The face they paid for

I have been called many things by people who did not know the price list: difficult, bold, sweet enough for a photograph. “Hired help” was new. It sounded like something the family had always known and simply waited for the rest of us to hear aloud.

I did not run. I wanted to. Every part of me was waiting for a side door, a dark car, some excuse to become anonymous again. Instead, I stood there and let their laughter make my face look obedient. That is what frightened me most. I know exactly how to vanish inside a role, and they nearly stripped mine away in one sentence.

I keep wondering what Leela heard in that pause before I asked her about Kabir. Does she now think I am only another professional wearing concern like a borrowed sari? I want the truth of this house to matter to me more than the satisfaction of exposing it. That sounds noble. The private version is uglier: I wanted Leela to look at me and know I had chosen her side, even when choosing meant risking the family’s comfort and my place in it.

On the balcony, the spare phone’s charge climbing felt like proof that I still had a way out. I keep it close because it contains Reyansh, and because wanting information about him still feels like permission to care. Leela’s question made me ashamed. Did I truly know him, or did I only notice him because he disturbed the arrangement I had been paid to protect?