy.”

“What happened?”

“My inhaler is empty.”

The words were followed by a cough she tried to hide.

I stood so quickly my chair rolled backward and struck the wall.

“Are you having trouble breathing?”

“I’m breathing.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

Another silence. This time, I heard fear beneath it.

“Yes,” she said. “A little.”

I grabbed my wallet and keys. “Stay where you are. Don’t walk around looking for anything. Tell me exactly what you can see.”

“An ATM. A closed tea stall. Blue sign - no, wait. I think that’s a clinic.”

“Can you read the name?”

“Not from here.”

“Fine. Open your phone’s map.”

“I have no data.”

Of course she didn’t.

I shoved my feet into sandals and pulled the apartment door open. The corridor smelled of wet concrete and someone’s leftover dinner. One tube light flickered above me.

“Listen to me,” I said, locking the door. “I’m going to find the nearest twenty-four-hour pharmacy from my side. You stay near the station guard or the main entrance. Don’t go into a dark lane.”

“I’m not helpless.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“You said it like I was.”

I stopped halfway down the stairs.

Her voice had sharpened, even while she struggled for air. There was something almost familiar about that - someone who would rather argue than be pitied.

“Then prove me wrong,” I said. “Stay somewhere visible and tell me what you need.”

A breath came through the phone, rough but steadier.

“An inhaler. The blue one. Salbutamol.”

“I know what an inhaler is.”

“You sounded like you didn’t.”

“I sounded like a man who was suddenly responsible for a stranger at midnight.”

“I didn’t ask you to be responsible.”

“No. You called me.”

The line went quiet again. Rain hissed against the open side of the stairwell. I stepped under the awning outside my building, phone pressed to my ear, and opened the pharmacy app.

The nearest twenty-four-hour store was twelve minutes away on foot, across the main road and behind a row of shuttered shops. Twelve minutes felt too long.

“Can you call an ambulance?” I asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not dying.”

“That is not a reliable medical assessment.”

“I’m at a station. There are people around. I just need the inhaler.”

I could hear the effort each time she spoke. It made irritation useless. I started walking.

“Give me Rohan’s number,” I said.

“He’s not answering.”

“Give it to me anyway.”

She read the digits slowly. I saved them under ROHAN - AANYA, though I didn’t know why I added her name. Perhaps because she had become the more urgent part of the call.

The rain had thinned to mist, but the pavement was slick beneath my sandals. A taxi splashed through a puddle, soaking my trousers from the knee down. I barely noticed.

“Are you still there?” she asked.

“I’m here.”

“You don’t have to stay on the phone.”

“I know.”

“Then why are you?”

I crossed the road between two cars, my pulse jumping as a horn blared behind me.

“Because you’re alone at a station with breathing trouble.”

“I’m not alone. There’s a security guard.”

“Then hand him the phone.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why?”

“Because if I hand you to him, this becomes real.”

I slowed.

The pharmacy sign glowed green at the end of the lane. It was the only bright thing there, surrounded by locked storefronts and parked scooters beaded with rain.

“What does real mean?” I asked.

“It means someone might decide I’m incapable of handling my own life.”

Her answer arrived too quickly, as if she had been waiting for someone to ask.

I pushed open the pharmacy door. A bell chimed overhead. The place smelled of antiseptic, dust, and menthol. Behind the counter, a sleepy pharmacist looked up from his phone.

“Do you have salbutamol inhalers?” I asked.

“Prescription?”

“Emergency.”

He frowned. “Which brand?”

I repeated the name she had given me. He disappeared behind a shelf.

“Aanya,” I said, testing the name aloud.

She was quiet.

“How do you know my name?”

“You haven’t told me.”

“Rohan must have.”

“Rohan hasn’t told me anything. He just gave you my number?”

“He said you were good in emergencies.”

“That sounds like Rohan.”

“You know him?”

“Not really.”

The pharmacist returned with a small blue inhaler. I paid and stepped back into the lane.

“I’m going to ask the pharmacist to send it to the station,” I said.

“You can’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because he won’t know where to go.”

“Then tell me.”

“I can come there.”

“No.”

The word came out harder than I intended.

