“Sorry, I just wanna see other people,” says Kavya. She’s sitting on her bed, looking down at Swarn on her MacBook. His face freezes in GoogleMeet. Is it him or his wi-fi? Kavya doesn’t like looking at him when he’s like this. She’s angled her screen such that, when she looks away from him, it looks like she’s contemplating the wall. From the floor, at the foot of the bed, Pallavi nods approvingly. Standing beside Kavya, just within her peripheral vision, Smita claps silently.
“Oh-kay?” says Swarn. “I think I understand, though this is kinda abrupt. Look, whatever you wanna try,” he pleads, “let’s try together.”
He’s 23, four years her senior, but his face, with its long eyelashes and sensitive chin, looks like a five-year-old’s as it struggles not to crumple. Kavya stares, her eyes expressionless behind her cat’s-eye glasses with their oversized frames and thick lenses.
But her friends can read her face. Smita pops into view like a jack-in-the-box and mouths ‘Fuck him!’ Pallavi types frenetically on her iPhone and holds it up, Heads Up style.
“That wouldn’t be fair to you,” Kavya reads thoughtfully from Pallavi’s phonescreen. “You deserve someone who’s committed to you, as you are to them. I just don’t deserve you.”
Swarn pulls his laptop close to his face and scrutinises the blank wall behind Kavya. “Why’re you saying these things?” he whispers. “Are you mocking me? This is outta the blue… Are your friends making you dump me? Look, I know they don’t like me. I could tell you a thing or two about them. They way they talk behind your back, and even hit on me, it’s…” Scrunching with disgust, his face looks more boylike than ever.
Kavya looks out the window, out the 15th-floor balcony of her grandparents’ house, over the twinkling city. This view always calms her. Smita tiptoes away from Kavya’s side. Kavya’s two friends kneel silently, watching her, their hands slack on their knees.
“Nothing to do with my friends,” says Kavya. “Actually, I’m taking a break from them, too. There’s lots I need to figure out. You keep saying you want to apply abroad but you couldn’t leave me here alone… You’re a special person, Swarn. I’d never want to hold you back.”
Calmly she notes that she’s the one who’s lying gratuitiously, and he’s the one who’s bursting into tears: real tears, nostrils flowing freely too. “Please don’t do this,” Swarn wails. “At least let’s talk in person one last time.”
Kavya looks up at her friends. They confer in signs. Smita types on Pallavi’s iPhone. “Sorry,” Kavya reads, standing up, “but I need to process things too. Let’s make a clean break you won’t be able to contact me again best of luck Swarn.”
Kavya lids her laptop and tosses it in a drawer. The three girls hoot and dance, then embrace and weep. Then Pallavi fetches ice, Smita fetches towels, and silently they ice the last set of bruises Swarn made on Kavya.
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