***** Trigger warning: Domestic Abuse*****

All day has gone in a drunken haze, yet there are so many things that happened in the span of a day. I blink and a flash of memory from the morning comes unbidden: Romil asking me what I want to become. Then, persisting—running after me, and asking for my number. I cringe at how I deflected the question. I don't get time post-school? Freaking lie. I'm reminded of how I felt when I let my thoughts drown me, that sensation of submerging, of being carried away by the tide of emotions. The memory clings like static to my brain, and I force myself to breathe, focus on the steady rhythm of my heart.

I feel it again as I sit up in bed, the sensation of rising echoing from earlier, when I stood up from that chair, nerves coiling tight around my gut, cutting like barbed wire. I pull my knees to my chest, wrap my arms around them, and rest my head, closing my eyes to savour the memory of slow unravelling of my nerves when I saw Romil's face. I picture Romil's kind eyes, and then the sharp dichotomy between that warmth and the anger that flashed there later on the street.

I need to do something, anything to break the cycle of thought spiralling through me. I reach for the book of accounts and the practice questions I've already worked through. But before I can even focus, the argument from earlier, out on the road, comes rushing back like a gust of wind. My eyes burn, and before I know it, my notebook is soaking up the steady drip-drip-drip of my tears. I swipe at them with the back of my hand, smudging ink across the page, ruining a question I hadn't even finished solving.

I sniff, trying to pull myself together, and head to the kitchen. I freeze when I see it: two wooden crates of whiskey sitting pompously on the kitchen slab. White hot anger pulse through me as I grab a screwdriver and pry the crate open. It is the same brand as last time. Of course. The last time I didn't get the opportunity to dilute the whiskey, so Papa must've thought it was a hit, that he's found the perfect thing, and now he has stocked two dozen bottles of this thing.

I sit down on the kitchen slab, pulling the stopper from each bottle with pliers, careful not to break anything. I pour half of each one into the sink, watching the amber liquid swirl away, and then fill each bottle with water before putting the cork back on. It takes me about an hour of uncorking, half-emptying, refilling, corking, and neatly placing the bottles back in the crates.

When I'm done, my fingers are scratched from the work. The old wound on my wrist has healed, leaving only a darkened patch of a sword-shaped scar. I wash my hands and start to prepare dinner.

The night has fallen, and I'm hunched over the project papers I bought from the local stationery in the evening, when I hear scraping noises in the kitchen. My ears prick up, heart pounding a little harder in my chest. I freeze, pen hovering above the paper. There's a clunk. Then another. The unmistakable sound of a bottle being set down hard on the slab, followed by the soft clink of glass. I feel my pulse quicken, my hand tightening on the pen. Then the pop. The cork.

A moment of silence follows as I hold my breath.

Seconds pass, dragging on like hours. No sound follows. My heart tries to calm itself, the tension leaking out of my shoulders as I slowly lower my gaze back to the paper. I exhale and attempt to refocus, my pen moving again, the act of writing grounding me, pulling me back from the edge.

But the next second, I'm yanked back violently, my head snapping up and back as a sharp pain erupts from my scalp. I gasp, vision blurring from the sudden tears that spring to my eyes. My breath comes out in ragged gasps as I see his face, red and swollen with fury, looming over me. Papa's hand is tangled in my ponytail, and the grip tightens as he jerks my head back further, forcing me to meet his eyes.

'What did you think, huh?' he spits, his voice low and seething, 'What did you think? I won't know. Huh.' His eyes glower down on me as I cower, my lips mumbling desperate apologies. My scalp burns, and I yelp in pain, but the tears fall harder, blurring his already monstrous expression.

'Do you know how much that mother-fuc**ng thing cost me?' His eyes are wild, filled with something dark and ugly as they bore into me, and his lips curl into a twisted grin. It's not a smile. It's something else, something that makes my skin crawl.