She inhaled, and the breath caught.

I lowered my voice. “You said you’re having trouble breathing. You’re not walking anywhere.”

“I don’t like being ordered around.”

“I’ve noticed.”

“And I don’t like strangers making decisions for me.”

“Then make one decision yourself. Tell me the station exit.”

“The west exit.”

“Good. Stay there. I’ll get the pharmacist’s delivery boy to bring it.”

“You’re really doing this?”

“I’m standing in a lane that smells like wet cardboard, holding an inhaler for a woman I’ve never met. Yes, I’m really doing this.”

For the first time, something changed in her breathing. Not relief exactly. A small, surprised laugh.

It moved through the phone and settled somewhere under my ribs.

“Your apartment is far from here?” she asked.

“Ten minutes.”

“Then you were already out?”

“I wasn’t.”

“What were you doing?”

“Working.”

“At midnight?”

“Some of us have jobs.”

“Some of us are trying not to die at stations.”

“That’s a dramatic way to describe needing medicine.”

“You’re the one who called it an emergency.”

“I called it breathing trouble.”

“Same thing.”

The pharmacist’s delivery boy appeared with a raincoat over his uniform. I gave him the station details and paid again, then remained on the line while he hurried away.

“Can you see someone in a red raincoat?” I asked.

“Wait.”

Her breathing was louder now, but slower.

“I see him,” she said. “He’s coming.”

“Good. Take the inhaler properly. Shake it first.”

“You do know what you’re talking about.”

“I read the instructions.”

“That’s less impressive.”

“It kept you alive.”

“You don’t know that yet.”

The delivery boy reached her. I heard muffled voices, then a rustle. A moment later, she exhaled shakily.

“Oh.”

The sound was so soft that I stopped walking.

“Better?”

“Yes.”

“Can you breathe normally?”

“Almost.”

“Call an ambulance if it gets worse.”

“I will.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

The word carried more weight than it should have. I had known her for twenty minutes, yet I found myself listening for proof that she meant it.

The rain began again, fine and cold against my face.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

“I mean it.”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t. Most people say ‘it’s fine’ when they want the conversation to end.”

“I’m not most people.”

“That’s a confident thing to say about yourself.”

“I’m confident about very few things.”

She went quiet.

The station announcement sounded again behind her. A train arrived with a rush of metal and wind. Somewhere nearby, a child cried. The city moved around her, indifferent and enormous.

“What now?” she asked.

“Now you go somewhere safe.”

“I’m waiting for Meera.”

“Call her.”

“She’s on her way.”

“Call her anyway.”

“You worry too much.”

“Kabir says that.”

“Who’s Kabir?”

“My closest friend.”

“Does he also answer emergency calls from strangers?”

“No. He would first ask why I gave my number to Rohan.”

“Did you?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Then perhaps you’re the mysterious one.”

I smiled despite myself. “Perhaps.”

The smile faded when I realized I didn’t want the call to end. I had started the night surrounded by silence, and now her voice had filled every corner of it. The apartment would be waiting when I returned. The cold coffee. The wet invoices. The sentence blinking on my laptop.

Nothing would have changed, except I would know that somewhere near Bandra station, a woman named Aanya Kapoor had needed help and had trusted me enough to call.

“I should go,” she said.

“Right.”

Neither of us disconnected.

“Thank you, Aarav.”

“You’re welcome, Aanya.”

She said my name differently the second time. Carefully. As if placing it somewhere she might find later.

The call ended.

I stood under the pharmacy awning for another minute, staring at the blank screen. Then I walked home through the wet streets, carrying no proof that the night had happened except the pharmacy receipt folded inside my wallet.

At 1:17 a.m., after I changed out of my soaked clothes and wiped the coffee from my desk, my phone lit up.

A message from an unknown number.

I’m home with Meera. Breathing is fine now. You were kind when you had no reason to be. I hope someone is kind to you when you need it. Thank you, Aarav.

I read it once.

Then again.

The apartment was quiet, but it no longer felt empty in the same way. Her name sat on my screen, bright and impossible, and beneath it waited a question I had no right to ask.

Why did I already want her to call again?

End of chapter one. 4 more chapters in the full book.