Page 70 of Not Safe for Work
‘I’m full of surprises.’
‘I’m beginning to realize that,’ I said as my eyes started to drift shut.
It wasn’t long before we both dozed off, curled up on opposite ends of the couch, our legs tangled under the blanket as the rain continued to wash over the city.
fourteen
Pitch (Im)Perfect
Myphone started ringing as soon as I twisted the key into the lock. I sighed and muted the call when I saw my mom’s name flashing on the screen. There was no way I could deal with her maternal enthusiasm at 9 a.m. after surviving the night I’d just had.
I slipped into my flat as quietly as possible and caught sight of myself in the hallway mirror. My kurta was crumpled beyond recognition, my hair, which I’d tied in a knot on top of my head, was coming undone in messy wisps and the face staring back at me was begging to be buried in a pillow.
But my phone lit up again.Argh.I knew better than to ignore my mom’s call twice.
‘Good morning, beta!’ She chimed the moment I picked up. ‘Reached office?’
I blinked. ‘I … actually just got back from the office.’
I could hear her confusion through the phone. ‘What … why? Are you feeling okay?’
‘I’m fine, mom.’ I dropped my handbag by the shoe rack and resisted the urge to slide down to the floor next to it. ‘I mean I had to spend the night there.’
‘What?’
‘There was a rainstorm in the city … I got trapped.’ If I hadn’t been in such a zombie-like state, I would’ve known that this was not the kind of information my mom could absorb without a gazillion follow-up questions.
‘You gottrapped? All night?’ Her voice shot up a notch. ‘So everyone had to sleep there?’
‘Well …’Don’t say it. Please don’t.But it was too late. The words were already tumbling out. ‘Not everyone. Just me and… a colleague. We were working late.’ And just like that, I’d opened the floodgates.
‘Aboycolleague?’
‘Yes, mom, but it wasn’t like that—’
‘WHY were you two the only ones there? Why didn’t you leave earlier? Why do you stay in office till such ridiculous hours? What did you eat? Did you eat? Kavya, did you even HAVE dinner?’
‘I … mom—’
‘And where did you sleep? How could they not send cabs? What kind of company …?’ Her voice trailed off. When she spoke again, there was a wobble in it. ‘Honestly, this is too much. This city istoo much. When are you coming home? Have you checked tickets? Because this is not safe, Kavya, this is just not—’
‘Mom,enough.’ The words came out sharper than I’d meant. ‘I’m fine. I was fine all night. Everything is okay. But I can’t do this right now.’
She stopped talking, but I could hear her panicked breathing on the other end.
I exhaled loudly and made an effort to soften my tone. ‘I’ve barely slept. It was a long night and I just … need a minute. I’ll call you later, okay? When I’ve slept. When I’m a human again.’
‘Can we at least book your—’
‘No, you can’t book my tickets!’ My voice cracked with frustration. ‘I don’t know if I can come back home right now,okay? There’s this important project and … I’ll know more soon. But I need you topleasedrop it for now.’
There was a pause, and when she did speak, her voice sounded so small that it made my chest hurt. ‘Okay, Kavu.’
When I finally crashed on my bed, there were tears threatening to spill onto the pillow. Not only from the guilt of snapping at my mom—whose panic spiral, this time, wasn’t entirely unreasonable—but also from the sheer exhaustion of having nothing left to give.
As much as I’d hoped otherwise, a few hours of sleep did nothing to shake that guilt.Just call her and apologize,my mind kept pleading with me. But with mine and Neil’s decision to change our entire deck one day before the pitch-off, we still had a lot of work to get through.
It was past one in the afternoon and I was sitting on my living room couch, cradling my laptop. I heard Nikita’s door open. She walked out in a loose t-shirt and men’s boxers, rubbing her eyes. ‘Oh, hey,’ she said when she clocked me. ‘Did you … not go to work today?’
