Chapter 22

Sharini’s POV:

When you live in a shared home, if you get back first, you notice everything that is missing — the slight hollowness of a room used to being shared, the soft echo of your roommate’s bangles, the lingering smell of the last meal you rushed through that morning.

Today the apartment contained only the vague warmth of a lived-in day — the chalk dust from school still clinging to my wrists, the faint cling of sweat from my ride back through Chennai traffic.

I unlocked the door and hung the keys by the shoe rack, and for a second, the place felt like an empty stage. No one was there to make a dramatic entrance. No one to lean in and steal the chocolate in my hand or rummage through my Instamart bag of snacks.

It was quiet enough to hear the honk of a distant autorickshaw and the neighbour’s television through the thin wall; the ordinary sounds made me relax. Being home first used to mean a mild victory. Lately it meant noticing things before they were softened by Sheetal’s chaos.

I let out a long breath and loosened the pleats at my waist, just enough to let the saree relax so I could too. The first thing after coming home was always the same ritual — wash my face, hands, and feet, rinse away the day, and buy myself a small pocket of quiet. I padded to the bathroom, splashed cool water over my cheeks until the heat behind my eyes softened, then wiped my hands on the end of my pallu. I didn’t bother changing; somehow the saree felt like part of the day I still needed to hold on to.

I tied my hair in the same messy knot I liked to call my “librarian bun.” It’s been a week since I received Amma’s message about returning for Deepavali, and somewhere in the stretch of days, life between me and Sheetal had settled into something that looked like normal, like an old routine: small shared rituals like tea or coffee or laundry. Normal didn’t mean nothing happened. In fact, it was more “normal-er” than normal. It meant tiny things kept happening — fingers brushing for no reason, a stray hair tucked behind an ear, a bowl passed hand-to-hand with a pause longer than necessary. Tiny, human things.

I walked into the kitchen, washed my hands, and reached for the dosa batter without thinking. I greased the pan, swirled the ladle, mixed the batter. I set the heat on low and sprinkled water on the tawa, making it hiss like a mildly offended serpent. I poured, listening to the batter bloom into a golden disc. The rhythm of cooking always calmed my brain; the batter didn’t care about wrong words said on beaches or silences stretched into hours. It simply became one thing or another, and you either flipped it, or waited for it to brown.

I heard keys jiggle with the energy reserved for soap-opera entrances or impatient psycho killers trying to break into a house. Before I could say anything, Sheetal came in — full force, full breath, a smile bright enough to put a ray of sunshine to shame. Her bag skidded across the floor on a careless throw, and she ran to me like a literal puppy. All of a sudden, she grabbed me in a ferocious hug.

“Sharu!” she sang, and before I could even put the ladle down, her arms hooked around my waist and she lifted me clean off the floor. She spun me once — twice — until my hair escaped my bun. “Did you know what happened today? You won’t believe — guess what, guess—”I held on to her shoulders and let her whirl, because that’s what you do when someone ambushes you with happiness: you let them be loud and let their joy sweep you up before you find your balance again. She smelled like the fresh-before-rain and the faint musk of the studio headset.

She had been a little more… clingy these days, in a poking, testing-my-boundaries kind of way. She’d reach for the remote like she had every right to press against my shoulder, pushing me into the sofa. Or she’d lean over me for a spoon and her hair would tickle my ear.

A thousand touches that could have perfectly been accidents, but each landed and stayed like small footprints on my skin. I never called it out, because the first time she pressed against my back while trying to get a better angle in the tiny mirror to comb her hair while I was already in front of it, I had laughed like an idiot and let my face get hot.

The truth is, I liked it. It made my insides feel like they’d been dusted with jaggery.

Sheetal finally set me back on my feet, but before I could steady the dosa again, she wrapped herself around me from behind—chin hooked over my shoulder like she was trying to fuse excitement directly into my spine. I tried to slow my heartbeat enough to look normal, nudging the dosa back to center with the spatula.

“Okay,” I said, aiming for casual and failing a little. “What’s this big news?”

“Guess,” she whispered, sing-song, her breath warm against my ear.

