There's Something About Mira

by Sonali Dev

Whose is it? The words whisper in my ears. I squeeze it in my hand and look up and down Fifth Avenue as humanity whizzes past me in all its mismatched yet cohesive glory. Couples holding hands, solitary people speaking animatedly into their headphones, everyone moving with purpose around everyone else. Everything that just happened already in the past. Gone. Was I really just sitting on the pavement on my butt? Did a child just knock me down? Here, in the least child-friendly place on earth. A place that should be no more than a concrete jungle but is filled with stories of romance and human connection. All these things that shouldn’t fit but do. The ring and chain dig into my palm. I open my hand and let the ring dangle on the chain. A ring on a chain: two more things that shouldn’t make sense together but do. I squeeze my eyes shut, and every romantic comedy moment I’ve ever escaped into fills me. Something slides down my spine, something urgent and ravenous. The anger in my brother’s eyes when he talks to me, the love that spins around Saket and him when they’re near each other. The infinite chasm between those two versions of him. The kind of discontent I’ve never allowed myself to feel scrapes underneath my skin. Why did I find it? Why me? The ring hangs from my hand, the oddest glow emanating from it, like an answer I can’t interpret. I’m not someone given to wanting. Wanting things always leads to hurt. I’ve avoided it with all I’m worth my entire adult life. Now it...