Adultery Priya Didi

[shailu4ever]

.

 
Ravi was awake.
 
The knowledge settled in her chest, not panic, but weight.
 
“He didn’t sleep,” she realized.
“Neither did I.”
 
She didn’t turn around.
 
She didn’t trust her face.
 
“Tea is almost ready,” she said evenly.
 
The words sounded steady, but inside, something shifted.
 
“Why does it feel like I’m the one hiding?”
 
Priya stood at the stove.
 
Her back was to him.
 
For a moment, Ravi forgot to breathe.
 
She wasn’t dressed for anyone. There was no effort in her appearance, no ornamentation meant to be noticed. And yet, there was something devastatingly composed about her, something that made it impossible for him to look away.
 
Her hair was tied back loosely, a few strands escaping near her neck, soft against skin that caught the morning light without trying. The dupatta rested over her shoulder, not arranged, not careless, simply where it belonged, as though it had always known its place. Her posture was straight but not rigid, shoulders relaxed yet carrying something unseen.
 
“She looks the same,” Ravi thought.
“And nothing is the same.”
 
The quiet efficiency of her movements held him, the way she stirred the tea without haste, the slight turn of her wrist as she reached for the cups. There was a practiced grace in her restraint, a beauty sharpened by control rather than softened by ease.
 
“Even now,” he realized,
“even when she’s hurt… she’s still her.”
 
That was what unsettled him most.
 
Not her silence.
Not her distance.
 
But the fact that nothing about her dignity had cracked.
 
She didn’t fidget. She didn’t dramatize. She didn’t perform pain. She simply existed, contained, self-possessed, quietly luminous in a way Ravi had never had the words for.
 
“How can someone look so steady,” he wondered,
“when I feel like I’m unraveling?”
 
The light brushed her profile as she turned slightly, just enough for him to glimpse the calm line of her jaw, the thoughtful stillness in her expression. There were faint shadows beneath her eyes, evidence of a night that had not been kind, but even that only made her seem more real.
 
More beautiful.
 
“She doesn’t even know,” Ravi thought.
“That even now… I see her.”
 
Not in the way he shouldn’t.
Not in the way that had complicated everything.
 
But in a quieter, heavier way, as someone whose presence demanded respect before desire, whose beauty was not inviting, but inherent.

.