It’s 12 a.m. and my hands are trembling. The phone in my hand is shaking. I know what I’m about to do. Alex said this wouldn’t hurt as much, now that I know what I know, but it does. My cheeks are warm. Can I hear the slither of my tears as they fall? I hold my breath. No. It’s not the tears falling, it’s the snake-like slither across the grass outside, like someone’s there, army-crawling, inching their way toward my window.
            I glance at the panes. Smudged with fingermarks and dirt, blotches of grease, or what looks like it, in the corner near the window frame. I wonder how those got there. The sky beyond the glass looks sooty, sullied perhaps only in my vision. Or perhaps polluted by the secrets of the city that sleeps below it, filled with people like me. Cruel, unforgiving. I wonder how many are about to sever ties with a loved one, hacking up the bloodied bits afterward. I wonder if they can find the strength. I wonder how they can. I wonder about a lot of other things too as I lie there, in my bed. (My bed that isn’t really mine. I wonder about it a lot, for a while. The word, mine.) My heart aches.
            It had been my last night in Karachi. We were snuggled in the backseat of his friend’s car when he said, you’re mine. He pressed his hand into mine, his grip a little tighter. He leaned in closer, whispered it again as he slid a promise ring on my finger.
            But what was the promise?
            “Can’t believe you’re finally leaving — three years,” he shook his head. “It’s a long time.” His head was tipped back against the seat, he turned his face toward me. His hand was still clutching mine tightly. He stayed like that for a while, as if soaking up all of me. Finally, he leaned in as if for a kiss. But he stopped a little before our lips met. He released my hand and slid his across my thigh.
            “You know I love you, right?”
            He was breathing in my face, creating soft circles on my jeans with his fingers. My hands hung by my sides, limp. The gajra he had just bought for me dangled on my wrist. Its stale jasmine scent enveloped us, binding us one last time, as if it knew the despair I felt.
            Splat! Tap! The sounds appear out of nowhere. I strain my eyes to look for the source, the memory flinches, disappearing again. Am I really doing this? The bedside lamp is dim. A cone of dull orange rising up to the ceiling. The rest of the room is dark. I can’t tell where the noise is coming from.
            I turn to the phone again. I can’t get myself to press any button. If the screen illuminates, I know I’ll go ahead with it.
            The noise distracts me again. It’s a loud tap. Like someone just pelted a rock at my window. I turn my head. All I see are the smudges. No cracks. I look away for a second when there’s another thunderous strike. The window has changed. Now cluttered with fat droplets that are smacking against it, one after another. Their rat-a-tat increasing, as if they know I’m staring so they’re asking to be let in. I wouldn’t mind that, honestly. London rains have been friendly. My heart doesn’t pound in my skull, competing to out-do their pitter-patter. It’s always slow and steady, synchronized with the pelting sounds. It’s never like that in Karachi. There, it used to lurch at the roar of thunder and sink at the silver strike of lightning amidst gray misty clouds.
            It was New Year’s Eve and the Karachi sky was angrier than usual. Perhaps it was making up for all the parents, sound asleep, oblivious to what their children were really up to that night.
            It was almost 4 a.m. The streets had flooded. I just wanted to go home. But water sloshed around the tires, the engine was making a guttural sound as he revved it over and over. There was a blinding white-purple flash in the sky. I clutched his arm.
            He killed the engine. We were parked somewhere I didn’t recognize. Blurry blobs of light reflected through the water-smudged window on his side, the pavement wavered in my vision. I wasn’t drunk. I wasn’t drunk. I know it.
            So why did I black out?
            I hear a low rumble. There’s a crackle. A second splits and so does the sooty London sky, slivered by electricity. I pull the pillow next to me, closer. The black screen of my phone stares back at me.
            You don’t need him, I tell myself. But it sounds different. Like it’s not my voice.

            It was a Saturday night. One of the first few of freshman year when Alex and I had no parties to attend. We were in my room. She was browsing through romantic comedies we could watch, rambling about something or the other, our conversation drifting from one topic to another, but always carefully navigated by me. I had learnt to skirt around the edges.
            My phone buzzed a few times in between. I let it be. Alex was almost squinting at the screen, her eyes droopy. I could tell she was a little tipsy from all the beers she had had to finish by herself because I said I didn’t drink.
            (I still don’t.)
            Suddenly, she had stopped everything and looked up. She tilted her head to the right as if about to ask a serious question.
            “Do you have any cute boys in your class?”
            She pouted, turning her face back to the screen, like she’d already heard me say no. My phone buzzed again. It was another text from him. I wondered if he could hear our conversation.
            “I’ve got a boyfriend back home,” I announced to the room. I fidgeted with the pillow in my lap, drawing patterns on its cover with my index finger.
            “Oooh —” Alex’s eyes lit up. She reached for the beer can, tilting it further, shaking the last remnants out. “Tell me more.” She giggled.
