Chapter 5: The Woman Who Walked In Uninvited
She came through the door eleven minutes later.
Tia had not moved from the center of the room.
She had set the torn fabric on the table beside the scissors and the handbag, and she had stood with her arms at her sides and her face composed, and she had waited.
Sayan had spoken twice during those eleven minutes — once to say her name, once to ask her to sit down — and both times Tia had not responded.
Not from anger.
From the particular stillness of a person deciding exactly who they are before the next thing happens.
Elena was thirty-two.
She wore a pale grey coat and her hair was pulled back, and she stepped through the door with the expression of someone who had rehearsed this moment many times and found none of the rehearsals adequate.
She stopped when she saw Tia.
She looked at Sayan.
He said nothing.
"You're Tia," Elena said.
Her voice was even.
She had prepared for this.
"I am," Tia said.
Elena looked around the room — at the torn dress on the table, at the scissors still beside it, at Sayan standing by the window with his hands in his pockets.
"Marissa called me," Elena said.
"She said I should come."
"I know," Tia said.
"I didn't come to make trouble." Elena looked at Tia directly.
"I came because I needed to understand something.
And I think you deserve to understand it too."
Sayan moved away from the window.
"Elena, this isn't the time—"
"It is exactly the time," Elena said, without looking at him.
She kept her eyes on Tia.
"How long have you known him?"
"Eight months," Tia said.
"He told me about you four months ago." Elena's voice stayed level.
"He said you were a colleague.
A friend.
Someone he was helping with a project.
He said it was professional." She paused.
"He said the announcement was sent by his assistant by mistake.
That it would be corrected."
Tia looked at Sayan.
"Is that what you told her."
It was not a question.
Sayan's jaw was tight.
"I was trying to—"
"I don't need you to explain it to me right now," Tia said.
She looked back at Elena.
"Did you believe him?
When he said it was a mistake?"
Elena was quiet for a moment.
"I wanted to."
"That's not the same thing."
"No," Elena said.
"It isn't."
A small silence opened between them.
Not hostile.
Careful.
"I'm not angry at you," Tia said.
"I want you to know that."
Elena's composure shifted slightly — just at the edges.
"You should be.
I came here with Marissa.
What she did to your dress—"
"That was Marissa's choice."
"I asked her to find out the truth.
I sent her instead of coming myself.
That was cowardly."
Tia looked at her steadily.
"Why didn't you come yourself?"
"Because I was afraid of what I'd find out." Elena's voice was still controlled, but something under it had thinned.
"I thought if I didn't see it directly, it might still not be real."
Tia nodded slowly.
She understood that.
She understood it better than she wanted to.
"It's real," Tia said.
"I'm real."
Elena looked at Sayan for a long moment.
He did not meet her eyes.
"I know that now," she said.
Sayan stepped forward.
"Can we all just—let me explain.
Both of you.
Please.
I handled this badly and I know that, but if you'll let me—"
"Were we both real to you at the same time?" Tia asked.
The room went very still.
"Yes," Sayan said.
After a pause.
"Yes.
I won't lie to you now."
Tia nodded once.
The movement was small and final.
"Thank you for that," she said.
"At least for that."
She picked up her jacket from the back of a chair.
She looked around the room — at the torn dress, at the scissors, at the two people standing in the sunlight with their particular kinds of damage — and she walked to the door.
"Tia." Sayan's voice broke on the second syllable.
"Please don't go.
Not like this.
We can talk.
We can fix this."
Tia stopped in the doorway.
She did not turn around.
"There's nothing wrong with me that needs fixing," she said.
"I want you to hear that clearly."
She stepped out into the hall.
She had taken four steps when she heard Sayan say, quietly, to Elena, behind her: "I'm sorry.
I am sorry."
May you like
And she heard Elena say, just as quietly: "I know you are."
And then Tia heard something she had not expected — Elena's footsteps, coming after her.