'I worked day and nigh—' his voice cracks, and he pulls me up. 'Get up!' he directs.

'No, papa! I'm sorry—' I choke on a sob. 'Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.' I keep repeating as he drags me in the kitchen.

'Look at what you did!' he says.

Through the fresh onslaught of tears, I catch a glimpse of the bottles—each one pulled from the crate, their contents splashed haphazardly across the slab. Before I can react, he releases my hair with a forceful shove, and my head collides with the edge of the counter. A dull ache pulses through my skull, spreading a numbness that sends me vibrating along the corner. My eyes squeeze shut, trying to block out the pain, but when I open them again, a sharp, electric jolt sears through my head, as if it's splitting open.

I cry out, clutching my head with trembling hands, feeling something wet trickling down my face. Blood. I press my hand harder against the wound, trying to stop the flow, but it only makes the pain sharper, more unbearable.

Papa doesn't notice. He's too busy sloshing the whiskey into the glasses he's set out, his hands shaking but determined. The liquid spills over the edges, but he doesn't care. He grabs a glass and downs it in one go, then another, drinking it like a man dying of thirst, as if the whiskey is water he's found after days in the wilderness.

When he's done drinking, he looks at me, eyes glazed with tears. For a moment, something like comprehension flickers in his gaze. His face softens, and he stumbles toward me, crouching down as he pries my hand from my head. His eyes widen, his pupils dilating in horror as he sees the blood. His panic takes over, and he scrambles to his feet, slipping in the whiskey pooled on the floor. He falls hard, arms flailing, until he's on all fours, crawling out of the kitchen. A few seconds later, I hear a loud crash.

Dizzy, I force myself up and stumble after him. He's face-down on the floor, unmoving. My heart hammers in my chest, fear spiking through me, but when I crouch down and check his pulse, relief washes over me at the faint thump beneath his skin.

I stagger to the bathroom, my head throbbing, and look at myself in the mirror. A small gash splits the skin above my right eye, a pinkish-purple bruise already swelling around it. I stare at my reflection, unblinking, my expression blank as if the person in the mirror isn't even me.

Slowly, I clean the cut with Dettol, the sting of the antiseptic dull compared to the pain radiating through my skull. I apply a thick layer of ointment, press a cotton pad to the wound, and secure it with a band-aid. My hands tremble as I reach for my hairband, hung limply at the edge of my hair. And when I pull it out, a thick clump of hair comes away with it.

Thick tears coalesce in my eyes as I sniff, biting my lip to hold back the sobs, but they come anyway. And for the first time in years, I wish she were here. The one who left, who caused all of this to begin with.

Maa.

*****

The next morning, I make my way to the government hospital. They admit me straight into emergency, where a nurse stitches up the still-throbbing wound on my forehead. I leave with a fistful of ointment, a bottle of painkillers, and three stitches that, under normal circumstances, should come out in about two weeks. As I sit in the sterile waiting room, I try not to think about how different this would feel if government hospitals here in Rajasthan weren't free. How I'd never even be able to afford this care.

I linger at the hospital until one o'clock, killing time. By then, I'm certain Papa's gone. After last night, he'll be passed out well into the day. When I finally head home, the house looks the same from the outside—whole, still. But inside, it feels like everything is fraying at the edges, barely holding together.

I spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up last night's mess, wiping away the stains of spilled whiskey and scrubbing the floor until it's spotless. By the time I step into the shower, the sun's already starting to set, the day slipping away as quickly as it began.

I'm halfway through getting dressed when I hear a knock at the door. My stomach drops. Who could it be? My mind jumps straight to Papa, and my brain goes into overdrive. Could he really be back already, three hours early?

I yell from the bathroom, 'Coming!' but the incessant knocks on the door keep coming, faster, more hurried. In a rush, I pull on my clothes, barely taking the time to towel-dry first, the fabric sticking to my damp skin.

When I swing the door open, my breath catches. Standing there, staring back at me, is Romil.