I sat at the kitchen table, excited and anxious. I listened to the familiar sounds of my Maa completing her nightly routine, waiting until she was in bed so that I would not disturb her. Then I pulled out my laptop and switched it on. The screen turned blue; ‘Welcome back’ flashed on the screen before the half-circle began its usual clockwise turn. A picture of Maa and me came up on my dashboard; I clicked on the icon to open my email. Almost immediately, in bold, a message popped up from Gautam Pillai. The subject glared at me: Interview BusinessForward today

I took a deep breath and clicked on the email, my eyes closed tightly, knowing that when I opened them again, my life could potentially change, forever.

5

JHANVI

The phone screen lit up in my hand, startling me. I had been lost in my thoughts. It was Kavya who had sent me the message about Puneet that morning. She always had my best interests at heart, and for a long time she had suspected that Puneet was being unfaithful. She tried to prepare me for the inevitable, but she also knew that you could never be fully prepared for this kind of betrayal. She had not followed Puneet the night before; she was out with another group of friends, enjoying the night scene and drinking coffee, when the slimebag walked past them with his arm around another woman’s waist. Knowing it would take some convincing, she had snapped a photo to send to me. She didn’t want me to agonise about it all night, though, so she waited until morning to drop the bombshell.

We had grown up together, Kavya and I, having met so far back that neither of us could remember when it was exactly. Kavya was the closest I had ever come to having a sister, and when she told me she was moving to Mumbai, my heart was torn apart. We had spoken about it all through high school, planned and dreamed about a future in a city that would cater to both our dreams. She wanted to be an interior designer, so I knew that Mumbai was the obvious choice for her. A place where she could study and get work that would put her talents to use. I tried, really I did, to live without her steadfast, constant presence in my life, but somehow my existence seemed empty without her.

I opened the message from her.

‘Sorry, my friend, I didn’t want to break your heart, but he doesn’t deserve you, you know,’ it read.

I did know that, but you know how it is? Those questions you ask yourself: Could I have done better? What did I do to deserve this? Why am I unlovable?

I typed a message back.

‘He has been doing this for months. I should be the one to say sorry for not believing you.’

I opened my social media account again and noticed that my like count was not going up as quickly as when I first posted. Quickly, I added hashtags to my comments section, being careful to put some in that insinuated I was newly broken up, but still looking fabulous and unbreakable. Another message pinged through from Kavya. ‘You up for a cup of coffee?’