Hey Sarge

Chapter 1 : Hey Sarge, Remember me?

1 year, 7 months, and 28 days.

It took Ravi 1 year, 7 months, and 28 days.

It surprised him that it took him that long. 16,656 hours since he last saw her, 999,360 minutes since they last spoke, and 59,961,600 seconds of just thinking of her. And today, he stopped waiting. He didn't care if it would put him in danger, he didn't care if he'd go to jail, he only cared about her. A girl who appeared on his doorstep 3 years ago, A girl with brown hair, a tiny nose, and piercing green eyes. Oh, how he desperately wanted to look in those green eyes again. So, he sent a message. It had been sitting there for months but he never had the courage to send it. And as soon as he'd pressed send...,

"Oh shit."

..the courage quickly faded away into panic. And boy, did Ravi's thoughts start to panic.

'Oh SHIT! What have I done! Why'd I click send!?! What if she sees it! What if she blocked me?!? What if she has a new person? That calls her names like "Pretty Pippy", "Mary Pippens", or "Hot Red Chili Pippers"? Those were all new names that I wanted to call her!'

"Relax Ravi, that's not going to happen."

Ravi turned around and saw Sal, his brother. Well, his dead brother. He was in his head again. This happened on a daily basis. Whenever Ravi needed to talk about something or just relax himself, Sal would pop up and listen.

He would do this with real people, but ever since he'd moved out of Fairview and surprisingly gotten into Yale Law, talking to people seemed useless. I mean, he had a few friends there, and he still talked with some people in Fairview but nothing was the same without her. Nothing.

"And how do you know that?" Ravi said, putting a hand on his hip.

"Because I know that she loves you aaaaaand because I'm your older brother and I said so."

"You're no help, you know that?"

"Hey! Don't be sassy with me, young man. Respect your elders!"

"Ugh! Fine dad." Ravi threw himself on his bed and picked up his phone, about to delete the text, until he saw a small change on his phone screen.

Read at 2:47pm.

Ravi's eyes widened and he immediately sat up.

This was fake, right? She couldn't have seen the text. It had only been 3 minutes since he sent it.

"Ooooooo, she saw it!" Sal was now perched behind Ravi, looking over his shoulder at his phone.

"No, that's impossible. It hasn't even been 15 minutes, that's the average time it takes to see a text. Maybe she got a new number or som-"

"She's texting." Sal said.

"WHAT?!?"

Ravi whipped back to his phone, and saw a bubble with three dots in it.

She was texting back! That's not how this was supposed to go! Ravi was supposed to send the text, wait a minute, and then delete it and forget that it ever happened. She wasn't supposed to text back!

Ravi and Sal stared at the phone intently, waiting to see what she'd respond. But a few seconds later, the bubble disappeared.

"No!" Ravi groaned, falling back on the bed with his arm over his eyes.

"Don't worry, she'll text back, you know she will. It's Pip we're talking about!"

Pip. he thought.

His Pip.