Diyas Still Burning

The diyas are still burning. Five of them, in a row along the shelf below the gods — Lakshmi in the center, brass and patient, the small flames pulling at nothing because there is no wind in here, no draft, just the smell of ghee and the incense that someone burned this morning and that still lives in the curtains. Priya closed the door behind her. She knew what she was doing when she turned the handle.

The lehenga weighs what it always weighs — the full skirt, the embroidered hem stiff enough to hold its shape even now, hours into the night, even with her sitting on the floor with her back against the cabinet below the shelf. The silk underskirt has warmed to her skin. The hook-and-eye at her waist is pressing in the way it has been pressing since she sat through the second hour of the reception, aware of where he was standing, aware of him watching her across the mandap with an expression she recognized and had not wanted to recognize.

She had not looked back. She had looked at the bride.

She looks at Lakshmi now. The goddess does not look away.

The heat is already there — her own, collected in the layers of silk and embroidery through four hours of standing and eating and smiling at people who asked if she was seeing anyone. The warmth is not new. What is new is that she is acknowledging it. She breathes in through her nose and the incense comes with it, old smoke, and the exhale unrolls out of her longer than she meant, audible in the small room, and she holds very still after it, listening to whether anyone heard.

Distant music. A dhol, someone's playlist, coming through two walls and a hallway. Nothing closer.

Her right hand is in her lap. The embroidery of the hem presses against the back of her wrist, rough and specific, and she is aware of the hand the way she is aware of something she has already decided about. The other hand is flat against the floor beside her hip, palm down, the tile cool through her palm. She can feel the contrast — cool tile, warm silk, her own warmth beneath the silk. The crease where her thigh meets her hip has been aching in a low, patient way since the moment she saw him.

She did not come in here to pray.

She chose this room. She is choosing it again, now, with her right hand resting on the embroidered hem and the gods watching from the shelf and the diyas burning their low, unwavering light across everything she is about to do.

Her hand does not move yet.

The moment before it moves is its own thing — she sits inside it, her thighs together under the weight of the skirt, the heat of herself pressed between them, and she breathes once more, slowly, the incense again, and something tightens low in her stomach that has nothing to do with guilt.

The flames do not flicker. They hold.