His Uncommitted Sin

The Kiss of Defiance

Leap of 4 years......

Author's POV:

Kanvi lay beside him, her breath steady, her face serene in sleep, except for the faint tear stains on her cheeks. Vihaan's fingers traced feather-light circles on her bare shoulder, his touch very soft, as if seeking forgiveness she hadn't yet given. His heart ached at the evidence of her sorrow, the memory of her tears fresh and raw.

He leaned in, pressing a soft kiss to her cheek, tasting the salt lingering on her skin. Then, quietly, he slipped out of bed, his naked body bathed in the dim glow seeping through the curtains. The air was heavy, thick with unsaid words and the remains of emotions neither had fully unraveled. The tension in the room was a living thing, hovering, stretching, waiting.

As he padded to the washroom, the silence wasn't peaceful, it was loaded, like a gun with the safety off. If you want to understand why, you need to go back an hour.

To the words spoken in the dark.
To the confessions that cut deep.
To the moment she broke.
And the moment he almost did.

The iPad lay beside her, the screen glowing softly in the dimly lit room. Kanvi stared at the image of Yayin's daughter, her niece, who had just turned three. A child so full of life, with cherubic cheeks and bright, inquisitive eyes. She looked utterly adorable. Perfect.

And Kanvi?

Kanvi was anything but.

Her fingers trembled as she reached out, tracing the outline of the little girl's smile on the screen. A fresh wave of grief swallowed her whole, silent but merciless. Her chest tightened, a familiar ache pressing against her ribs, like a wound that never quite closed. It had been four years, four years of knowing, four years of pretending she was fine, four years of drowning while everyone around her tried to keep her afloat.

Her body curled in on itself, knees drawn close, as if she could make herself smaller. Invisible. Her damp lashes fluttered shut, but the image of the child was burned into the darkness behind her eyes. The child she would never have. The void that nothing, not time, not outings, not forced happiness could ever fill.

Vihaan shut the bedroom door behind him, his face unreadable. The night air still clung to his skin, the scent of cake, laughter, and children's giggles lingering in his mind like a cruel reminder. Kanvi's niece's birthday had been beautiful, filled with warmth, joy, the kind of innocent happiness that came so easily to a child.

And yet, as he stood in their dimly lit bedroom, the contrast was jarring.

He took one look at her, at the lifeless way she lay against the pillows, her breath shallow, her skin too pale, her eyes red-rimmed and swollen from yet another bout of quiet, relentless crying and something inside him cracked.

It had been years, and still, she carried this grief like a second skin. Still, she lived between the weight of expectations and the crushing reality of what she had lost before she even had it.

His mother visited often, hovering over Kanvi with care that bordered on suffocation. Her family wouldn't let her put a single foot on the ground, treating her like something fragile, something breakable. Cycling, road trips, forced laughter, they tried it all. But no one understood that she wasn't healing.

She was surviving.

And that, too, felt exhausting.

When her family or his came around, she carried the facade well. She smiled, nodded at their reassurances, let them believe she was doing better. But the moment they left, the moment she was alone, the weight of her reality pulled her back under.