“It sounds stupid now.”
Vivek shook his head.
“Trusting somebody isn’t stupid.”
Puja looked at him.
“Sometimes it is.”
One night, Rohan had been drinking with friends.
His phone was passed around.
Whether deliberately or carelessly, Puja never knew.
Her photographs were seen.
After that, something changed.
One of Rohan’s friends started messaging her.
First jokes.
Then comments.
Then hints that he knew things about her.
Things he shouldn’t have known.
Puja’s fingers tightened around the strap of her handbag.
“I should have blocked him immediately.”
Nobody spoke.
“But I was scared.”
“Did he threaten you?” Sanjay asked.
“Not directly.”
That answer somehow sounded worse.
“He didn’t have to.”
The messages were enough.
He reminded her what he had seen.
Implied who else might see it.
Suggested that everything could remain private if she was “nice.”
Sanjay stood suddenly.
Puja flinched.
He immediately stopped.
“Sorry.”
He sat again.
His face had changed.
Raja had never seen that expression on him.
“Did Rohan know?”
Puja stared at the floor.
“Eventually.”
“And?”
“He apologized.”
Sanjay waited.
“That’s all?”
Puja gave a bitter little laugh.
“He said he couldn’t control his friends.”
Nobody in the room needed an explanation for what that meant.
The relationship ended not long afterward.
But the damage didn’t.
Puja spoke carefully about what followed.
There had been another encounter she had agreed to while emotionally cornered, telling herself that if she chose it, then perhaps she couldn’t call herself powerless.
Years later, she understood that fear had shaped that choice far more than she admitted at the time.
Sanjay said nothing.
He seemed afraid that if he opened his mouth, anger would come out before words.
College was supposed to reset everything.
Different campus.
Different people.
Women’s hostel.
New friends.
New version of Puja.
For a while, it worked.
Then came a professor.
Puja stopped talking.
Vivek waited.
“You don’t have to tell us.”
She shook her head.
“If I stop now, I probably won’t say it again.”
The professor taught one of her difficult subjects.
She was already struggling.
Attendance issues.
Internal marks.
Backlogs beginning to threaten her semester.
At first he offered extra help.
Then private meetings.
Then conversations that became increasingly personal.
By the time Puja understood the direction things were taking, he had made himself important to her grades.
“He never exactly said, ‘Do this and I’ll pass you.'”
Her voice had gone flat.
“He didn’t need to.”
Sanjay stared at her.
“He manipulated you.”
Puja shrugged.
“Call it whatever you want.”
“That’s what it was.”
“I still went.”
“Puja—”
“I went.”
Her voice rose.
“That’s what I mean. Every time I tell myself somebody forced me, there’s always this other voice saying, But you still went there. You still agreed. You still walked through the door.“
Vivek answered before Sanjay could.
“Those things can both exist.”
Puja looked at him.
“You can make a decision while somebody has created an unfair situation around you.”
She said nothing.
Raja, unusually quiet, added:
“Consent isn’t much of a choice if someone is holding your marks over your head.”
