Inside, Kavita appeared in the hallway, having clearly waited up.
“Everything alright?” she asked, though her eyes said she already knew the answer.
“I don’t know,” Divya admitted. “I think I hurt him, but I don’t understand how.”
Kavita studied her for a long moment. “Men are complicated creatures, beta. Especially when they’re feeling things they haven’t given themselves permission to feel.”
“I don’t...”
“It’s okay. Go to bed,” Kavita said gently. “He’ll come home when he’s ready.”
But lying in bed an hour later, Divya couldn’t sleep. She pulled out her notes, tried to focus. When that failed, she made chai, brought it back to the bedroom, and spread her research across the desk.
She would wait up. Just to make sure he got home safely.
That was the lie she told herself as the hours ticked past midnight, as her chai went cold, as her eyes grew heavy.
She pressed her fingers to her eyes, glasses discarded on the desk beside cold chai.
Outside, the night deepened. Inside, she waited.
For him to come home. For morning. For understanding that felt just out of reach.
Chapter 22
Vikram returned at 5 AM, his mind still reeling.
Temporary. Just temporary. Two years and then back to being nobody.
Her words had played on repeat for hours as he’d driven aimlessly through Mumbai’s emptying streets. Each repetition had carved deeper, drawing blood from wounds he hadn’t realized existed.
She thought this was temporary. Thought she was nobody. Thought two years from now she’d go back to being invisible.
The anger had burned hot at first, at her blindness, at her inability to see what was right in front of her, at the casual way she’d dismissed everything between them as just an arrangement.
But beneath the anger lay something worse: fear. Fear that she was right. Fear that two years from now, she would leave. Fear that he’d fallen for someone who saw herself as a placeholder in his life.
He’d driven for hours, trying to outrun the realization. Trying to talk himself out of feelings that had grown roots too deep to extract.
It hadn’t worked.
He let himself into the quiet house, climbing the stairs to their bedroom with exhausted steps. The door was ajar, she neverlocked it, some part of her still not quite believing this space was hers.
He pushed it open and stopped in the doorway.
Divya sat at the small desk, head resting on her folded arms, surrounded by scattered notes and research papers. A cup of chai sat at her elbow, long gone cold. She’d fallen asleep working, as she so often did.
She’d waited up for him.
Even after their fight, even after he’d walked away without explanation, she’d stayed awake. Tried to work but clearly couldn’t focus, the notes were barely filled in, the chai barely touched. She’d been too worried to concentrate.
Worried about him.
He stood looking at her longer than he intended, just watching her breathe. The steady rise and fall of her shoulders. The way her hair had escaped its braid to fall across her face.
After a moment’s hesitation, fighting with himself about boundaries and propriety, he crossed to her.
She was going to wake with a terrible crick in her neck if he left her like this.