It came out on a Tuesday.

Not dramatically. Not with shouting or tears or slammed doors.

With a letter.

Aashi had written Mehera a note—one of their secret notes, passed between books and under doors and hidden in flower pots—and Arjun found it.

He was looking for a book in Aashi's room. The note fell out.

I dream about your hands. The way they hold mine. The way they hold me. I dream about you, Mehera. Every night. — A

Arjun sat on the bed for a very long time.

He came to Mehera's office at 10 PM.

Mehera was working. Papers spread across the desk. Reading glasses perched on her nose.

"Didi," Arjun said.

He looked... broken. Not angry. Not violent. Just broken.

"Arjun?" Mehera removed her glasses. "What's wrong? Is it Maa?"

"It's Aashi."

Mehera's blood turned to ice.

He placed the note on her desk.

Mehera stared at it.

"How long?" Arjun asked. His voice was hollow.

"Arjun—"

"How long, Mehera?"

She couldn't lie to him. She'd done many things, but she'd never lied to her brother.

"Since the kitchen," she said quietly. "When she burned herself making gulab jamun for my birthday."

Arjun closed his eyes.

"I failed her," he said. "As a husband. I know I did. I was never... present. I was never what she needed."

"Arjun—"

"But you? My own sister?"

"I didn't plan this. I fought it. Every day, I fought it."

"And you couldn't stop?"

Mehera looked him in the eye. "Could you stop breathing?"

Silence.

Then—unexpectedly—Arjun laughed. A bitter, exhausted laugh.

"She deserves to be happy," he said. "More than anyone I've ever known. She deserves the world." He looked at Mehera. "Can you give her that?"

"I can try."

"In secret? In shadows? For how long? Ten years? Twenty?"

Mehera had no answer.

"I'll give her a divorce," Arjun said.

Mehera's head snapped up. "What?"

"I'll give her a divorce. Quietly. We'll say it was mutual. Incompatibility. No one needs to know the real reason."

"And the family?"

"I'll handle the family."

"Arjun, you don't have to—"

Arjun, you don't have to—"

"You're my sister, Mehera. You've carried this family for years. You've sacrificed everything for us. You never asked for anything." He stood. "I'm not going to be the reason you can't have this."

"Arjun..."

He paused at the door.

"Take care of her, didi. She's... she's special."

"I know she is."

He left.

Mehera sat alone in her office and cried for the second time in her adult life.

The first time had been when Aashi said "I love you too