Chapter 9: Terrace Confession
The morning light through her curtains was cruel and clear. Sid woke with a stiff neck, one arm numb under Kirti’s weight. She was still asleep, facing away, the sheet dipped to her waist. The red mark on her shoulder had faded to a faint pink line. The torn clothes were a sad pile on the floor.
He carefully extracted his arm, pins and needles shooting to his fingertips. She stirred, mumbled something, then her breathing evened out again.
He moved through her apartment quietly, a stranger in the aftermath. He found his torn shirt, held it up. It was ruined. He folded it neatly, uselessly, and placed it on a chair. He cleaned up the scattered buttons from the floor, his movements hushed. In her small kitchen, he drank water straight from the tap, the metal taste of the pipe sharp on his tongue.
When he slipped back into the bedroom, she was awake. She was sitting up, the sheet pulled to her chin, watching him. Her hair was a mess. Her eyes were puffy.
“You’re still here,” she said. Her voice was morning-rough.
“You asked me to stay.”
She nodded. She looked at the folded shirt on the chair. “I’ll buy you a new one.”
“Don’t.”
Silence stretched. The distance between the bed and the doorway felt vast.
“I have to get ready,” she said, finally. She swung her legs out of bed, keeping the sheet wrapped around her like a shield. She didn’t look at him as she walked to the bathroom. The lock clicked.
Sid got dressed in yesterday’s clothes. They smelled of the bar, of smoke, of her. He was straightening his trousers when the bathroom door opened. Steam billowed out. Kirti emerged in a towel, her skin flushed. Her face was scrubbed clean, her professional mask already being assembled. She walked past him to her closet, selected a cream-colored blouse and a grey pencil skirt.
“You should go,” she said, not unkindly. “We shouldn’t arrive together.”
“Right.”
He stood there, feeling awkward in the center of her room. She moved around him, a study in efficient motion—putting on lotion, clipping her hair back, applying a quick stroke of mascara. It was like watching a soldier don armor.
“Kirti,” he said.
She paused, mascara wand in hand. “Yeah?”
“Last night…”
“Was last night.” She met his eyes in the mirror. “Today is the Gupta presentation. Slides are fixed. We’ll nail it.” Her tone was bright, breezy, and utterly hollow.
He understood. The confession, the torn fabric, the tears—they were being folded up and put away. For now. He walked to the door.
“Sid?” she called out. He turned. She was looking at him, the mascara wand forgotten. For a second, the mask slipped. He saw the fear, the exhaustion, the raw want. It was all still there, churning just beneath the surface. “Wish me luck.”
“Good luck,” he said.
He left, closing the door softly on the scent of her lotion and the memory of her skin.
The office felt like a different planet. The fluorescent lights were too bright, the chatter too loud. Sid changed into the spare shirt he kept in his filing cabinet, a stiff, blue thing that didn’t smell like anything. He avoided the pantry.
The Gupta meeting was at eleven. At ten fifty-five, Kirti walked into the conference room. She looked impeccable. The cream blouse was high-necked, covering the faint mark. Her skirt was sharp. Her hair was a perfect, dark wave. She carried a tablet and a branded notebook, her posture radiating calm competence.
She gave him a polite, collegial smile. “Morning, Sid. Ready?”
“Yeah. Let’s do this.”
They presented. She was brilliant. Her voice was clear, her pointers confident, her answers to Gupta’s snippy questions were swift and data-driven. Sid did his part, talking about engagement metrics and funnel conversions. Their collaboration was seamless, a perfectly choreographed dance. No one could have guessed that twelve hours earlier, she had sobbed in his arms.
Once, while she was adjusting a graph on the screen, his eyes dropped to her hands. Her nails were perfectly manicured, pale pink. He remembered how those same hands had gripped his shoulders, then torn fabric apart. A flush of heat went through him, so intense he had to look down at his notes.
Gupta grunted his approval. The meeting ended.
In the hallway, she fell into step beside him. They were alone for a moment.
“You were great,” he said, his voice low.
“So were you.” She didn’t look at him. “The quarterly report needs to be filed by five. Can you handle the social media section?”
“On it.”
“Thanks.” She walked away, her heels clicking a steady, retreating rhythm on the polished floor.
The afternoon was a blur of emails and spreadsheets. Sid watched her from his cubicle. She laughed with Priya from Accounts by the water cooler. She scolded an intern for a formatting error, her tone firm but fair. She was Kirti Rao, rising star. Last night’s version of her might as well have been a ghost.
At four, his phone buzzed.
Kirti: Low on sugar. Pantry emptier than my will to live.
He waited five minutes. Then he grabbed his empty mug and went.
She was there, stirring a teaspoon in a barren cup. The flickering light made the circles under her eyes more pronounced. She looked tired. The real kind of tired.
“Tough day?” he asked, leaning against the shelving unit.
“You have no idea.” She took a sip, made a face. “This is just hot, brown sadness.”
He smiled. “The presentation landed, though.”
“It landed. Gupta’s happy. Everyone’s happy.” She put the cup down and turned to him. The professional veneer was thin here, in this closet of expired snacks. “I feel like I’m vibrating. All day. From last night. I can’t… settle.”
“I know the feeling.”
“Do you?” Her eyes searched his. “It’s not just… wanting. It’s like I’m split in two. And the half that’s here, doing this,” she gestured vaguely towards the office, “is terrified the other half is going to start screaming.”
He had no answer for that. He just reached out and took her hand. Her fingers were cold. She didn’t pull away. For a full minute, they stood in silence, hands linked, listening to the faint hum of the refrigerator.
The door suddenly swung open with a thud. Manish from IT walked in, blinking at the two of them. Sid dropped her hand instantly.
“Oh, hey guys,” Manish said, heading for the coffee tin. “Just need a caffeine hit. Dying over here.”
“Join the club,” Kirti said, her voice miraculously light again. She picked up her cup of brown sadness. “It’s all yours, Manish. Sid, about those analytics for the Jain account—can I see them in ten?”
“Sure thing,” Sid said, matching her tone.
They left the pantry separately. The brief connection severed, the walls back up.
At five-thirty, Sid was packing his bag when her shadow fell across his desk. She stood there, her tote bag slung over her shoulder.
“I’m going to that bar,” she said quietly. “The one with the blue door. I’m going to sit in our booth and have a drink. If you wanted to… you could come. No expectations. We could just sit.”
He looked up at her. The mask was gone. This was just her, looking exhausted and hopeful and real.
“What about the rules?” he asked. “Separate.”
She shrugged, a small, weary movement. “Screw the rules. I’m too tired for rules.”
He zipped his bag shut. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
She nodded, a hint of that real smile touching her lips. “Okay.”
He watched her walk out of the office, a straight spine in a cream blouse disappearing around the corner. The vibration she’d spoken about thrummed in his own chest. It wasn’t just desire. It was the dizzying, terrifying momentum of something that had broken its container and was now rushing forward, wild and unchecked, into the waiting city night.