In me veins
It was raining again in the city. The kind of rain that made even concrete buildings seem to breathe softer. In the girls’ hostel, the corridor smelled faintly of shampoo, wet shoes, and someone reheating Maggi.
Sakshi sat cross-legged on her bed, a hoodie thrown over her pyjamas, her phone facedown on the blanket. The lights were dimmed low, the way she liked it, just enough to read, but not enough to feel fully awake. Her roommate was already asleep, curtain drawn between their sides of the room. The night felt stretched, unfinished.
She wasn’t expecting the letter.
It was folded neatly, pressed between the pages of a physics textbook she hadn't opened in weeks. She would’ve missed it altogether if it hadn’t fluttered out and landed on the floor like a paper feather.
She stared at the handwriting.
Him.
Of course, him.
She hesitated a moment before unfolding it. Her fingers trembled, not out of fear, but memory.
She read.
“I ain’t anybody without you.
You complete me the way family completes you.”
A small sigh slipped from her lips.
He always used to say things like that, not with polish, not with perfection, but with so much truth that you didn’t know how to hold it without hurting yourself.
She kept reading.
“I’m addicted to every little thing of yours.
From blue to yellow, all nail colours of yours.
The habit of your perfectionism attracts me.
Attracts me to the extent that I am empty without you.”
She paused. Glanced at her fingers.
No colour today. She had stopped painting them after shifting to the hostel. Not that he would know that.
Still, the memory of him teasing her over the purple one, *“Looks like you dipped your fingers in jam”, *it made her smile.
She read on.
“I just need you, like a crying baby need mumma’s hug.
You run in my me veins just like blood.”
Her eyes lingered on that line.
She saw how he had written “my”, then scratched it out softly, writing over it:
“me veins.”
Not grammatically correct, not poetic, but suddenly it was more real than any well-written line.
He hadn’t meant to impress.
He’d meant to confess.
She swallowed. Hard. Something pressed beneath her ribs. That stubborn ache, the one that came only when you realized someone knew you in ways you didn’t even know yourself.
“As a person cannot live without blood,
Same way, I can’t live without you.”
Her chest ached. Not because she believed every word.
But because he did.
She remembered the last fight.
It hadn’t been ugly. Just tired.
She had said she needed time, space, that the hostel would be a fresh start.
He had said okay.
But this letter? This letter didn’t sound like okay.
This sounded like he’d stayed stuck in the moment she left.
“I’m just addicted and addictable to you.”
The last line hung crooked in the air.
Like something unfinished, something unclosed.
She folded the letter slowly.
Not to end it. Just to breathe.
For a long moment, she just sat there. Holding it.
Thinking about his voice.
About the way he’d sit across from her in the canteen and wait for her to finish her food before touching his.
About how he used to say, “You don’t talk much, but your silence is loud enough.”
She thought about writing back.
She didn’t.
Instead, she tucked the letter into the small zipped pocket of her diary. The one where she kept her favorite photos and a train ticket from two years ago.
The rain outside had softened into a drizzle.
She lay back down, facing the wall. Pillow under her cheek.
And for the first time in weeks, she didn’t feel completely alone.
She wasn’t sure what she felt, exactly.
But whatever it was… it was running in me veins.
Just like blood.