14: impassive

It was Nila's first time at a police station. It looked like a hospital to her, the whites and greens removed and replaced with beige and maroon. It wasn't as busy as she had expected police stations to be. There were two old ladies arguing with the policeman at the front desk — something about thumbprints— and a middle-aged man sitting on the bench. The holding cell was empty.

She was trying to distract herself from the situation and the bubbling feelings that were threatening to spill over. She tried to not think about how the skin had split on Vijay's cheeks when the creep punched him, the string of filthy cuss words that had been spat at her face, the blinding fury in Vijay's eyes and the siren of the police car. Nila was definitely ignoring how she had snatched her hand from Vijay's, no longer feeling the warmth of safety but only the scalding heat of rage.

Nila refused to look at Vijay.

If he was openly throwing a fit, she was silently seething inside.

Because of what happened, but mostly because of him.

Vijay hadn't once paused to ask her how she was feeling or what she wanted to do about the situation. He hadn't cared about her feelings. All he did was steal back the little sphere of safety she was borrowing from him, put her on the spot and make her the object of scrutiny and bring her to the police station. She had told him, begged him, not to make her travel in that car. She didn't want to go to the police station. She didn't want to be questioned.

Nila wanted the incident to be erased. Not be overwritten, underlined and highlighted in red.

She did not have the emotional capacity to face it and she preferred to take the easy way out, even though it was cowardly. She didn't care for bravery, she didn't care for punishing the bad, she didn't care for her hunger for justice. Selfish or not, all she wanted was to go back home, wash away the disgust crawling on her skin and fall asleep to a gardening documentary. But Vijay had stripped her of that choice when he decided that his way was the right way on his own.

But he had told her not to worry. He was going to get the asshole punished.

"How are you so sure?" she had asked.

"Because my father is a police officer."

And that was the only reason she was not fleeing the station. The only reason she wasn't yelling at Vijay, telling him not to be an asshole himself. She was so mad at him, so mad she could punch him and leave wounds that would mirror the ones he was already wearing. Next to him was the creep, dabbing at the blood dripping from his lip with a handkerchief. The blood spotted the pristine white fabric, striking and negative, just like the mark this incident would forever leave behind in her life.

A jeep parked right in front of the station and in walked a stoic man, his build towering over the people in the station, exercising power and capability with a simple stride. The way he removed his cap from his head and the thin lines of exhaustion on his face did not affect his authority. A head full of neatly trimmed grey hair only made him look wise, as if his heart was pumping hard-earned lessons and reminders of age-old scars through his veins. Upon first glance, his deep chocolate eyes and his confident mannerism were the only things that Vijay shared.

Vijay stood up as soon as his father came.

"Why can't you do one job properly? Go to college and focus on yourself. That's all I asked of you, isn't it?" his father asked and Nila felt a pang of guilt hit her. But she wasn't the one so stubborn to involve the law, was she?

"Pa, do you expect me to see someone harassing someone else and let it be?" he asked. His father looked at Nila and the creep only then. His gaze softened at her, the way Vijay's did when she told him she was afraid of the see-through elevators in the mall. She was afraid she was going to shatter into a thousand piece under his gaze. He ushered Nila and Vijay inside his cabin.

She went in. Vijay recounted everything that happened. Nila contributed with wordless nods.

"Okay, but I will need you to file a complaint to proceed with it. Since you are here, Nila, you can do it yourself. Are you okay with it?"

Vijay looked at her expectantly. His father looked at her like her secrets were scrawled on her forehead in bright ink.

Slowly, she shook her head. "I-I don't want to. I'm sorry." Nila didn't dare to look at Vijay. She knew he was crushed. But he wouldn't be if he had paused to consider what she wanted, would he?

"Come on, Nila. He will be punished only if you file a complaint. Don't you want to see him punished?" Vijay said, turning to face her completely.

"I do. I–" her voice caught. "I really do but I can't do this."

