I hum, a sound that’s almost absent-minded because the tremor of everything else inside me is louder. “Okay.”
I say the word and hang up before I can parse how my fingers buzz with a static I don’t want to name. I’m not scared of the work. That, at least, is honest. I can manage a project, pick outa fabric, argue with a supplier over lead times. I’ve been doing it for long enough that my hands know the language of rooms.
What makes my throat tight is not the job. It is the people.
Meeting a CEO is a small thing on a resume and a large thing in a room of seats where power sits in one place and you sit across from it, measured. I don’t fear a suit. I fearstaying. People who enter a life and mark it like they own it, then leave without a forwarding address. People who get comfortable enough to assume they will stay. So when Jayesh says CEO tomorrow, my brain files it under people to whom I do notletstay. I tighten the wall around myself like a reflex, like armor. There’s a part of me that hates how predictable this wall is. I know it’s a protection, but the price is high. I want to laugh at it sometimes, at the way I scan faces for exits the moment I begin to care.
I pace my small, narrow kitchen while the kettle for tea screams a small protest. My flat is rented and small and stubbornly mine. Jaipur’s late-afternoon sun slides across the walls in a lazy gold stripe that does nothing to warm what I’m feeling. I tell myself I will sleep early. I will set the project files during dinner. But now is for Stranger Things rewatch number...God knows. Comfort. Warmth. Pattern. I will memorize the lines and let the predictability of Hopper’s grunts soothe something in me.
And yet there’s this thread of everything unresolved—like a loose stitch caught on the edge of a sweater. Jayesh’s voice rings in my ear with the number again,fifteen lakhs, said like a fact. Practicality hums under the thought of saving and investing and opening a firm. Not because I’m greedy, but because I want to be independent in the sense that no one can easily unmake me. Money here means choice. Money means I can say no when something is toxic and not have to count the cost of walkingaway. Because fifteen lakhs—say it in any currency and it sounds like rescue.
There is also the thought I don’t let surface often: what would it be like to be noticed and not immediately sized up for what I can give? I have seen people assume my work is the only strict and professional thing I have to offer because I am quiet and efficient, but I can get creative. Maybe I’m asking too much to want someone who takes the time to understand the thing you don’t say, and then still chooses to stay even when the running away would be easier. Maybe that’s too much to hope for. And hope destroys everything.
The truth is I don’t want things. I want to be sure. I want guarantees in a life that has never given me any. But guarantees are fictional. They are tales told in the neat pages of other people’s lives. Mine is scribbled on napkins and archived in cancelled plans.
So all I do now is return to the couch and play episode one while hoping this CEO stays strictly professional and I don’t make any connections that end up hurting me. Because I will any day choose to be selfish than to hurt myself. Because all I have had since I was sixteen is myself. And I plan to keep it that way.
CHAPTER 3
ARYAN
I walk in like I own the place—which, to be fair, I sort of do—and immediately regret nothing except the fact that I brought nothing edible. The living room is chaos in motion: Vedant stretched out like a disgruntled cat on the couch, remote in hand, eyes narrowed at the television; Radhika perched on the armrest, knees up, shouting at the screen; and the packet of chips on the coffee table is already getting dangerously low. The game is on full blast—India versus Australia—and somewhere between Virat’s steady hand and the Aussies’ arrogance, the three of us have reverted to thirteen-year-olds with a single mission: consume snacks and snipe at everything.
“Pass the chips,” Vedant demands without looking away.
“No,” Radhika chides, shielded behind her knees like a fortress. “You literally ate half the packet, Ved. You have sticky fingers.”
“Your fingers were sticky last week and you still ate my samosa,” Vedant shoots back. He flicks a chip with a languid finger and it arcs toward Radhika, who bats it away with a shriek. I laugh, because living with them is a sitcom with better ad reads.
“Are we five?” I sigh, dropping my bag by the door, slipping my keys into the bowl on the side table like it’s a ritual. “Pass thechips or pass me the remote. I have opinions on field placements and you all need me right now.”
Radhika widens her eyes at me and does that exasperated little groan that means she’s about to choose sides because the three-year age gap is long dead in the face of cricket solidarity. “You’re only allowed to comment if you haven’t fallen asleep during the last two matches,” she says.
“I fell asleep,” Vedant admits with a grin, “because you kept yelling at the screen. I was conserving energy for the chips.” He points an accusing finger at Radhika and she retaliates with a slur for his choice of socks.
Our mother’s voice cuts through the banter from the kitchen like a warm, scolding bell. “Enough! Behave like adults. This is not a playground.”
We pause as if someone hit a giant pause button on the world. Even the television seems to soften its noise for a second because she’s the kind of mother who can do that without trying. She stands in the doorway with the look that says she has lived through worse—and full disclosure, she has—but somehow still manages to be shocked by the triviality of our arguments.
Vedant rolls his eyes but vacates the couch with the slow, theatrical reluctance of someone pretending to comply. Radhika scoots over, eyes shining with mischief. “Ma, you’re being dramatic. It’s just chips.”
“It’s not just chips,” she says, and I can tell she’s trying to keep her tone level because when she gets loud she cries, and when she cries she carries grief like it’s a heavy coat she can’t shrug off.
“None of you listen to me.” Oh no. Here we go.
“Vedant, you are thirty four, you have a girlfriend,” I share a surprised look with Vedant because I will never understand how our mother shifts from one topic to another.
“But you won’t marry. Do you know how many parents allow a love marriage? Few. Selected few.” She exclaims. “I am letting you do that, and still—still you won’t get married!”
I make a face at the wordmarriage, which sounds like trouble. “Really, Ma?” I say, trying to keep the sarcasm as casual as a shrug. “Emotional blackmail? Classic.”
She huffs, fanning her hand like she’s casting away an unwanted fly. “You are thirty-two.” She sighs, looking up, “God, what have I done wrong?”
Vedant’s jaw tightens. He’s the oldest, which means he shoulders things in a slightly different way—he carries guilt like a second opinion. “Ma, I’m not refusing because I’m against marriage. I’m just—” He trails off because he never explains himself in those big terms; with Vedant, it’s always smaller gestures.
Radhika’s voice softens, and I can see the way she looks at our mother like she’s measuring the cracks. “Ma, we’re not ignoring you because we don’t want to be settled. You know Ved has Sanja—”
“She has a job, she’s working on her own projects, she’s not settling for anyone’s name,” Vedant says quickly, cutting Radhika off because he’s defensive like that when his private life is being discussed in public.
