Her mouth dropped open.
RITU
Your heart might make it, your baby brain is doomed
NILAY PATEL
Sequin-sized but works like magic
You saw it in motion, along with other things
RITU
You were supposed to forget it
NILAY PATEL
Sequin-sized brain retained it
God knows why
Her dropped mouth touched the floor. Ritu laughed.You obnoxious man.She didn’t know what got her to become a middle-schooler like him and press ‘BLOCK.’ She would give it 60 seconds and see what his sequin-sized brain came up with.
“Ritu!”
She glanced up at that familiar voice, and Nalini foi, her father’s youngest sister and Dimple’s mother stood in front of her. The mother of the bride, glowing in every way. Ritu tried to smile back but the shadow beside her made her body lock up.
“Ritu, how are you?”
Jimmy fuva. The father of the bride.
She felt her body, mind and mouth shift to autopilot.
“I am fine. How are you?”
“It’s been years,” Nalini foi patted her shoulder. Ritu did not stand up for her. She was supposed to stand, fold her hands, maybe even touch their feet. She did not. She kept sitting, staring at them with callous shamelessness — courteous, but that’s it.
“Thank you for coming,” Nalini foi kept talking, sensing the company they were in. “Dimple mentioned she sent you the invite and kept calling.”
“Yes. I came for her.”
“Please don’t go without eating, alright?” She patted her arm again. “Come, Jimmy, I wanted to introduce you to my botox clinic friends…”
Ritu sat unmoving as her husband turned with her and followed, but not without turning over his shoulder and eyeing her. Once.
Nothing registered. The air itself stilled in front of her. Her hands and feet became cold. She knew what it was. She knew what hormones, what muscles, what mechanisms were working inside her. She analysed it all clinically. But she couldn’t break free.
And then her phone’s ringtone tore through the haze.
Ritu reached for it in panic and plastered it to her ear, scampering from her chair and walking away towards the sea.
“Hello.”
“You stop being a teenager now. Unblock me.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice sounded broken. She snapped out of herself and pulled her phone screen down to check. It wasn’t Nilay. Some random number.
“Hello? Who is this?”
