42. When The World Is Heavy
When The World Is Heavy
Natalia
I’m still facedown in bed, one arm trapped beneath the pillow, when I drag my phone closer to check the damage from last night. I open Instagram, and the first post waiting on my feed is from a music news account I followed during the tour.
Kiri Chhim and Radhika Malhotra: Back On?
The headline sits above a photograph taken inside some obscene glass palace overlooking Hong Kong.
Radhika is standing beside the booth, every inch of her looking exactly like the woman men write songs about and then ruin their lives trying to replace.
Kiri stands in front of her. His head is bent toward hers.
Her face is turned up to him, eyes fixed on his.
One of his hands is holding her wrist. The angle makes it look intimate.
Private. Like the photographer caught something neither of them meant anyone else to see.
My stomach drops so violently I nearly throw up. I swipe. Another photograph. Radhika laughing with Rithy while Kiri watches from behind them. Again. Kiri and Radhika sitting across from each other in a curved booth, both holding whiskey glasses.
The caption beneath it reads:
Nearly ten years after their famously private split, rock star bassist of The Riven Altar Kiri Chhim and Bollywood royalty Radhika Malhotra reunited at Hong Kong’s exclusive Meridian Club. Witnesses say the former couple spent part of the evening in an intimate conversation.
The comments are worse.
I knew they were endgame.
The way he still looks at her!!!
She was always the one.
I grab my pillow, press it over my face, and scream. The sound dies inside the fabric, hot and muffled and ugly. I scream until my throat hurts, until the first violent burst of rage burns through enough oxygen that I have to stop. Then I lie there beneath the pillow, breathing hard.
So that’s it. That’s what I was. Not some impossible temptation he had to resist for my own good. Not someone who mattered too much. Not a woman he wanted so badly it frightened him. A shiny little distraction placed in the middle of his journey back to the woman he actually loved.
Radhika Malhotra. Wealthy, talented and beautiful.
Thirty-four years old and perfectly positioned beside him.
A woman with an actual career, not a temporary makeup counter position and an Instagram account I keep trying to turn into a career.
A woman whose family probably owns the kind of hotels Kiri and I had to hide inside.
Of course he didn’t want to sleep with me.
He was saving himself for the reunion tour.
My chest tightens again, but this time I refuse to cry. I throw the pillow aside and sit up.
“Fuck him.”
I get out of bed and head to the bathroom.
The shower is hot enough to give me third-degree damage.
Some irrational part of me thinks if I let it scald long enough, maybe I can burn him out of my skin.
I wash my hair, scrub my skin, and refuse to look at my phone again.
By the time I sit at my vanity, I’ve pushed everything down somewhere deep and airless.
The ritual of doing my makeup restores something mechanical inside me.
I carve my cheekbones sharper than usual and draw my liner into perfect black wings.
My face becomes flawless while everything beneath it goes flat.
By the time I leave for work, I look completely indifferent. Which is almost the same as being indifferent, provided nobody looks too closely. Ryder has called twice. His messages stack beneath the notifications I’m ignoring.
Last night was insane.
You okay?
Did I do something?
Nat?
I lock the screen without answering.
The kiss was the flattest thing I’ve ever felt. Flat is almost too generous. Kissing Ryder had been like pressing my mouth against a handsome piece of furniture while someone grabbed my ass. No spark. No heat. No loss of control.
Nothing.
I thought I understood passion because of Kiri. I thought the way my body reacted to him meant something rare had happened between us. I guess he's just very talented at manufacturing an experience.
Lustre feels wrong the second I walk in.
Melina glances up from skincare, then immediately becomes fascinated by a bottle of toner.
Janae gives me a tiny smile that dies before it fully forms. Suri doesn’t look at me at all.
The group chat has been silent since Halcyon.
No pictures or complaints about Celeste.
Janae doesn't ask who wants coffee or whether anyone can cover her Sunday.
Which means there's another group chat now. One without me. I put my bag in the locker and check my reflection. Still beautiful, employed and breathing. Check. Tragic for all that would prefer otherwise.
Twenty minutes into my shift, a client approaches the prestige counter asking for the consultation she booked with me. I check the system. Her appointment is there, but someone has changed the employee assignment to Suri.
