The phone rang.
Private number. No caller ID.Three rings. Four.I let it go to voicemail.
A few minutes later, it buzzed again.This time, with a message.
Rajvir Mehra:"Kalyani. It's time we talk. Face to face."
Just seeing his name made my stomach tighten.Not from fear.Not even anger.
Just… disbelief.
He hadn't spoken to me in months.Not during the DNA chaos.Not when his sons humiliated me.Not when I stood outside his gate with everything I owned in one suitcase.
But now, when I had a face on billboards, a voice in headlines, and public sympathy tipping the scales?
Now he wanted to talk.
Rohit called two hours later.
"I just got wind that Mehra Corp's board is in crisis mode," he said."They're trying to stabilize public perception.They think if you 'reconcile,' the heat will die down."
"Reconcile," I repeated, like it was a foreign word.
"It's all PR. They want a photo. A statement. Maybe even a scripted hug."
I didn't reply.
Later that evening, I sat on the same bench outside the slum temple where I used to braid my friends' hair as a girl.
I watched the children run past. The smell of warm jalebi from the next lane.
And then I asked myself:If Rajvir Mehra weren't rich, powerful, or known… would I still answer that message?
No.
That was my answer.
No.
So I picked up my phone.Typed back just two words.
"Too late."
That was it.
No bitterness.No anger.No drama.
Just closure.
Because not all wounds need stitches.Some just need to be left alone.