            I gave her a brittle smile, “We’ve been together two years.”
            “Interesting,” she said in a squeaky voice. “So long distance, huh? Must be tough.”
            “Well — yeah sure but it’s only a four-hour time difference.” I waved my hand. “Plus, I saw my parents do it so,” I shrugged.
            “Oh?”
            “Yeah, dad was in Kuwait. Wasn’t around a lot, growing up. But he visited —” I paused, distracted by a sudden echo. I shook my head. But it was too late.
            “I’ve told you — it’s not your place,” dad’s voice came piercing through my skull.
            I was twelve, wrapped in a blanket in the backseat, a little drowsy. We were coming back home from my uncle’s. My parents’ low whispers filled most of the ride, until my dad swerved the car around the curb of our street. The screeching set something off in him. Like the tires had scraped against his throat, scratched his voice.
            “It was a men’s discussion — why did you have to open your mouth?”
            “Yeah but you forget I’ve a master’s in political science, I know what they were —”
            “Doesn’t matter, it made me look bad. I’m the one out in the real world. I know its ins and outs. What do you know? But when you act like you know —” Another loud screech, the car jolted and stopped outside our gate. “It looks like I can’t control my own woman,” dad grunted, spitting out the disgust welled at the back of his throat.
            My eyes were trained on mom though. She was fidgeting in the passenger seat. I could only see one half of her face. There was something there that wasn’t normal.


            I hear the rumble again. It’s louder this time. I’m transported again to that New Year’s Eve. My body limp on the passenger side. My mind filled with swirls and swirls of darkness, a tremor in my legs. I just want to go home, I told him. My voice quivered as if struck by lightning. There was another white flash across the sky. A thunderous growl. Was it the sky?
            Was it him? I don’t remember. I could see the faint outlines of my house. I don’t remember how we’d reached.
            The dark bricks on my roof were glistening under the orange streetlight. So were my legs. Scruff, scruff, scruff. He was in the driver’s seat, rubbing something over his pants. Right in front of me, raindrops fiercely pelted the windshield.
            I now wonder: were they begging to be let in? Is nature attuned to our inner states?
            I’m safe now, I whisper, turning my head to face the droplets thrashing against the dirty window. My heart shrivels a little. And I have an overwhelming feeling of being hollow. Like if I’m split open, nothing but sawdust would spill out.
            There’s no point to all this, says a voice in my head. It startles me, dragging me back to the moment. I realize this one also doesn’t sound like me though but suddenly, I’m convinced by it. I can’t think of why I’m doing this. Do I have to? Letting him go wouldn’t change anything. It might just make space for someone worse.
            But my thoughts crumble to dust in seconds. I realize I’m a doll with a wind-up key that’s been turned one too many times. I’m now set on autopilot. I have to wobble across the floor. I can’t stop until the key rotates counterclockwise, returning to how it used to be.
            I wonder though: will I return to how I used to be? But this thought hangs, suspended in the middle of a million others. It has nowhere to go. I can’t remember how I used to be.
            Crutch, crutch. I hear the key rotating counterclockwise. I click the button. My phone screen illuminates. A white glowing rectangle.
            Believe what you want, it’s not like you can do anything about it. His last words glare back at me, dated a week ago.
            I’d believed him then. There was nothing I could do. But Alex didn’t think so. You kick his ass to the curb, that’s the first thing you do, she’d said.
            My fingers are trembling. I tell myself it’s only for a while. I take a breath, turn my head. The rain is still banging on my window with an urgency. I realize that maybe it doesn’t want to come in. Maybe it is just keeping me company, letting me know it’s there and I can do this. I should do this.
            Crutch, crutch. The key rotates further.
            It’s over. I don’t want this anymore.
            I type and send. No thoughts in between. I expect radio silence. But I forget this isn’t like old times. I’m programmed differently today.
            Call me.
            The text pops up in an instant. It strikes me like a lightning rod piercing my core. I pull my pillow closer, clutch its covers tightly.
            My phone buzzes. It’s a light vibration, akin to a drizzle. I can take it, the drizzle. I let it ring.
            Pick up. Seriously. You can’t do this.
            You can’t walk out. Where will you go? You’re mine.
            Pick up the damn phone.
            What are you going to do without me? I’m all you’ve had.
            I’m not letting you go. You’re mine. I know where you live, I’ll fly over. You know I will. Or have you forgotten what I can really do?
            The texts keep flashing. But the tremor in my body is dying down. The ignition key is still twisting, counterclockwise. I click the home button; the screen goes black.
            It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust. And then I see my reflection. But the light from the bedside lamp is too dim. I can only see one half of my face. There’s something there that isn’t normal.
            The ignition key twists one last time and I roll over to my right. I’m now facing the window. It is still smudged, dirty.
            But I think the rain helped a little.