Priya sent it to the cousin

The dupatta. That's what I keep circling back to. Not the 4 lakh, not the cousin's gold ring, not the gentle way he said my name like we were old college friends. The dupatta. Tanvi's mother pressed it into my lap at the roka and said something about my skin looking tired, like a dupatta could fix tiredness, and I wore it because refusing would have been a scene. The cousin photographed it slipping off my shoulder through his open window. Ten feet from the auto-wallah. He probably has a folder. Slips. Welts. Door handles. All filed under Meera-ji, or walk.

Priya. I keep saying her name in my head and it doesn't resolve. She was inside the Karjat farmhouse. She filmed my hand on the same door handle from August. The timestamp is 9:14pm and the lock engages from outside and my face is in three-quarter profile like a catalog shot. And she sent it to Heena — fine, girls share clips — but she also sent it to the cousin. The cousin. I don't know her price yet. I will eventually. Everyone in this has a price and mine is on a spreadsheet I'm not allowed to see.

I didn't get out of the auto. That is the one correct thing I did today. I sat in that three-wheeler with wet shoes and the dupatta clutched against my chest and I watched BKC pass through the rain and I did not get out. The auto-wallah probably thought I was crying. I wasn't. I was deciding.