The Morning of Forty-Five
The scent reaches me before anything else does—marigolds, warm and slightly bitter, threading through the gap in the window where the curtain never quite closes. I keep my eyes shut a moment longer, letting the smell settle over me like a shawl. Somewhere below, a string of giggles breaks apart and reassembles into an urgent hiss of *shh, shh, she'll hear us*, followed by the unmistakable clatter of a steel plate hitting the kitchen floor.
I know that voice. Poonam.
I know the second voice too, low and amused, trying to smooth over the chaos. Khushi.
And underneath both of them, footsteps—Aditya's footsteps, heavier, unhurried, moving with the particular carefulness of a man trying not to be caught doing something he has clearly already been caught doing.
I lie still, cocooned in the soft gray light spilling through the curtains, and I let myself simply feel this moment before I open my eyes to it. Forty-five. The number sits strangely in my chest, not heavy exactly, but unfamiliar, like a ring that fits a different finger than the one you expected.
Beside me, Aditya lies with his eyes closed, his breathing exaggeratedly slow and even, the performance of a man pretending to…