Adultery Priya Didi

[shailu4ever]

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She hadn’t said his name. She hadn’t needed to. The air shifted, subtle, unmistakable. "She’s here," he thought, even before she appeared.
 
He didn’t look up immediately. Don’t assume, he warned himself. Don’t hope.
 
His heart beat a little faster in his chest, and he fought the urge to look at her, to see her.
 
Priya stood a few feet away, watching him, not the way she had in the morning, openly, warmly, but with intent. With purpose.
 
This wasn’t about desire now. This was about repair.
 
“Ravi,” she said. Just his name.
 
It fell softly between them, but it was heavy with something unspoken. He looked up at once.
 
“Yes, Didi?” The formality in his voice cut her more than anger would have. He’d built a wall around himself, and she’d helped him construct it.
 
"I did that," she realized, feeling the sharp sting of responsibility. "I taught him to retreat."
 
She gestured toward the chair opposite him. “Are you busy?”
 
He hesitated, then shook his head. “Not really.”
 
She sat.
 
Not beside him.
 
Not far either.
 
Across from him, where words lived.
 
For a moment, neither spoke. The fan hummed overhead. Somewhere outside, a dog barked lazily, unconcerned with human complications. Time stretched and bent around them, fragile and full.
 
Priya folded her hands in her lap, then unfolded them. She inhaled slowly, as though bracing herself for something both inevitable and frightening.
 
“I’ve been thinking,” she began.
 
Ravi stiffened, not visibly, but internally. That phrase had become dangerous territory. "What was she going to say?" He was afraid of hearing the wrong thing, of seeing that she still resented him, or worse, that she blamed him for something he didn’t even understand.
 
“I know,” she continued gently. “You’ve probably been doing a lot of that too.”
 
He nodded, cautiously, unsure of how to respond.
 
She looked at him then, really looked. Not as a boy who had crossed a line. Not as a presence she needed to manage.
 
As a person she had affected.
 
“What I said to you,” she said, her voice steady but soft, “after the theatre… I meant it. But I didn’t mean all of it.”
 
Ravi’s breath caught.
 
She didn’t interrupt. She let the words sit, raw and unpolished. And for the first time, it felt like she was opening a door instead of shutting one.

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