"Are you scared? I am here, Nila. I'll be with you throughout this whole thing. You don't have to be scared. If it's your parents you are worried about, they won't know. You are an adult now. You can make your own decisions."

"It's not that—"

"Then, what is your problem?" The question felt like a sharp slap on her face. She knew Vijay realised how the words sounded — harsh, impatient and demanding. But he didn't attempt to apologise or correct them. It lingered in the air, acidic, the sourness clawing at her throat. "Nila, he violated you. He had no right to do that. He took advantage of the crowd and he even had the audacity to admit it—"

"Don't you think I know that, Vijay?" she asked, not able to keep the fight internal anymore.

"Then what do you—"

"This is not the first time this is happening to me!" she said, squeezing her eyes shut. Tears pricked her eyelids. Don't cry, Nila. Don't cry. Distract. Think of something else. But a rogue tear slipped from her eyes. She quickly swiped it away and opened her eyes. She saw ivory white shock painted on Vijay's face.

"This is not the first time," she said, softly. "Punishing him isn't security. I didn't want to make it a big deal in the first place. You decided to make a scene. You decided to punch him. I'm not trying to undervalue the way you defended me, the way you came to my side by simply catching the worry in my voice. It was the sweetest thing you've done amongst others. But, you decided to involve yourself in a brawl, get hit for me, get kicked out of the bus, bring me to a police station. Did you care to ask what I wanted to do? You took decisions for me, Vijay. You gave me no choice but to follow you here. I don't want to be here. I really, really, don't want to be here."

Vijay didn't have anything to say.

Vijay's father —Mr Visvesh — responded on his behalf. "Vijay, can you step outside? I want to talk to Nila. Is that okay, Nila?"

She nodded.

Nila wiped another tear as she heard Vijay's chair screech back as he left the room.

"I understand what you've gone through. Let me talk to you as Vijay's father now. I am not making excuses for him. What he did was wrong, I understand that. I guess it's my fault in a way. You see, I raised him to be a policeman. Right a wrong when you see it or try to, is what I've always taught him. Paired with his rashness and his overly protective nature, I figured out he was a disaster to the police workforce. I knew he wouldn't do well in this field, when he still naively believed in righteousness and punishing all evil, especially in this corrupt world which is compromised by power and influence. Plus, he was never going to pass the exam. I told him to be anything except a police officer.

"Why I am telling you this is because he lacks the sensitivity to handle problems because he lets his emotions cloud. I can tell that he cares for you a lot. Make him reflect on where he had gone wrong and let him apologise but don't be cold to him, yeah? He has a good heart underneath all that bratty behaviour. It would crush him."

Nila nodded. Her anger had simmered once she had spoken her thoughts out loud. She wouldn't be cold to him but she needed time and space before she could bounce back to their normal.

"As for what you said about how punishing that man isn't security, I have to disagree with you there. Punishing him may not be security for you but it might be for someone who stands next to him on the bus again."

Nila stared at her nails, at the mint green polish that her anxious fingers had scraped on the way to the police station.

The last two times she had been harassed, she had been traumatised and refused to get on the bus with that particular number on it. She had felt strong pulsing anger but more than that, deep rooting disgust. With her, with society, with the way the world was. She realised then that she was helpless and all she could do was hope for Karma to come for the offenders.

"I won't force you to file a complaint nor will I promise you that he will be punished if you do. Sexual harassment warrants a fine or a year in jail, if you prove it happened. The proving part could be hectic since it happened on a crowded bus. You'll be asked to bring in a third-party witness and all that. I'm not discouraging you or insinuating that there's nothing you can do. I'm just trying to be honest with you here, since you are Vijay's friend. Like I told you, the system is corrupt. One pull of a string from someone influential, he'll be released with no charges or whatsoever. It will be a tedious process but if you really want to see him behind bars, you can press charges. I'll back you up with all the resources I have," he said.

