Kabir had planned to tell her about Tanya first, then allow time before mentioning Meher and Naina. The plan already depended on controlled release.
“Tanya and I have spent time together.”
“Physical?”
“That is her privacy.”
“Your participation is your information.”
Kabir looked at the menu. “Yes.”
Rhea’s face remained still. “Since Goa?”
“Yes.”
“Did she know about me?”
“Not fully.”
“Did I know about her?”
“You knew we were friends.”
“That answer is insulting.”
“I am trying to tell you now.”
“After Sam tagged a photograph.”
Rhea closed the menu. “Who else?”
Kabir had rehearsed honesty and reached its cost.
“I need to speak to people before naming them.”
“How many people?”
“Rhea.”
“Number.”
He did not answer.
She stood. “You have until tomorrow morning to tell Tanya. Then I do.”
The ultimatum forced the identical-message mistake. Kabir left intending to contact Tanya but received a client emergency, Meher’s call and Naina’s question about Saturday. His calendar filled while consequence waited.
On Thursday, Meher expected a separate conversation but Kabir cancelled for work before admitting why he wanted to meet. She read the cancellation as another instance of being deprioritised, not evidence of a collapsing system.
“If you want to end this, say it,” she messaged.
Kabir replied: I don’t. We need to clarify things.
Clarify what?
He stared at the screen and typed: In person.
Meher sent no answer.
Naina’s Saturday was last in his plan because he believed she would respond best to complete facts. This assumption was another customised story. Naina’s calm was not consent to being told last.
Kabir bought four coffees for Rhea’s apartment on Sunday because he finally understood separate meetings had failed. He did not know the women had already assembled the timeline.
In the lift, he looked at the four labelled cups and recognised how precisely he had remembered preference while refusing relationship.
The doors opened before he found a fifth version of the explanation.
The week became Chapter Six.