Adultery Priya Didi

[shailu4ever]

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He remembered the laughter that had once filled this space — Sirisha’s voice, Neetu’s teasing remarks — moments that had seemed harmless then, before they had turned into something unforgivable. Now those memories came to him like broken glass, cutting deeper each time he reached for them.
 
Priya Didi turned toward the window, drawing the curtain slightly to let in more light. The sunlight caught her hair, turning it a deep, warm brown where it fell over her shoulder. Her reflection shimmered faintly in the glass — steady, self-contained, distant.
 
Ravi spoke again, quietly. “I don’t expect anything from you. I know what I did can’t be taken back. I just… can’t stand how far this feels.”
 
Her hands stilled on the curtain. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then, without turning, she replied, her voice steady but low.
“You made choices, Ravi. You crossed lines that can’t be uncrossed. You want the world to go back to what it was, but it won’t. It can’t.”
 
He swallowed, the words pressing hard against his chest. “I know.”
 
“You say sorry,” she continued, “but that’s not for me. It’s for you. To make peace with yourself. But peace doesn’t undo what’s been done.”
 
Her tone wasn’t angry — that made it worse. It was calm, distant, resolute.
 
He lowered his gaze, fingers tightening around the edge of his chair. “I don’t want peace,” he said. “I just want to face it. Even if it means seeing you hate me.”
 
Priya Didi finally turned to look at him. Her eyes were steady — not filled with rage or pain, but something quieter, heavier.
“I don’t hate you,” she said. “If I did, this would be easier.”
 
The silence that followed seemed to swallow the room.
 
She adjusted the edge of her saree and moved past him toward the study table. Her presence brushed the air near him — the faint scent of jasmine, the sound of her steps — and even that closeness felt unbearable.
 
He turned slightly, watching her as she bent over her papers, the sunlight glinting on her bangles. She looked composed, unreachable — a woman who had decided that distance was safer than emotion.
 
Ravi’s chest ached with the knowledge that he had caused that distance, that she carried this restraint because of him.
 
He stayed where he was, silent, still.
 
Outside, the sounds of the afternoon drifted in — a car horn, a child shouting somewhere, a crow calling from a distant rooftop. Life went on, uncaring, while inside that small flat, time seemed to move slower, heavier.
 
Ravi leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The light was fading now, the room dimming to a pale gold. Priya Didi’s silhouette against the window was calm and unmoving, like a painting that refused to change.
 
He realized, then, that forgiveness wasn’t something he could hope for.
Not now.
Maybe not ever.
 
But even so, he would stay — in this silence, in this distance, carrying the weight he had earned.
 
Because being near her, even as a reminder of everything he had broken, felt better than the emptiness that waited beyond her door.

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