Nobody looked particularly proud.
She stared at them.
“All three of you?”
Raja nodded weakly.
Puja blinked.
Then again.
“You were going to…”
She stopped herself.
Sanjay groaned.
“Please don’t finish that sentence.”
“You’re my brother. Believe me, I don’t want to.”
Vivek suddenly became fascinated by the balcony.
Raja stared at the floor.
Puja shook her head slowly.
“This is insane.”
“We established that,” Vivek said.
“What were you thinking?”
Sanjay looked at her.
“That’s the problem.”
“What?”
“We weren’t.”
Silence.
Then Sanjay surprised even himself.
“We were desperate.”
Puja’s expression softened slightly.
Not because of the word.
Because of how he said it.
No joke.
No macho performance.
Just embarrassment.
Sanjay continued.
“Not desperate just for sex.”
Raja looked at him.
Sanjay shrugged.
“At least, not only that.”
He stared at his hands.
“It feels stupid saying it out loud.”
“Say it.”
“Everyone seems ahead.”
Puja said nothing.
“Friends getting married. People moving in together. Having relationships. Some having kids already.”
Vivek nodded.
“You start wondering whether something is wrong with you.”
Raja leaned against the wall.
“And after enough drinks, paying thirty thousand rupees suddenly sounded like a solution.”
Puja looked genuinely sad now.
“You three really thought this would fix something?”
Nobody answered.
That was answer enough.
Puja looked down.
“I feel sorry for you.”
Raja stared at her.
“That hurts considerably more than being laughed at.”
“I’m serious.”
She looked at them individually.
“You’re idiots.”
“Thank you.”
“But…”
She hesitated.
“…I understand.”
Sanjay studied her face.
Something in her tone had changed.
He knew it immediately.
“So now you tell us.”
Puja stiffened.
“I already told you.”
“No.”
“You know enough.”
“No, Puja.”
His voice remained calm.
“You said you needed money. That’s not the whole story.”
She didn’t answer.
Sanjay leaned backward rather than toward her.
“I’m not going to interrogate you.”
Puja gave him a tired look.
“You sound exactly like Papa.”
“That’s the worst thing you’ve ever said to me.”
For a moment she almost smiled.
Then her eyes dropped again.
When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter.
“It started long before the money.”
Nobody interrupted.
She had been fourteen near the end of Class 12 when she had her first serious boyfriend.
His name was Rohan.
Sanjay remembered the name vaguely.
Not as a boyfriend.
As “somebody from coaching.”
That was how families worked sometimes.
Important people became harmless descriptions.
Classmate.
Friend.
Coaching student.
Group project.
Puja had been in love with him.
Or at eighteen, she had believed she was.
Perhaps that distinction didn’t matter.
“He was my first everything,” she said.
Sanjay’s jaw tightened.
She noticed.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Don’t make that face.”
“I’m not making—”
“You are.”
She looked straight at him.
“I was eighteen, Sanjay.”
He forced himself to relax.
“Okay.”
Puja continued.
They had been together for months.
She trusted him.
Their relationship became intimate.
Later, she began sending him private photographs because he asked and because she believed the relationship was permanent.
