Paheli steps forward. The look in the girl’s eyes sharpens and she focuses, for the first time. She doesn’t say a word, though. Her silence is a question.

We have all stood on precipices much like this one. When you get this close to self-destruction, words no longer have strength. How did Paheli reach us? How did she persuade us to retreat from the edges we cleaved to?

We cannot remember.

“I am Paheli,” she says, and sits on the wall right next to the girl. “Why are you here?”

The girl stares down at Paheli, her expression frozen in a grimace of grief. “Why do you want to know? Do you collect tragic stories or something?”

“You could say that. Do you have one to share?”

The girl turns back to face the night, the city, and the sky. “I was raped by my brother-in-law.” She takes a deep breath. “When I told my mother, she told me it was my fault. It must have been something I said or did or wore that gave him the wrong idea. That led him on.”

She stops. A car honks in the street below.

“I was sleeping in my bed in my room when he raped me. I was supposed to be safe there. Safer there than anywhere else in the world.” A sob punctuates her narration. “A month later, I found out that I was pregnant. They wouldn’t let me get an abortion. Said they would send me to my aunt’s place to have… that.” She takes a wheezing breath and thumps her chest with a fist. “I heard them talking this morning when they thought I was still sleeping. My sister, that man, and my parents. My sister can’t have children, and that man needs an heir. My parents didn’t want my sister to be abandoned by that monster, so I was elected to be a sacrifice.

“I snuck out of the house today and went to the doctor. But you know what? They said I needed my guardian’s permission. Why? It is my body. Why do I need to have anybody’s permission to do anything with it? I can feel that thing in my womb. I would much rather die than let it grow within me.”

“So, you are here,” Paheli says, turning to look at the city glimmering in the distance.

“Yes. And you? Why are you here?” the girl asks.

“Me? I was raped by the man my mother sold me to.” The girl turns to face Paheli suddenly, looking at her as if for the first time. “And those girls back there? They all have similar stories. We don’t compare notes.” The girl turns to us. Her eyes are wide and her cheeks tearstained. “Do you want to come with us?”

“Where will you take me?” the girl asks.