[Formerly known as 'Trinkets']
Mahika and Amoli can't stand each other, but that's not the only thing they have in common.
Mahika treats Amoli like she's childish. Amoli thinks Mahika is a stuck-up prude. But Mahika's best friend and Amoli's brother...
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The morning sun filters through the gauzy curtains, casting gentle shadows across the bed.
Mahika stirs first. Her eyes flutter open to the quiet hush of the room, turning her head to find Amoli still fast asleep. She's curled slightly towards her, one hand tucked under the pillow, brows relaxed for the first time in hours.
Mahika doesn't move for a moment; just watches her. Notices the faint tear tracks dried on her cheek from the night before with a knot in her chest. Reaches out and brushes a lock of hair off her forehead and resists the urge to press a kiss to her cheekbone in fear that the movement would wake her up.
Carefully, so carefully, Mahika peels the blanket back, and slips out of bed.
She really doesn't want to wake Amoli up. Not when she looks like this.
Her feet touch the cold floor, a shiver running up her spine as she stands. Adjusting her oversized hoodie, she pads into the hallway, yawning silently.
And that's when she hears it.
Voices.
Plural.
She freezes in place.
One is unmistakably her mother's—low, even. Even when she's obviously holding back. But the other...
Mahika's heart feels like it slips from between her ribs and settles in her stomach like cold, hard stone.
It's Amoli's mother.
The voice is like polished steel. Elegant. Hard. Familiar in the worst way.
"—and how exactly is this appropriate?" her voice coils through the air like a whip. "Letting my daughter sleep here without so much as a courtesy call. What kind of message are you sending, Pallavi?"
There's a pause. Not long.
Then, softly, her mother answers.
"That she's safe here."
A longer pause.
Then Amoli's mother scoffs. "Safe? From what, exactly? Her own family? Or is this what you do? Encourage children to run away and what? Play house? Are you just going to indulge... this sort of thing?"
Mahika's mother's voice doesn't rise. It rarely ever does. If anything, right now, it softens.
"What sort of thing?"
That throws Amoli's mother off. The silence that follows is taut, unprepared.
When she answers, her voice is clipped. "Don't play coy with me."
There's still no anger in Mahika's mother's voice when she responds again. Just a kind of quiet persistence that Mahika doesn't think she has ever managed to learn from her. "I'm not. I'm just saying that if you're going to come into my house and start raising your voice at me, I would like to at least know what it is that you're so angry about."
