Chapter 9 — The Things It Had Taken

Tanvi: Poorvi. The Tuesday I don't remember. What if it wasn't just one day. What if there have been others — hours, moments, that I attributed to tiredness or stress or new city adjustment and they were actually—Poorvi: Stop.Poorvi: What is happening in that flat. I need you to tell me the actual thing.There was a long pause in the chat.Then:Tanvi: There's a mirror. In the flat. Something is in it. Something that learns how to be a person by being near them. It takes things — specific personal things — and keeps them. And slowly the person becomes less themselves and it becomes more.Tanvi: It was doing that to me.Tanvi: I think it's still doing it. I think leaving the flat isn't enough. I think once it starts, it can continue.Poorvi: Tanvi I'm buying a train ticket right now.Tanvi: You don't have to—Poorvi: I'm buying it right now. I'll be there by 7 AM. Don't argue.A long pause.Tanvi: Thank you.Poorvi: Also I'm going to need you to eat something. Tell your neighbour aunty to make you eat something. You sound like you've lost weight through the internet.Tanvi: I have actually. The appetite thing is also—Poorvi: AUNTY PLEASE FEED HER I'm talking to the screen.Tanvi: She can't hear you.Poorvi: She sounds like she would if she tried. Get some sleep. 7 AM.* * *Poorvi arrived at six fifty-eight.She walked in, looked at Tanvi sitting at Mrs. Rane's kitchen table, and put both hands on Tanvi's face and looked at her for a long time."You look the same," she said. "You look like you.""Some of me left," Tanvi said. "I'm counting what's there.""You're mostly there," Poorvi said. "You're mostly there."She said it with the specific emphasis of someone who had never used the word mostly as a comfort before and was learning to now.