Call Me Yours

Sunny — 3:17 AM

I wake up in the middle of the night with the same old dream.

Those smiling eyes.

They’ve haunted me since childhood. Wide, stupid with hope. The kind of hope that gets people killed in my world. The kind of hope I decided I didn’t deserve, so I carved it out of myself at ten.

I’m out of bed before the sheet cools. No point lying there. The dream doesn’t fade. It settles under my skin like a splinter and the only way to dig it out is to bleed.

04:00 — Gym, Basement Level

Two hours. Every day. No rest days. Rest is for people who haven’t decided what they want.

The second my boots hit the basement floor, my father’s men are awake.

I don’t have to say a word. Lights flick on. Conversations die.

I can see the fear in their eyes before they have time to hide it.

I don’t blame them.

People fear me.

They should.

My body is a map of everything I did to get strong enough for him.

Scars on my knuckles. That’s from the bag. I hit it for hours every night after the dream. Some nights my hands bled. I didn’t stop. Pain kept me awake. Awake meant I wasn’t dreaming of him and feeling useless.

A thin white line across my ribs. That one’s from my father. He said “pain teaches faster than words.” So he used his belt during training when I was fifteen. He hit until I stopped falling. This scar is the first time I stayed on my feet. He called it progress. I called it proof I could take it for him one day.

Burn mark on my left shoulder. My father did that. I was thirteen. I cried after a fight. He pressed a hot rod to my skin and said, “The world is cruel. So I have to be crueler to you, or you won’t survive it.” I stopped crying after that. The mark stayed. Now every time I touch it, I remember: break for nothing. Not for pain, not for fear. Because he can’t afford me breaking.

Small nicks all over my forearms. Knife drills. I did those on my own. If I flinched, I started over. Every cut was a promise: For him.For him.For him.

Bruises on my back that never really faded. Sparring. I told them not to hold back. They listened. I thanked them after. Every bruise was a lesson in not breaking.

Calluses on my palms so thick I can’t feel things anymore. Good. Feelings make you slow. I cut them off myself when they ripped.

I don’t look at these in the mirror. I don’t need to.

I feel them every time I move.

And every one of them says the same thing: For him. For him. For him.

I’m not built. I’m damaged on purpose for Jay.

So that when he’s finally in front of me, nothing in this world can take him from me.

07:30 — Dad’s Warehouse, Sewri

The warehouse smells like rust and gun oil. My father calls it “logistics”. It’s where people come to disappear.

Today there are three of them. Kneeling on plastic sheets. Not paper targets. Real people. One’s pissed himself. I smell it.

I don’t know their names. I don’t care.

Dad’s man, Vikram, hands me the Glock. It’s warm. Wet near the grip.“Young Sir’s practice,” he says. His voice shakes.

I don’t answer. I don’t blink.

First one. I put a bullet in his forehead. His head snaps back and hits the concrete. Loud. Like a coconut. Blood and brain slide down the plastic. Thick. Slow.

Second one screams. Starts crawling. I shoot him in the spine. He drops. Legs stop moving, but his hands still claw at the floor. Fingernails split. Blood pools under him, black in the warehouse light. He’s gasping. Fish sounds.

I watch. No noise in my head. No sick in my throat. Not since I was sixteen. The first time, I threw up for an hour and got beaten by my father for that.The second time, I didn’t. By the tenth, I was bored.Killing someone isn’t a big deal. Not when you’ve decided, at twelve years old, that one person matters and the rest are math.

This is just work.

Third one starts talking. Fast. Begging. Then he sees my face and tries something else.He spits blood on the plastic. “You think you’re God?” His voice cracks. “I got nothing left, but I’ll find someone you love. I’ll kill them slow. I swear I will—”

The gun is up before he finishes.

Something breaks in my chest. Hot. Loud. Not like the gunshots.

I don’t fire once. I empty the clip.

Head. Throat. Chest. Stomach. The plastic sheet jumps with every hit. His body jerks like a toy. When the clicking starts, I keep pulling the trigger. Click. Click. Click.

Silence after.

His face is gone. Just red meat and bone. Blood’s everywhere now. On my shoes. On my hands. In my mouth. I can taste the iron.

Vikram’s on the floor. He threw up. None of the men look at me.

I’m breathing hard. Not from the killing. From those words. Someone you love.

He doesn’t know about Jay. No one does. But he said it. He threatened—My Jay. My Jay. My Jay.Something tears open in my chest. Not pain. Not anger. Worse.

That’s enough.

I drop the empty Glock. It hits the blood and doesn’t even make a splash. Too thick now.

Killing people doesn’t touch me.

Threatening mine does.

I look at Vikram. He flinches.“Clean it,” I say. My voice is calm again.

10:15 — Black SUV, Cuffe Parade to St. Xavier’s

I roll my sleeves down. Cover the scars. Blood’s washed off. Gun’s gone.

Now I’m just Sunny Sahni. 20. St. Xavier’s, second year. Economics.

My father made me. Not just in the gym. Not just in the warehouse.“Sahnis don’t rule with fists alone,” he said. “Muscle rots. Money doesn’t. You want to keep what’s yours? You use your head.”

I wear the mask every morning. Shirt tucked in. Hair neat. Smile when a professor calls my name. It’s not real. Nothing about me is real past 10:15.

I top every subject without trying. Numbers are easy when you’ve seen men killed over them. People are easy when you don’t care what they think. I say five words in class. Ten if I have to. Professors call me “brilliant but reserved.” Girls call me “mysterious.” Guys want to be me.

And no one looks twice at the topper in the back row.No one asks why he never laughs.No one wonders what he’s thinking when he stares out the window.

If they did, they’d run.

But they don’t.

So I get to keep wearing the mask.

Jay.

He’s not here. Not in this college. Not in this building. He doesn’t even know I exist.No one knows his name is carved in my head. No one knows I have photos he’s never taken. No one knows I know his route home, his favorite chai stall.No one knows I counted 3,652 days since I saw him first.

In my world, wanting a boy is a bullet. To me. To him. To the whole Sahni name.

So I’m building something no bullet can touch.Money. Power. Fear.

So when I’m ready, when it’s time to take him, no one can say no. No one can question it. No one can hurt him for being mine.

I tried to cut him out. For years. Told myself he’s a disease. Tried to wash him off with other people’s blood.

It didn’t work.

He’s still there. Every second. Every breath.

Jay. Jay. Jay.The name pounds in my head with my heartbeat. Louder than the gunshots from this morning.

I lock my phone. Fix my mask. Check my watch. 10:29.

Class starts in one minute.

Time to be Sunny Sahni again.Time to get smarter. Stronger. Richer.

Time to build a world where I can have him.