Don't go, take it out

Ritu said "don't go" twice. The first time I thought she meant the farmhouse. The second time I realized she meant me. She has planned weddings for twelve years. She knows what a room full of phones looks like when one of them starts recording. I told her the clip would land in the family WhatsApp by sunrise. She said, after another silence, "then take the door alarm out of the bag." She didn't say install it. She said take it out. I sat on the kitchen floor later and looked at it in its plastic and I still don't know what she meant.

My brother used the word career like a bookmark slid into a page he has already decided not to finish. Then he said I should have been more careful at the original mehfil. The original mehfil. He has never stood in front of a mic and felt a room turn, and he has never been the joke on someone's screen the next morning. He speaks like a man who has never had to laugh into a phone full of people laughing for a different reason.

I tripped on the door alarm in front of the watchman and he laughed and I laughed louder. That is what I do. I make the moment bigger than the stumble. I am ~~tired~~ sick of being good at that.

Suresh texted and asked if I ate. I sent him the half vada pav. He said finish it. I finished it. He is the only person today who did not use my hunger against me.

The wrapper from his stall is still tucked in my tote strap. I don't know why it embarrasses me. Cheap plastic, cheap food, the kind of thing that does not photograph well next to a farmhouse pitch. I should throw it out. I won't.

I am still the woman standing very still by the kitchen counter. The alarm is still in plastic. Ritu said take it out. I think I will leave it in the bag one more night.