Morning light filtered grey through the rain-streaked windows. The flat woke earlier than usual—Mausi’s voice already directing the final aarti preparations, the children being scrubbed and dressed in their slightly wrinkled festival clothes, the smell of fresh incense and the last batch of modaks rising from the kitchen.

Priya rose from the thin mattress in the corridor with the familiar sticky awareness between her thighs. She had not cleaned herself thoroughly the night before; her father’s final load still coated her inner walls and had dried in faint trails on her skin. She changed quickly in the bathroom into a fresh salwar-kurti, the soft cotton immediately beginning to absorb what continued to leak from her. When she stepped out, Rajesh was already in the living room helping the uncle fold the bedrolls. Their eyes met for a single, charged second across the space. The look he gave her was calm on the surface and burning underneath.