Maya texts her sister Prisha on Thursday: "Can you call me when you get a chance?" Friday night, nothing. Saturday morning, still nothing, and something in Maya quietly changes gears. She rereads her own text and it starts to look different: too needy, or maybe too cold. By Saturday afternoon she has the whole case. Prisha is still angry about the holidays. Prisha has decided Maya is the difficult one. She drafts a cold reply, deletes it, drafts a colder one, and goes to bed furious at a specific, vivid Prisha who has been judging her all weekend. Sunday, Prisha calls, breathless. Her phone died at a work retreat. Is everything okay?

Here is what happened: one unanswered text, forty-eight hours. That's the whole list. The angry sister, the verdict, the echo of their mother: none of it came from Prisha's silence. It came out of Maya, wearing the costume of a fact. She hadn't been reading the situation. She'd been writing it.

This tab is the only copy of what you write until the end. About ten minutes.

Your turn