“Okay,” I say simply. And I mean it. Or at least, I choose to. She watches me for a second, like she’s waiting for an argument. I don’t give her one.
Instead, I nod toward her tiffin, “Finish your food.” Her brows knit slightly, thrown off.
Good.
Let her be.
She picks up the spoon again, quieter now. And I let the conversation shift. Not because it doesn’t matter. But because she matters more. If calling that moment “nothing” is what she needs to stay here, sitting across from me, eating food she didn’t realize she needed—Then I’ll let it be nothing. For now. But I don’t forget the way it felt. I won't forget the way she looked. And I definitely don’t believe it meant nothing.
Not when I asked my mother to send food for her without thinking twice.
Not when every instinct in me is tuned to her in ways I don’t fully understand yet.
She might call it nothing.
But I’ve never been very good at believing convenient lies. Especially not the ones that protect people from feeling too much. And Ishika—She feels. Even when she pretends she doesn’t. I see it in the way she avoids my eyes now. In the way her fingers tighten slightly around the spoon. In the way she stays. She could have walked out. She didn’t.
That’s enough for me.
For now.
CHAPTER 38
ISHIKA
By the time I reach home, the city has softened. The traffic is thinner, the noise less aggressive, the sky slipping into that dusky gray that makes everything feel like it’s exhaling after a long day. I should feel the same. I usually do.
Home has always meant quiet. Control. A place where nothing unexpected waits for me. I unlock the door, step inside, and close it behind me with a soft click. For a second, I just stand there, back pressed to the wood, eyes drifting shut.
Silence greets me. Silence that should feel familiar and comforting. So why does it feel…loud tonight? I push myself off the door and slip my heels off, nudging them into their usual corner without looking. My bag follows, dropped onto the chair by the table. Everything falls into place the way it always does, muscle memory guiding me through the routine.
I turn the lights on and draw the curtains. I tie up my hair in a lazy bun and quickly fill a glass of water taking a sip as I lean against the kitchen counter, staring at nothing in particular.
It should end here. The day. The thoughts. Him. But it doesn’t.
Because the moment I stop moving, my mind goes right back to that office. To him leaning against the doorframe like he hadall the time in the world. To the way he calls me—Sunshine—like it belonged to him. To the stupid tiffin sitting on my desk like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to bring me food.
I press my lips together and look away, like the memory is something I can physically avoid. It doesn’t work. I can still see it. Him watching me before I noticed. That quiet, unguarded look in his eyes. Like I was worth his attention even when I wasn’t performing for it. My chest tightens.
I set the glass down a little harder than necessary. This is exactly what I didn’t want. This…slipping. This softening. This constant awareness of him, even when he’s not in the room. I push away from the counter and walk toward the bedroom, forcing my thoughts back into something practical.
I change into something comfortable and sit at the edge of the bed for a moment before finally lying back. The ceiling comes into view. I stare at it, waiting for my mind to quiet. It doesn’t. Instead, it replays everything. The way he walked in like he belonged there. The way he didn’t even hesitate before telling me I hadn’t eaten. The way he used his mother as an excuse like it wasn’t obvious he had arranged the whole thing. A small, reluctant part of me presses at that thought.
Sure, he did bring tiffin for me occasionally before too but things have…changed. I shift on the bed, turning onto my side, then onto my back again, like changing positions will somehow rearrange my thoughts into something easier to deal with. It doesn’t work. It never does.
That night refuses to stay buried.
I can still feel it if I let myself. The warmth of him standing too close, the way the air had changed, like something was about tohappen and the world had paused just to watch. The sound of his voice had been different—quieter, steadier, like he wasn’t trying to joke his way out of it for once. And I hated that. I hated how real it sounded. Hated how it made everything inside me go still.
That’s the part that unsettles me the most.
I close my eyes, but it only makes it worse. I remember the way my breath had caught when he leaned in. The way my body didn’t move, didn’t fight, didn’t push him away immediately like it should have. There had been a second—just one—where I had leaned into it. Where I had wanted it. My fingers curl slightly against the bedsheet as I press my lips together.
Because it wasn’t confusion. It wasn’t a mistake. It wasn’t him catching me off guard.
I knew exactly what was happening. And I still didn’t stop it in time. I turn my face toward the wall, exhaling slowly, like I can push the memory out with it.
He had looked at me like I was something worth staying for. Like I wasn’t temporary. Like I wasn’t someone people eventually leave behind. And that’s where everything goes wrong. Because I don’t know how to exist in that kind of space. I don’t know how to stand in front of someone who says they’ll stay and not immediately prepare for the moment they won’t. It’s not even about him, not really. It’s about patterns. About history. About knowing how these things end before they even begin.
