The weight of what I sent

The farmhouse is gone. The road is gone. I am in my flat and the lock works and nobody here knows Meera Rathore from any other girl and that is the only good thing about tonight.

I keep thinking about Pulkit's face when I said it. Not angry. Worse — confused. Like he had arranged the world in a particular order and I was supposed to stay in my lane and instead I did something that did not fit the script. I have been the thing people arrange for three years and I do not think anyone had warned him that the thing can also arrange things back.

I sent the file this morning. I keep having to say it to myself to believe it because I still do not know if it worked. If the uncle opened it. If he will do anything. Nobody calls. Nobody tells me anything. I am used to being outside information — I have built a whole life on the outside of other people's knowledge — but this time the not-knowing has teeth. It sits in my chest and chews.

His family knows my family's address.

I typed it out just now and it looked small. Four words. My brother's address in Pune. Pulkit said it like he was reading a label off a file and I sat in that chair and felt something I do not have language for. Not fear exactly. Something colder. The understanding that a person I had smiled at for three months has the power to make my mother afraid in her own house.