Chapter 1: The Therapy Room

The boy's fingers are sticky with mango pulp when he finally says the word.

"Ball."

Sushmita Haldar feels it in her chest first — that small explosion of joy that never gets old no matter how many times she witnesses it. Three months of picture cards and hand-over-hand prompting and waiting, waiting, waiting for Aarav to connect the sound to the object, and now here it is. His voice is flat, no inflection, but it's there. The word exists in the air between them.

"Yes!" She claps her hands twice, sharp and bright. "Ball! Good job, Aarav!"

He doesn't look at her. He's five years old and he's never looked directly at her face, not once. But his hand reaches for the red rubber ball on the table, and that's enough. That's everything.

The therapy room smells like sanitizer and the faint sweetness of the mango he ate during snack time. The walls are painted pale yellow — some consultant told the centre director that yellow was "calming" for autistic children, which Sush thinks is bullshit, but she's not the one making decisions. The fluorescent lights hum overhead. Aarav's mother watches from the observation window, her dupatta clutched in both hands.

Sush writes "spontaneous verbal request" in her session notes. Her handwriting is terrible. She's always late to everything, always rushing, and her handwriting suffers for it. But the notes don't lie: Aarav is making progress.

She's good at this job. She knows she's good at it.

She also knows it's killing her.

Not the work itself — she loves the work. Loves the kids, loves the small victories, loves the way Aarav's mother's face softens when she sees her son reach for the ball. But the centre. The politics. The way her supervisor Priya-ma'am talks to parents like they're idiots. The way the director keeps cutting the therapy hours to save money, even though these kids need consistency, need time. The way her own mother works in the Wakad branch and everyone knows it, so Sush can never complain, can never push back, because it would reflect on her mother.

And her mother has worked so hard.

Sush is twenty-two years old. She finished her B.Com degree four months ago. She's five feet tall and looks like a kid herself — parents sometimes mistake her for a volunteer until she starts talking. She's daring like a cat, her father says. Small but fierce.

Right now she feels neither small nor fierce. She feels stuck.

The session ends. Aarav's mother thanks her three times, her eyes wet. Sush smiles and says all the right things — "He's doing so well, aunty, just keep practicing at home, I'll see you Thursday" — and then she's alone in the therapy room with the smell of mango and sanitizer and the fluorescent hum.

Her phone buzzes.

Rahul: you're still coming tonight right? kunal's bringing his guitar

Rahul: also GP says he'll teach you how to make that pasta thing

Rahul: the one you kept talking about

She smiles. Rahul is shy in person but texts like he's writing a novel. He's the one she tells everything to — the job frustration, the weird dreams, the way she keeps getting crushes on random guys and then feeling stupid about it two weeks later. He doesn't judge. He just listens.

Sush: yes yes im coming

Sush: im always late but im coming

Rahul: we know

She locks the therapy room and walks down the narrow hallway. The centre is in a converted bungalow in Nigdi, near the old Akurdi Road. The paint is peeling. The AC in the waiting room has been broken for two weeks. Parents sit on plastic chairs and wait.

Priya-ma'am is in the staff room, eating a samosa. She's forty-three and has been doing this work for twenty years and she's tired. Sush can see it in the way she chews — mechanical, joyless.

"Aarav's session went well," Sush says.

"Good." Priya-ma'am doesn't look up. "Did you finish the progress reports?"

"I'll have them by Monday."

"They were due yesterday."

Sush's jaw tightens. "I know. I'm sorry. I'll finish them this weekend."

Priya-ma'am finally looks at her. "Sushmita, you're good with the kids. But you need to work on your time management."

It's not the first time she's heard this. It won't be the last.

She nods. Says nothing. Leaves.

Outside, the February air is warm and thick. Pune in February is perfect — not too hot, not too cold, just the golden hour stretching long and soft over the city. She unlocks her scooty, a battered Activa that her father bought her when she started college. The seat is cracked. The paint is faded. It runs.

She rides home through Nigdi's chaotic streets — autorickshaws honking, street vendors selling bhel, the smell of frying pakoras from the stall near the bus stop. She's lived in Nigdi for six years, ever since her family moved from Jharkhand. She's Bengali but she doesn't feel Bengali most of the time. She feels like a Punekar. She knows which chaat stall has the best dahi puri. She knows which roads flood during monsoon. She knows the city in her bones.

