Twelve Minutes, Borrowed Gold

Twelve minutes. She'd checked twice — once when she slipped away from the table, once when she turned the lock. The clock above the mirror was analogue, white-faced, and it ticked with the particular loudness of a room that had gone quiet around it.

The bhangra was still going. She could feel the bass through the soles of her feet, through the tiles, a low pulse that had nothing to do with what was happening inside her chest.

She hadn't planned this. She never planned it. That was the part she couldn't explain — not to herself, not to anyone — the way her body simply arrived at the decision while her mind was still making small talk about the catering. It had happened at Priya's wedding. At her cousin's mehndi night. At the Solihull reception last October where she'd been seated next to a man she'd never see again and spent the entire starter aware of the specific pressure of the lehenga's waistband sitting just below her navel, the layers of petticoat holding heat against her thighs like something compressed and waiting.

This wasn't hers. That was the other thing. Borrowed from her mother's friend, pinned at the blouse because it was half a size too large, the embroidered hem stiff enough to hold its shape without her in it. She'd been careful with it all evening. She'd been careful with everything.

The fluorescent light above the mirror caught the zardozi work across her chest and made it hard. Gold and sharp. She looked at her own face for a moment — kohl slightly smudged at the outer corner, a woman at a wedding who had excused herself — and then she looked away.

Eleven minutes, now.

She reached down with her right hand, gathering the outer skirt first, then the petticoat beneath it. The fabric resisted. It was designed to be worn, not navigated — three kilos of silk and net and stiff lining that had its own geometry, its own insistence on staying where it had been placed. The back of her wrist grazed the inside of her own thigh and the warmth there surprised her, the way it always did, the specific heat of skin that had been held under weight all evening.

She held still.

Her left hand gripped the edge of the vanity unit. Cold laminate against her palm.

The breath she took in was measured. The one that came out was not — shorter, lower, escaping before she'd decided to release it.

Her knees were still together. The skirt still fell between them, holding its shape, the embroidered border grazing the floor. She was still, technically, contained. Her right hand had stopped moving. It rested against the outer surface of her thigh, fingers not yet curled, the fabric between her palm and her skin like a held note.

The clock ticked.

Ten minutes.

She pressed her palm — just the heel of it — once, through the layers, and the sound that came from somewhere in her throat was not a sound she'd given permission for.

She stayed very still after that. Knees together. Right hand not moving. Waiting to find out what she was going to allow herself.