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“But our family’s always been ripped down the middle.”
“Yeah, well, maybe I wished it wasn’t. It would be nice to have some support while I’m struggling with my nightmare children and my marriage is falling apart.”
“How do you think I felt when my long-term partner went off with my sister? I lost my past, my present, and my future. At once. I’d imagined an entire lifetime with him. I don’t even think I’m fully over that loss now.”
Sita was quiet. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“You... are?”
Sita nodded. “I don’t know why I was such a dick about it. I think... I’ve always been jealous of you. And part of me was happy that things weren’t going easily for you for once.”
“I don’t feel like things haveeverbeen easy for me.”
“You’ve always done so well! Cambridge, the job, the flat, the perfect boyfriend.” She paused. “Until he wasn’t.”
“You had a perfect husband. Until he wasn’t. And house. Kids.”
“You’re right. Things aren’t always what they seem.” She cleared her throat. “But look, I know I can’t take it all back. I should have been a better sister. Jaya’s a lost cause and so is Mum, but you deserved to have at least one sane member of the family by your side. Now that I’m going through this with Nitin, I get what it’s like. Fuckinghard.”
It was Reeva’s turn to sigh. “Yeah. It is. Thank you for saying that. It doesn’t change the past, but the honesty helps.”
“Good.”
“And you’re right. I’ve gone through what you’re going through now. So I’m here if you need me. For support I mean.”
Sita gave her a small smile. “Thanks. That’s big of you— Oh my god, I’m not being sarcastic! It’s genuinely big of you after everything that went down. You know, it’s amazing you handled it as well as you did. Especially having to go through it alone. I would have died.”
“I wasn’t alone—I had Lakshmi. And I can’t say I handled it well either—I spent weeks in bed. And then years being sad and crying every evening.”
“At least you didn’t run away from the pain. And look at you now. You’ve come through it. And you’ve got Nick.”
“I also have nine centimeters of scalp showing on the side of my head.”
“If I had that on top of everything, I’d be having a flat-out breakdown,” said Sita. “In comparison, you’re fucking winning.”
“I’ll take that.”
“Good. Now can you sit in silence or go upstairs? They’re about to find out the sex worker staged her own death.”
CHAPTER 14
Day 8
Reeva woke upwith a jolt, her breath harsh and uneven. This time she could remember her dream. All of it. It was the same stuff as usual—a cat, twins, and screaming—but this time Reeva hadbecomeFluffy Panda. And she’d been murdered.
She lay back on her bed and put her hand on top of her rapidly beating heart. She needed to calm down. It was just a dream. But it had felt soreal, and living it out from the cat’s perspective had made it so much more intense. She (the cat) had been at the top of a staircase when a shadowy figure had pushed her. She could still feel the drop in her stomach as her cat self had fallen down the stairs, until she’d crashed into something sharp. She could hear the twins crying hysterically and see blood everywhere. And then the flashing light of an ambulance arrived, presumably to take the cat to a veterinary hospital. But it was too late. The cat was dead and Reeva had felt every bit of it. She’d always heard that you could never feel pain in dreams, but she could now attest otherwise. Reeva had physically experienced all the cat’s agony; it had felt like being stabbed in the head. She rubbed theside of her head as she reassured herself that it had just been a stressful dream. It wasn’t real. There was nothing wrong with a bit of stress. No harm done.
Until she remembered that stress was so harmful it was making her bald.
Reeva jumped out of bed and ran straight to the mirror. She pushed her hair over to the right side of her head and anxiously examined her reflection. She exhaled loudly in relief. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the patch looked largely the same as it had the day before. She pulled out her ruler and measured it. Nine point five centimeters. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t as terrible as it could have been. Maybe the alopecia was slowing down and would finally start to heal. Reeva gently pushed her hair back so that it covered the shiny patch and began running her fingers through her hair to tease out the knots. Then she froze. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
A large lump blocked her chest. She tried to breathe it away with deep exhalations, but it wouldn’t move. Reeva tilted her head, pushing the hair away from the back of her scalp with her fingers. It was fine. Everything would be fine. She felt around until her fingers made contact with the one thing she’d feared most: the soft, hairless skin of her scalp. It was not fine.
Reeva stared at her horrified reflection as the lump inside her throat expanded, squeezing all the oxygen out of her lungs. She had another bald patch at the back of her head and judging by what she could feel, it was... at least six centimeters wide.
She ran out of the bedroom and into the corridor. “Help! I need help!”
There was silence from Jaya’s room, but Sita’s door burst open.
