Kavya looked at Priya. The composure held — but behind it, something was moving. Not panic, not guilt. Something slower. Something that looked, to Priya's experienced eye, like the moment before a structure collapses. The last second of standing.
"I need to amend my statement," Kavya said.
"I'm listening."
"I wasn't in the bathroom. I was on the terrace. The entire time."
The room went very quiet.
"I watched her walk to the edge. I watched her look at the ocean. I watched her close her eyes and lean forward — not step, not jump, lean — the way you lean into wind, the way you lean into something inevitable."
"And you —"
"I grabbed her. I grabbed her dress, her shoulder, from behind. I tried to pull her back."
"And?"
"The fabric tore. The edge crumbled. She fell." Kavya's voice cracked — the first real crack, not the controlled emotion of her initial statement but the raw sound of a woman breaking under the weight of a moment she'd been carrying for eighteen hours. "I was holding her dress, and the dress tore, and the cliff broke, and she was gone. I was reaching for her and she was gone."
"You tried to save her."
"I tried. And I failed. And in my first statement, I lied about it — not because I'm guilty, but because I couldn't — I couldn't say it. I couldn't say that I was right there, reaching for her, and I wasn't enough."
Priya let the silence sit. The clock ticked. The overhead fan turned.
"Dr. Iyer, did Meera jump?"
Kavya closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were wet but focused.
"I don't know. I've asked myself that question every minute since it happened. She leaned. Not dramatically, not like someone throwing themselves forward. She just... shifted her weight. Forward. Toward the edge. And the edge wasn't there."
"Did she know the edge was unstable?"
"Everyone knows. The locals warn you. The cliff crumbles."
"So she leaned forward, on an unstable cliff, at 2 AM, in the dark, knowing the edge could break."
"Yes."
"That sounds like a choice."
"It sounds like a lot of things. It could be a choice. It could be fatigue — she'd been awake for twenty hours, emotionally exhausted. It could be the tumour — glioblastomas affect balance, spatial awareness, judgment. It could be the dark — she couldn't see the edge. It could be all of these, or none."
"But you were there. You saw her face. In your professional judgment —"
"My professional judgment is irrelevant. I was her friend, not her therapist. I was terrified, not objective. All I can tell you is what I saw: a woman who looked at peace. A woman who leaned forward. And an edge that broke."
Priya wrote this down. Every word. Then she looked up.
"One more question. Your first statement — the one where you said you were in the bathroom. Why did you lie?"
Kavya's composure returned. The mask, settling back into place. But thinner now. More transparent.
"Because the truth — that I was right there, reaching for her, and failed — is worse than any version where I wasn't. If I was in the bathroom, then it's fate. The cliff, the dark, the timing. Nobody's fault. But if I was right there, if I was close enough to grab her dress and still couldn't save her..." She stopped. Breathed. "That's not fate. That's failure. And I couldn't carry that in front of strangers. I can barely carry it now."
