[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 silence in the house is the worst part.
It hums low beneath the ticking of the old hallway clock and the muffled sound of the city outside. It clings to the walls. To the corners of the room. To the uneven rhythm of Amoli's breath as she stands stiffly beside her older brother.
The air is too still.
Arnav is sitting across from them with his elbows on his knees, hands loosely clasped, eyes fixed on the floor.
Akash is straighter, more composed, but there's something storm-like coiled in his shoulders. He hasn't said anything yet. Not really. Just a few quiet words to Amoli when he came to pick her and her mother up from Mahika's house.
Her mother is at the far end of the room, fiddling with the edges of a folded napkin, smoothing it, wrinkling it, then smoothing it again on the coffee table she hasn't sat at. Her back is half-turned, like she's not sure if she wants to be part of the room or apart from it.
Amoli's fingers dig into the back of the couch. She can feel the scratchy weave of the fabric beneath her nails, and it's the only thing tethering her to this moment.
She can't bring herself to look at her mother. Not yet. Not while the echo of her voice still lives in her spine.
Temptation.
The word has been festering.
It's been festering and it's almost a bruise now, spreading slow and dark and quiet under her skin.
Amoli doesn't move. Doesn't speak. The silence, too, feels like a living thing now. Thick and pulsing, curling around her throat like a hand. And she's afraid that if she opens her mouth, it'll all come pouring out; her rage, her sorrow over what her mother did at Mahika's place today.
What she said to Mahika's mother.
The way she outed the both of them before they were ready.
The way she outed Mahika to her mother like that.
Arnav shifts in his seat, the leather creaking beneath him. He lifts his eyes for a second, catches Amoli's, and gives her a look. It's soft. It's steady. A quiet offering. She holds it for a moment, then looks away.
Her throat feels raw.
The silence in the Dixit household, she thinks, has always had teeth.
It's not just heavy. It's dangerous. It's a thing she's been taught to fear since childhood. It's always come before something sharp; a lecture. A punishment. Disappointment.
Her father isn't even here, but his absence doesn't ease the pressure. If anything, it deepens it.
He's the one that taught their mother how to wield that silence like a blade.
