The teacher's footsteps were silent but were thunder in my chest. She entered with that questioning, slightly wilted look teachers have in the mornings — the sort that says I have a room full of kids and only so much patience. Then she noticed Nikita's sleeve, ripped at the cuff, the material hanging in a serrated line.
"Nikita—what occurred here?" her voice was serene initially, as though she were inquiring if a person had accidentally dropped a pen. Then things accelerated beyond my ability to keep pace.
Nikita curled herself into a photograph of sadness. Tears appeared, as though on demand. She reached up and touched her cheek and began to wail, quietly at first, then loudly enough that the teacher moved in as though to protect her. Instantly the world contracted to her weeping face and the manner in which everyone's gaze darted from her to me.
"Mam—" she wept, and I swayed. "He—Krishanu—he was touching me. Telling me he liked me and when I told him no, he began touching me here and there." Her voice cracked over the words, just as I'd practiced a thousand defenses never to have to employ.
I didn't budge initially. For an instant I remained frozen — like a branch stuck in a stream of water. And then the hand of the teacher went up and — without hesitation — she slapped me.
It was not a harsh slap, but it hit with that specific, annihilating finality that rearranges everything. Her hand across my face was like being pulled from an icy lake: the body absorbed the shock before the brain had a chance to grasp it.
"How could you?" she bit out. "How could you do this to her?"
My jaw opened and shut, and for an instant I couldn't locate a sound. The room clouded. Nikita kept on crying, now loud and dramatic — in time. The teacher wrapped her arms around her, shielding her, angry in a manner that the air seemed to taste metallic.
But the slap of the teacher—it was the one thing that severed me from the numbness I'd been under. My hands automatically went to my pockets, to the little rectangle of glass and plastic that had been my secret crutch for the past two days. I had hit record in the hallway without thinking. I had a foolish, desperate belief in the thing that would save me or kill me.
Ma'am," I said, my voice shrill. "She's lying."
The teacher's eyes flashed like hot coals. "Look at her sleeve! She's crying, she's hurt—"
"She ripped her sleeve apart herself," Nikita sobbed louder, and the lie burst from her in neat, rehearsed pieces. "He's doing this, touching me, telling me things— I said no. He wouldn't leave me alone.
I groped into my pocket with fumbling fingers and pulled out my phone. My heart was racing so furiously that it felt as if it would burst forth from my throat. The teacher's face changed to sternness, the sort that makes all children feel like a problem to be fixed immediately.
"You go with me to the principal's office. Now." Her tone was steel.
I didn't fight. I could sense a hundred emotions at once — rage, shame, fear — but all mostly a hardnening chill: don't let this break you. I glanced at Nikita for a moment and she looked back at me. Not. regret. Not shame. A flicker of something approaching triumph. Then she reverted to her actress's mask.
Before we went out, I sent my text message. PK's name came next — his conversation. I sent the recording I'd taken by the doorway, then appended a brief note: save this. no duplicates. if something, resend to me. My thumb rested against the screen, then I sent the phone back into my pocket. The teacher's grip on my arm led me out as if I'd already been found guilty. Mam also phoned Nikita's parents in an emergency.
Inside the principal's office, the air had the scent of old paper and disinfectant. The principal appeared fatigued but keen — the kind of man who'd witnessed all manner of childhood melodrama and anticipated theatrics to be part of the job description. Nikita sat with her parents now; their pale faces were apologetic. Nikita's mom wept into a tissue, the father glared at me as if he wanted to punch me. The teacher recounted the tale in rapid, appalled sentences between face wipes.
"Sir," said the teacher to me, addressing me with that same tone she used when demanding veracity, "explain yourself. What happened?"
For an instant, I felt the old reaction — to stand still and be polite and allow the adult interpretations of the situation to prevail. But the recording on my phone had the flavor of safety in my mouth. I swallowed, reached into my pocket, took out the phone, and said, "I didn't do anything I have evidence. I recorded all of this just now."
There was a silence like snow.
Nikita's face was pale with terror now. Her mother's hands darted to her lips. "You—what is this?" she breathed. The teacher leaned in; the principal's brow furrowed.
I played the recording. My own breath was light and nervous in the recording. I could hear Nikita ranting, her raw voice, and then the door opening and my entry into the room, and then the very words she'd accused: her fake crying and the word about me "touching here and there." It all came out in sterile, merciless detail.