“You… finally got them to admit they don’t just keep you around for your terrible puns?”

She let out  a small breathy laugh, the sound rumbling through me. “Hey!”, she tried to sound offended, but smiled nonetheless. “No. But bigger. Huge!” Her arms tightened in a tiny squeeze. “They want me for an OB at The Chennai Silks. Deepavali show. Live. Actual crowd. Lights everywhere. And me trying not to skid on polished marble and go viral.”

“OB? Chennai Silks?” I squealed, because of course my vocabulary turns to quaint nouns when she’s excited.

“Yes! Outdoor Broadcast. I’ll be in front of a camera, di. I’ll be doing a mini segment about local festivals and all the little traditions — and they want me to wear a saree because you know they think radio girls should be ‘traditionally presentable’.” She rolled her eyes, then reached back to poke my shoulder like a child, making sure I keep up with the excitement.

I slipped the dosa into the hot box and reached for the next ladleful. 

“And the crew?”

“Mostly my friends, Priya and Sush are going to be there. Then you know that drama-queen producer, Malavika and…. Ravi”, she said the last name like it was a small pebble in her shoe. 

“Why do you make his name sound like a ghost movie intro on Sun TV?”

“Dheivame! He’s such a blade, Sharu. Certified rambam. Starts one story, loops through three unrelated ones, comes back and says the same line again like we are all goldfish”. 

I snorted. “Where do you even find these people?”

Sheetal planted her hands on her hips, pretending to roll her eyes, but there was no real irritation in it. “Well, he’s harmless only. Just… noisy. I’ll keep him busy counting cables or something.” She shrugged like this was a perfectly reasonable babysitting strategy.

For a moment we were ridiculous and safe. Then, she did it again. 

Accused: Sheetal Samuel
Victim: Sharini Muthuraman 
Object of interest: Kissan Jam
Crime: Trapping me from behind under false pretense of getting something and raising my heartrate without warning. 

Being the human hazard she is, she leaned towards the shelf to grab a jar of fruit jam I’d left on the top counter. Her toe caught the edge of the kitchen mat, the exact one she’d been warning me about tripping over for weeks. Her heel skidded. She yelped, arms flailing for balance. I caught her elbow, but her momentum pulled us both sideways. Sheetal’s knee knocked into the lower cabinet with an ugly, hollow thunk, followed immediately by her wince. 

“Aiyoo—wait—ow, ow, ow—Sharu—”, she hissed through her teeth. All the teasing left her at once; she suddenly looked small, maybe even a little scared, sinking to her knees more from shock than pain. Her breath came in shaky bursts, and her palm pressed instinctively over her kneecap. The dosa sizzled behind us, forgotten for the moment as I crouched beside her.

Blood bloomed in small spots slowly over her chudidar pants. I reached for her hand before she could pretend to be brave. My mouth had already made the order, “Don’t move”, my voice somehow still calm like this was another everyday mishap. My palm slid under her elbow, steadying her as she sucked in a sharp breath and lifted her leg just enough for me to see the damage. 

Pulling a step stool closer, I made Sheetal sit on it, and gently lifted the fabric up past her knee just enough to see the cut. Luckily it wasn’t too deep, but I’m sure it will sting like hell. 

“Tch, you and your paper-thin skin. Why is it always legs with you?” I muttered, trying to sound casual, as I got up to reach for our little unnofficial first aid pouch, basically a cover with T-bact, cotton and micropore tape. 

She huffed a breath, trying to laugh it off, “Manufacturing defect. Genetic problem… not in my hands”. 

“Clearly.”

I knelt down again beside her, holding onto her stretched leg. Her hands landed on my shoulder for support. I dabbed the cut with cotton, the blood smearing into a stubborn rust-red. Then I squeezed a little bit of the T-bact tube, and applied a thin line over the cut, careful, slow, my thumb anchoring just above the wound to steady her. 

 She inhaled sharply through her nose.

“Sorry—sorry,” I whispered.

“No, you’re… you’re fine. It’s just—cold.” Her voice had softened, gone strange. 

I pressed a clean piece of cotton over the ointment, then smoothed a strip of micropore tape across it.