Suri walks over with an apologetic smile.
“Oh, I thought Celeste moved her to me.”
Celeste looks between us. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t know. Natalia said yesterday she might be late.”
I turn toward her.
“I never said that.”
Suri blinks. “You did in the stockroom.”
“No, I didn’t.”
The client shifts awkwardly while Celeste’s expression hardens.
“We don't argue in front of clients.”
“Of course,” Suri says immediately.
I swallow my response. Suri handles the consultation. It’s fine. I don’t need the commission. I don’t need anything. I spend the next hour restocking foundation and pretending I don’t hear Suri laughing with Melina across the floor.
Later, a regular client arrives to collect a hold I prepared two days earlier: serum, moisturizer, primer, two lipsticks, and a limited-edition palette that sold out yesterday.
The bag is gone. I check beneath the counter.
The hold cabinet. The stockroom. Gone. Celeste appears behind me while I’m searching for the third time.
“What’s happening?”
“Mrs. Avery’s hold isn’t here.”
Mrs. Avery is becoming impatient behind us.
“I drove forty minutes for this.”
“I understand,” I say. “I’m trying to locate it.”
Suri passes carrying a basket of returns.
“Oh,” she says casually. “Was that the black bag with the gold palette? I put everything back yesterday. It didn’t have a hold slip.”
“It did.”
She lifts her eyebrows. “I didn’t see one.”
The palette is gone and the final one sold during the morning shift. Mrs. Avery leaves with everything except the item she actually came for and a promise that I’ll call other locations. Celeste waits until she’s out of earshot before turning to me.
“Client holds must be clearly labeled.”
“It was.”
“Suri said it wasn’t.”
“Suri is mistaken.”
Celeste’s mouth tightens.
“This is your second issue today.”
I look over her shoulder. Suri is wiping down a counter, eyes lowered, expression innocent.
“I understand,” I say.
Celeste studies me, perhaps waiting for an argument. When none comes, she sighs.
“Document the incident before you leave.”
I deserve Suri hating me. I kissed the man she wanted right in front of her, then closed my eyes so I wouldn’t have to watch it hurt.
I used Ryder because I wanted to feel something, and the person I managed to make feel the most was standing three feet away.
That doesn’t mean I deserve to lose my job.
But guilt is an effective gag. I finish the shift without confronting her.
I’ve somehow made myself more miserable. Impressive, really. I should add it to my résumé.
Over the next few weeks, life becomes gray. I don’t collapse in the rain or throw myself beneath a bus. I simply move through each day with less of myself present. I work. I post. I sell products to women who want to become different women for a night.
Suri keeps finding small ways to make every shift harder.
A tester disappears from my station and turns up in my locker.
A client is told I promised her a free gift I never mentioned.
Someone changes the stock count after I close, and I’m asked to explain the discrepancy the next morning.
Nothing big enough to prove but not small enough to ignore.
Melina remains polite when we’re scheduled together. Janae occasionally whispers warnings before Celeste catches me doing something Suri arranged. Neither of them invites me anywhere.
Ryder eventually stops calling.
His last message says:
I don’t know what game you’re playing but leave me out of it.
For once, he said something intelligent.
I don’t answer. Kiri and Radhika disappear from the gossip cycle within days, replaced by an actor’s divorce and a singer who allegedly threw a chair at her manager.
There’s no confirmation they’re together.
No denial either. I don’t unblock him or search his name.
I only see him accidentally. A tagged post from the band.
A fan edit slipping into my explore page.
Half his face beneath the veil while the comments praise his hands, his body, his talent.
I scroll past so quickly I think I sprained my thumb.
At night, I sleep badly. During the day, I become better at looking rested.
By the fourth Friday since Japan, even Tata notices.
I’m sitting at my vanity before family dinner, blending bronzer beneath my cheekbone, when I hear Kasia arrive downstairs.
Mama calls her name. Kacper begins shouting something about a dinosaur.
A door closes, then footsteps climb the stairs.
I expect Kasia. Tata appears instead. He knocks once against the open doorframe.
“Busy?”
“As always when performing miracles. Don't tell Father Marek.”