Silence engulfed the cabin like a wave. The principal's mouth clamped shut. The teacher's hand shot up to her mouth. Nikita's eyes were frantic, racing, seeking something to grasp. Her parents' faces paled.
The teacher's face blazed with humiliation. She jumped to her feet, strode over to Nikita, and slapped her — hard enough that the crack echoed through the room. "How could you?" she spat, voice breaking. "How could you accuse an innocent boy like this?"
Nikita's mother screamed. "Please, it was a moment—" Her father attempted to calm the tempest in his voice. "We apologize—this is unacceptable—"
The principal's face hardened. He stood up, moving slowly. "This is a serious charge," he said in that judicial tone that makes everyone sense the magnitude of what is involved. "Accusing someone of something like sexual harassment is a serious offense.
I told It was that word — sexual harassment — which seemed to hang in the air with something sinister about it. If I hadn't had that recording… if I'd been the boy who'd had no evidence… I could have been taken away and locked up in some prision. Cold I felt at the thought of what had almost befallen me.
The principal glanced at Nikita's parents, then at me. "Her punishment and the issue of whether there is a complaint to be heard will be determined—once we have all the facts. Krishanu, do you wish to file charges?" His tone was cautious. He spoke the words as if he thought a child would respond to them truthfully, unencumbered by the calculations adults introduce into fear.
I gazed at Nikita. At her tears-soaked cheeks. At her father's outrage. At the teacher's apology, fresh on her face. I spoke of a few months ago when someone had taught me — about people using others like machines, about pity as a wedge, about what it was like to be framed and nearly destroyed. I felt the gravity of the decision so I must do the same: seek legal recourse and destroy this girl's life completely.
I felt older than I'd ever felt.
"If you complain," Nikita's father burst out, voice trembling, "we will—" His words ended in sobs.
My teacher's apology to me was prompt, spilling out with that terrible incoherence of someone who realized they had done something wrong. "I am so sorry, Krishanu. I should have listened before I hit. I—" she couldn't continue.
I allowed her to have her say in silence. Pride had been reduced to naked survival before; now something harder crept up within me, a close relative of the thing that had developed in the alleyway that evening. It wasn't happiness. It wasn't victory. It was an awareness that people injure others for reasons that have little to do with truth.
Nikita's parents whispered frantically between themselves. "We will withdraw her name," her mother said, clinging to the principal. "We will transfer her. Please. We are ashamed. We will make sure she is removed."
I glanced at the principal. The man's face had told me he wished to do something which would be fair but not harsh. He asked bluntly, "Krishanu, what do you want as a school ruling? Expulsion right away? Suspension? Or something else?"
My throat was parched. In my mind the words rolled like a stone: People use other people as tools. I recalled Nikita's voice in the doorway, the smile she'd smiled after ripping her sleeve. I recalled the hand on my face, the sweep of all the worst things that had flashed through my mind for an instant. The recollection of April 3 weeks back — the alley, the punches, the cold aftermath — remained clear under my skin.
"I won't report you," I said at last. My voice was toneless even to myself. "She — she will be expelled next year. Not midyear. I'm not so cruel to disturb any students studies. Just be done with this and act as if nothing has happened ."
Nikita's mother began, relief and fright struggled on her face. "Please," she pleaded. "We'll withdraw her. We'll remove her. We will do what you want."
No I told if you are withdrawing her name I will file a criminal charge at her, I said I will act as nothing happened she just need to never approach me. Because she is positioned 2nd behind me with 1 mark difference I need her as my competitor until next year. And I will erase the record, Afterall people use others.
The teacher stood up beside me, eyes still brimming. "I am so, so sorry," she whispered. I looked into her eyes. That fallible, messy human apology meant something.
I experienced something like fatigue then: relief, certainly, but something more bitter: a perception that justice was negotiated in the borders, that what was right was not always what was accomplished. Nikita's parents departed in a haze, her mother weeping, her father grumbling apologies under his breath.
As they departed, I overheard Nikita mutter — not to me, but to the person standing behind her — "People use others as tools." The words struck and resonated within me like evidence.
Back at school, my friends gathered around me like a miniature shield. PK waved his hand in the air. They all wanted to know where I was and what had occurred, I told them everything and instructed pk to resend me the recording after going home, he noded.
To be continued…