I straighten, schooling my expression into something far more respectable than I feel, but not before leaning in one last time. “I am behaving,” I whisper. “I haven’t even kissed you yet.”
Her breath stutters, and I take that as a personal victory.
Yagini looks up from her phone and grins. “Wow,” she says. “Do you two always forget there are other people in the room, or is today special?”
I groan. “Choti—”
“Oh no, don’t stop now,” Yagini interrupts cheerfully. “This is better than any movie.”
Maa-sa chuckles softly, shaking her head. “Let them be,” she says gently. “Newly in love people forget the world exists.”
Sitara’s ears turn pink. I, on the other hand, feel ridiculously proud.
As the artist starts arranging things, Sitara moves closer to me, lowering her voice. “We’ll include them,” she says quietly. “They don’t have a portrait. It wouldn’t feel right otherwise.”
I look at her, really look at her, and something settles deep in my chest.
She thinks of everyone. Always. She makes space, even when she doesn’t have to. Especially when she doesn’t have to.
“That’s unfair. I was planning on monopolizing you.”
She smiles up at me, soft and knowing. “You monopolize me every day,” she says. “You can share for a few hours.”
I sigh dramatically. “You’re cruel.”
She laughs, leaning in just a little. “You love it.”
I do.
God, I do.
As Maa-sa and Yagini move into place, Sitara adjusts things with the artist, careful, thoughtful, making sure everyone feels included. I watch her from where I stand, my heart doing that quiet, overwhelming thing it’s taken to doing lately.
She isn’t just kind.
She’s intentional. Gentle. Fair.
She carries her past with her, but she doesn’t let it harden her. Instead, she turns it into something warm, something that gathers people in rather than pushing them away.
And standing here, in a room filled with light, watching her make space for love in every direction, I know something with absolute certainty—
This painting won’t just be about faces and colors.
It will be proof.
Proof that we were here.
That we chose each other.
That kindness survived.
That love didn’t just happen to us—we built it, deliberately, together.
And when history looks back on us someday, this will be one of the moments it remembers.
Not because we were perfect.
But because we cared enough to be present.
