How did that Green Day song go again? Seven years have gone so fast…wake me up when September ends. It used to be the theme song of our teenage years. Who knew years later we would be living it? Recently a friend of mine said perhaps we sang the FRIENDS theme so too much that we ended up manifesting it into our reality!

I am thirty-five years old now – and believe me – nothing, not one thing – has gone according to plan. When I was fifteen, I was convinced I’d meet my Prince Charming in my early twenties, we’d grow together, hold down steady jobs, end up married before the decade was up, and have my first kid by thirty. But here I am – bang in the middle of my thirties – barely making ends meet with the low-paying job I had to take up because I was in the middle of a financial crisis, but I’d signed up to work at one of the most toxic workplaces in the world.

As went through the motions of getting ready to drag my feet to the office again this morning, I couldn’t help but think about the person I had been casually seeing for a month now. Despite my better judgement, I had agreed to the nonsense of going with the flow. But honestly being a dead fish at the moment wasn’t serving my purpose.

Seven years ago, the Goddess of Love, Bhargavi, had appeared in the guise of a copywriter nonetheless and made me a deal. I decided I was enough by the end of our time together – even though she had warned me things would get difficult since I’d tapped out of the game too late. Still, it seemed unnecessarily cruel to make me suffer this way.

My phone buzzed with a text. It was from my landlord with a singular word, “Rent?”

I checked my balance. If I paid him right away, I’d have to really stretch my grocery budget. But it wasn’t worth the hassle my landlord would put me through if I delayed paying rent any longer. We were already in the middle of the month. In Mumbai, most people would call him sending a single text to inquire about his rightful rent kindness.

I grabbed the tea and breakfast I’d made and came back to sit on the hardly-ever-used sofa in my living room. I remember back when I lived with Mira one of her friends had told me how there was a study done to map people, and it was found most people just spent their time in their bedrooms. After moving into my place, I made a conscious effort to spend some time in my living room too, and not just my bedroom.

Flump.

I almost jumped out of my skin as something landed right on my windowsill. It was a black ball of fluff with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen. But unlike other cats I’d met in and around my new apartment, this cat just glared at me. As though the cat was judging all my life choices.

Meow.

I swear, it was like the cat had heard my thoughts and was agreeing with me. Before I could do anything, it just meowed once more, in a disapproving tone, and disappeared right before my eyes. I blinked hard. Forcing myself to rationalize what I just witnessed in my head.

Yeah, I had the Goddess of Love actively try to help me find my love and derail me at the same time. I couldn’t rationalize everything away.

A small voice in my head reminded me. Even though I was the one who’d chosen to walk away from Bhargavi’s deal, I couldn’t help but feel a little nettled by the radio silence I received from her in the last seven years. Did she not care about me? I thought we were friends.

Besides she had told me she’d been yelling at me for years but apparently, I never listened. I stopped myself from going into a thought spiral. I counted backwards from ten and when I felt more in control of life, I decided it was time to go face my demons. I mean, go to work.

“You’re running late,” my manager almost screamed into my ear when I answered the call as I sprinted towards the train station, after exiting my auto.

No shit, Sherlock.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said, absentmindedly, “There’s just too much…”

“Don’t you live alone? What else do you have going on?”

I wanted to throw my phone against a wall, walk away from this job, and never return. Then I remembered the text sitting unanswered on my phone. Rent?

Through gritted teeth, I said, “Yeah, I do. And it’s challenging and…”

Before I could finish defending myself, my phone beeped loudly and died. I groaned remembering how I’d stayed up way too late last night, scrolling on my phone, and completely forgot to put it on charge. Talk about being ghosted by the Universe. It was beginning to feel like the universe never had my back in the first place. I sighed heavily.

I turned around to check which platform my train would be on, only to realize it was happily chugging away. I was going to get written up for tardiness today. Groaning, I scanned the teleprompter to see which platform would be my next bet.

“Good morning, Sunshine,” my co-worker, Justin said, as soon as he spotted me walking to our bay. I knew my face was like a thundercloud.

I braced myself to get ready for my manager to yell at me. We had never gotten along. Why this woman, who so obviously hated my guts, chose to hire me in the first place was beyond me. Weird flex, maybe? Who knows. I honestly did not know how long I would be able to tough it out in this workplace. It was super toxic.

My manager finally emerged from whatever meet she’d been holed up in and commented, “Oh, so you’ve finally made it to work.”

Every part of me wanted to yell my piece of mind back at her, give her a taste of her own medicine. But the text popped up in my head again. Rent? And then the cat’s very disapproving eyes.

The image of the cat stayed in my head for a second too long, and its expression shifted from disapproving to a warning.

Hiss. Hiss. Hiss.

Yeah, I know, cat, I know. I feel the same way.

Author's Note: I am so pleased to bring the sequel to Raashi Ghoshal Will Find Her Prince Charming to you in the form of a serialized fiction. It reminded me of my high school & college days when I would update my fiction on a weekly (and sometimes daily) basis. This is a nice way to keep in touch with my personal writing without the worry of meeting deadlines and publishing the whole book altogether! Hope you liked the start to this book & will keep coming back for more.