She sniffled, wiping her nose and taking a sharp breath. Her eyes stung with unshed tears. "Thank you, sir. I-I really appreciate it. But I stand by what I said earlier. I don't wish to press charges."

Mr Visvesh then made small talk with her, asking her about her native, her parents and where she was staying at. She told him how she'd come to meet Vijay on the bus and that he had helped her out a few times. She realised he was helping her relax by offering her the distraction she had been searching for. Nila couldn't help but feel grateful.

He stood up and guided her out of his room with a comforting palm over her shoulder. "I'll let Vijay take you back home. Or do you want me to have someone drop you?"

She thought for a while. Not choosing Vijay would be a disrespect to what he'd done for her, even though he had been wrong in the way he'd dealt with it. "I'll go with Vijay. Thank you, sir."

"No need to be so formal, Nila," he laughed. Dimples. Another thing Vijay had inherited. "Take care. Come home sometime, okay? Tell me if my son acts like an idiot again. I can have a word with him." He was so fatherly, looking at her with generous affection, the one thing she had to go on a quest for when it came to her own father.

She nodded, finally allowing herself to smile.

"I know you don't want to press charges but I'll scare him enough that he will think twice before deciding to wrong a woman," Vijay's father whispered to her, throwing a playful smile at her before walking to the culprit with hardened eyes.

Vijay looked up from his bench and saw her. His shoulders were slouched, disappointment and defeat weighing them down. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts.

"Can we go?" she asked and he nodded. Heartbreak clutched her in a vice-like grip when he reached out a hand towards her, as if out of habit, and quickly pulled it back to himself. They walked out of the police station quietly to the auto stand a few blocks away.

The night sky was starless, clouds letting murky moonlight pass through. It was cold, her cotton kurta doing less to protect her. She sighed mentally, thinking how this was another cursed clothing of hers that she was never going to wear again. When her mind wandered again to the bus, and the feel.... No. Don't go there. Distract. Deviate.

She glanced at Vijay. He didn't look at her back.

Not one spoke.

Until Nila saw a medical store. "I need to stop here, if that's okay," she said, walking towards it before Vijay could respond. She got what she wanted from the kind lady at the store and paid for it. He stood just next to the elevation of the store, looking away, staring at the sky. It was strange to see him like this, almost sad.

"Did you find what you wanted?" he asked when she stepped closer to him.

"Yes," she said, holding his arm. He drew back instantly. Nila gripped his arm again. "Just let me do this for you. Please."

His eyes fell to the bag in her hand and then moved to her eyes. She hoped he could see that she meant it. When he didn't pull back again, she sat him down on the elevation, tearing cotton and unscrewing tubes. Vijay didn't react when she dabbed the cotton on his face, not even a sneaky wince. Nothing. His face was impassive. She was trying so hard to not be cold to him but here he was, unearthing an ice wall between them.

Nila grabbed his chin. "Look at me, Vijay," she said. He did. Eyes, like muddy water, sombre and doleful. "Are you mad at me?"

He pushed her hand away. "Let's not talk about it."

"Vijay—"

He was moving to stand up so she shut up and went back to bandaging him up. If they were the Nila and Vijay of the previous day, he would have cracked a joke, asking her to kiss it better and she would have.

She really, really would have.

━━━━━━━━━━━━

a/n: i understand that today's chapter may seem controversial since in the modern world, women who stand up for themselves are liked better. it's how it's ought to be. but it's simply not. it doesn't say anything about the woman's courage but about the way the society has raised her, and made her into a person who fears speaking up, especially when it involves something as sensitive  and stigmatised as sexual harassment.

this chapter, though it appears to be, does not reflect any stereotyped gender roles (as in the males being the protector and the females being the protected). i wanted to write something i can relate to, something grounded in reality rather than something i wished that happened. what are your thoughts about how nila and Vijay dealt with the situation? do let me know!