Home is a second-floor flat in a building called Sai Residency. Her two sisters are fighting over the TV remote when she walks in. Thumki, her cat, is asleep on the sofa. He's a male cat, orange and fat and deeply uninterested in human drama. Sush drops her bag and scoops him up. He tolerates this for exactly five seconds before squirming free.

"Sush, tell Didi to stop hogging the remote!" her younger sister whines.

"I'm not hogging, I was here first!"

Sush ignores them both and goes to her room. It's small — just enough space for a bed, a desk, and a cupboard. The walls are covered in fairy lights she put up two years ago. Her B.Com degree certificate is framed on the wall, next to a photo of her and her friends at Kunal's birthday party last year.

She lies down on the bed. Stares at the ceiling.

Her phone buzzes again.

Unknown Number: hey

Her stomach drops.

She knows who it is.

Unknown Number: i know you blocked me but i got a new number

Unknown Number: i just want to talk

Unknown Number: i miss you

It's him. Her ex. The one who cheated on her two years ago, at the beginning of first year B.Com. They'd only kissed — nothing more — but it had felt like everything at the time. And then she found out he'd been texting another girl. Saying the same things to her. I miss you. You're so pretty. I can't stop thinking about you.

She broke up with him immediately.

But he won't let go. He messages her every few months. Says he's changed. Says he craves her. Says he wants to sleep with her, like that's supposed to be flattering.

She knows she shouldn't respond. She knows Rahul would tell her to block him again. She knows Kunal would say he's a piece of shit.

But part of her — the part that falls for flattery, the part that craves male attention even when she knows it's bad for her — part of her wants to reply.

She doesn't.

She deletes the messages. Puts her phone face-down on the bed.

Stares at the ceiling.

She's twenty-two years old. She's never had sex. She doesn't even masturbate — she's tried, a few times, but it always feels awkward and mechanical and she gives up. She gets crushes constantly. A new guy every couple of months. The barista at the café near college. The guy who works at the bookstore. The friend of a friend who smiled at her at a party. She likes confidence. She likes shy guys. She likes the idea of being wanted.

But she doesn't know what she wants.

The therapy job stifles her. Her mother's reputation stifles her. This city, this flat, this life — it all feels too small suddenly.

She thinks about leaving. She's thought about it a hundred times. But where would she go? And how?

Her phone buzzes again. This time it's the group chat.

Kunal: sush where are you

Kunal: we're waiting

GP: she's always late bro you know this

Rahul: she said she's coming

Kunal: yeah in sush time that means another hour

She smiles despite herself. Gets up. Changes into jeans and a kurta. Grabs her bag.

Thumki watches her from the sofa, unimpressed.

"I'll be back," she tells him.

He yawns.

She rides her scooty to Kunal's place in Pimple Saudagar. The sun is setting, painting the sky orange and pink. The city smells like jasmine and exhaust fumes. She's late, as always, but her friends are used to it.

Kunal opens the door. He's tall, easy-going, the kind of guy who never seems stressed about anything. She's known him since first year B.Com. He's the one she plans on being with long-term — not now, but someday. When she's ready. When she's figured herself out.

"Finally," he says, grinning. "We were about to start without you."

"You always start without me," she says, stepping inside.

Rahul is on the couch, scrolling through his phone. He's shy, quiet, but he looks up when she walks in and smiles. GP — Gunvant — is in the kitchen, stirring something that smells like garlic and butter.

"Sush!" GP calls. "Come here, I'm teaching you the pasta thing."

She drops her bag and joins him. The kitchen is small and warm. GP is the newest addition to their group, but he fits. He helps her with things — random things, like fixing her scooty when it breaks down or explaining tax stuff she doesn't understand.

"Okay, so you heat the oil first," GP says, "then you add the garlic—"

"I know how to cook," she interrupts.

"Then why do you keep asking me to teach you?"

"Because I like watching you do it."

He laughs. Rahul laughs from the couch. Kunal strums his guitar.

This is her life. These people. This city. This small, warm, suffocating life.

And she doesn't know how much longer she can stay in it.

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