Her hand, still on my shoulder, tightened—not in pain, but something else. Something warmer. When I looked up, her face was suddenly too close, her eyes which were wet with pain a few moments earlier, were now wide and uncertain, no trace of pain, and doing absolutely nothing to hide whatever flickered there.

The kitchen felt unbearably quiet. Every single thing around us seemed to hold its breath. I didn’t know if or when she shifted, but she was close.

Her fingers pushed some hair out of my eyes, “You always make a fuss of the smallest of things when it is about me”, she said, “I like it.”

“Because someone has to be sensible around here.” I said, an attempt to continue joking around, but the pulse in my throat said another story. She watched me with an odd stillness I hadn’t seen lately.

For one breath, there was no sound but our breathing.

Then, so softly,  she breathed my name: “Sharu.” 

It should have been ordinary. But it felt like an invitation that had been long drafted and never sent. 

Her gaze dropped to my mouth. Once. Quick. Then back up.

My heart thudded so loud I was sure she could hear it. I didn’t move. She didn’t either. My face must have been unreadable because she leaned in, slowly, as if to read it. The space between us thinned, very slowly, but it did, stretched, pulled us in like someone gently tugging two threads closer.

For a wildly dramatic, television-length moment, my heart thought about playing a film of every stupid time we’d been in the same room. I imagined long lists: the mornings we shared tea, the nights she’d held onto me on the scooter as if not to let go, the way her laugh had always been a small, illegal celebration.

Her fingers found the batter on my cheek, a smudge I hadn’t bothered to wipe, and she brushed it off. Her thumb warm against my skin, eyes pouring out something so intense, I had to shift between each one.

Suddenly I felt exposed, like we were too close. Close enough that I could count the freckles that bloomed like a constellation by her nose. Close enough that the smell on her skin made my chest ache with a polite, alarming urgency. 

I had one foot already in the doorway of a decision — to reach, to grab onto that small piece of courage into a movement and close the remaining gap.  

And then somewhere behind us—

Pssssshhhh— something hissed angrily.

A sharp, accusing smell hit the air.

The dosa.

“Oh my god,” I gasped, scrambling to my feet so fast I nearly knocked her over again. “The dosa!” 

Instinctively, I switched off the stove first, grabbed the spatula and rescued what was basically charcoal art from the pan. 

Sheetal jumped up a second later, almost stumbling back as if she’d suddenly touched fire. “I—uh—give me two minutes”, she murmured, quickly paddling away to the bedroom like a baby turtle on its race to the ocean soon after hatching. 

For a moment, I just stood there, steadying my breath, hands gripping the dosa pan handle and spatula like my life depended on them, staring at the burnt dosa. I had no idea what exactly had gone through her mind — only that her eyes had gone wide, her cheeks flushed, and something had shifted insider her too quickly for me to grasp. 

When I had finally collected myself, I scrapped the remains of the dosa into the bin and made another one, this one turning out to be another mishap due to my trembling hands. 

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When she finally came out, we ate without looking at each other. Even the plates felt too loud when we set them down. I could feel the awkwardness like humidity—thick, sticky, unavoidable. I didn’t know what to say, and clearly, neither did she. 

We kept stealing tiny glances at each other – both of us looking away at the exact same time, which only made it worse. 

At some point, we tried to act normal, but whenever one of us tried to speak, the other either coughed or choked on food. 

After we cleaned up, we both drifted to the bedroom far earlier than usual. Staying awake together felt like navigating a room full of tripwires. 

We lay down facing the opposite sides, and by the time, the silence had softened. Behind me, I could feel Sheetal’s breathing — too controlled at first, as if she was trying to pretend she was already asleep. 

But slowly, she loosened. 

Or maybe… maybe she drifted a little closer, the mattress dipped the slightest bit behind me. A quiet, almost hesitant warmth. 

I wasn’t smiling consciously, but I felt the corner of my mouth lifted on its own. 

And at some point just before sleep consumed me, I thought I heard her breathe out a small laugh. 

Neither of us said a word.

Sleep found us anyway.