Ordinarily, Cyrus’s first reaction to that service station washroom would have been revulsion, with the immediate urge to turn around and leave. Normally, he would barely endure it, and would only power through because practicality insisted and his travel sized sanitation kit bolstered him.

Right now though, with his head full of a lost signal static, judging the cleanliness and building nightmares about the pathogenic horrors of the dingy little space is not something that he is inclined to waste emotional resources on.

His aversion to things less than sanitary stems from his desire to preserve himself. Not out of some paranoid fear of death or of the pathogens themselves. Rather, it was a need to optimise his time in order to dedicate himself fully to his work. After all, convalescing stole time away from his research, and that simply was not acceptable. Even more so if it was avoidable.

His stringent meticulousness in all areas of physical and mental maintenance – hygiene, diet, sleep schedule and psychologically necessary socialisation – were all in service to his purpose, his work, his identity. An upset in any of these areas could lead to inefficiency. And inefficiency was an unforgivable waste of his potential.

Today though, nothing seems as big a threat to his status quo, to his very existence, than the turmoil that even his socially stunted perception could clearly see in her. Anushka is hurting, and Cyrus, with all of his sometimes mocked but always acknowledged genius, could not figure out what to do.

So entire is his preoccupation with finding a solution to her, for her, that his visit to the lavatory is mechanical and largely indifferent to the space itself. It is only the mirror that he pays any attention to while standing at the wash basin, and only to look at his own reflection.

Inadequate.

He looks away.

He is aware of his shortcomings, aware that he is not the most socially perceptive, the most emotionally sensitive, and especially not in comparison to Anushka herself. The one person that he would turn to for guidance is the one who is in turmoil, the one who he wants to help. And he finds himself adrift, without anchor, with the steady shore of her happiness seeming so far away.

He considers asking her for some set of instructions, some protocol that he could follow that would make things better. But he thinks it would only put the undue burden of his failings on her. And…

He is not sure she would have an answer in any case.

Parental loss is something he is acquainted with. He also understands what it is like to bury the possibility of closure together with the corpse of someone you wished to mend a relationship with. However, much of what he recalls of his father’s passing has a haze over it, vague shapes through fog.

And it was only the distance of time that had pushed the experience far enough into the peripheral that it did not persist as a black mark over his everyday. He does not recall any one action on the part of another that had made things easier, and so, he does not have anything to emulate. He does not know how to make it better for her.

Adding to his turmoil, or perhaps making the bulk of it if he were to be entirely honest, he finds that he is catastrophically unsure of why he is so determined to make things better for her, regardless of not knowing how. He is the unknown quantity in this equation. The thought coils around his throat, some hissing constrictor waiting to strangle.

He wishes he could be sure of the nobility of his intentions. However, it is not as straightforward as all that. There are other factors at play here. Things that have been brewing for months that form storm clouds in the firmament of his conscience.

He would love to claim that it is merely the care he has for her as a friend, wanting to see her happy as a friend would, that is driving him. Because he does care about her. Because seeing her upset, greatly upsets him; emotionally, but also seemingly upending every other aspect of his life.

Anushka being unsteady unbalances him, because she has come to be the one who props him up when he is at his weakest. And he feels like he has been at his weakest for far too long now.

He wishes he could say that these feelings all came in the same box that their friendship, this warm camaraderie they have assembled together, had entered his life in.

They did not though. He is sure of that, at least.

He did not have much of a chance to experience it in childhood, but adulthood had brought with it people he truly considered peers, and with that, friendship. The group of people who share the same house as Cyrus and Anushka – Krish, Firoz and Vikrant – are certainly called friends. They also have others outside of their residence who fall into the same category, albeit at more of a distance in all respects.

He has known these people for years now, socialised with them, provided emotional and financial and academic support to them. Has fulfilled the expectations of friendship, whenever he was called on to do so. He knows what friendship is. At least he believed he did.

But Anushka stands apart from all of them. He holds her in a special regard, has for a long time now. And he finds himself at a standstill; unable, or perhaps unwilling, to identify the nature of these feelings for her. Yet still unable to ignore their existence as well.

The wild gusts of change that have shaped his life in recent months, have been fragranced with thoughts of her. More and more, Cyrus is finding that his approach to his everyday is becoming defined by the presence of these unknowable emotions.

It should be concerning for someone as rational, as scientific, as he is. But Cyrus cannot bring himself to mind this sudden listing to the sentimental.

And his conscience whispers to him: that is the problem.

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