Then I saw him.

Advik. Across the room. In a corner booth I hadn't bothered to check.

He wasn't alone.

She was clinging to his arm like she owned it, her body pressed against his side, her head tipped back in laughter at something he'd said. And he was letting her. He wasn't pulling away. He wasn't scowling. He wasn't looking at her like she was something he'd scraped off his shoe.

If I so much as brushed his hand, he used to jerk away like I'd burned him. He only ever touched me when he was furious — grabbing my wrist, dragging me out of rooms, his grip tight enough to leave marks. Never gentle. Never willing. Never like that .

A strange, reckless heat surged through my chest. It tasted like copper. Like anger. Like something far more humiliating that I refused to name.

I reached across the table and took Sahil's hand.

Laced our fingers together. Held on too tight.

I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know why. But my skin felt too small for my body, and suddenly Sahil's palm against mine was the only thing keeping me from doing something worse.

Advik's eyes found me.

It wasn't gradual. It wasn't a glance that happened to wander. His head turned like he'd felt the weight of my stare across the room, and when his gaze locked on mine — on our joined hands — everything in his face went still.

The look he gave me was dark. Sharp. Something dangerous flickering beneath the surface like a blade catching light.

It made me shiver down to my bones.

I forced myself to look away. Focused on Sahil. His jokes. His words. The easy warmth of his smile. I laughed at something he said, and it sounded too bright, too loud, like glass breaking in an empty room.

After we finished eating, I excused myself to the restroom. My hands were shaking. I pressed them flat against the sink and stared at my reflection — flushed cheeks, too-bright eyes, a stranger looking back at me.

The door swung open.

The girl — the one draped over Advik — walked in. She leaned against the sink beside me, studying my face in the mirror with a curious, almost pitying smile.

"You're Advik's sister, right?"

Sister.

No. I wasn't.

Did he tell everyone that? Did he look at me — after everything, after the way he'd held my hand in detention, after the way he'd looked at me across this diner — and see nothing but his father's friend's daughter?

The word settled heavy and cold in my chest. Like a stone dropped into still water.

"Not by birth," I heard myself say. My voice sounded thin. Hollow. Far away. "But yes... I think so."

I heard the sadness in it. I hated that I heard it.

If that was all I was to him — if that was all I would ever be — then I should accept it. Move on. Let him have his girlfriend and his corner booth and his easy laughter.

She straightened, her smile widening, triumphant. "Oh! I'm his girlfriend."

She said it like a trophy she'd just won. Like she'd been waiting to polish it in front of me. She lifted her hand for a handshake, and something caught the fluorescent light — a ring, small and silver, glinting sharp against her skin.

I forced myself to take her hand. My fingers felt limp. Unresponsive. Dead.

"Good to know," I said. The words tasted like ash. "Come to our place sometime. We can talk there."

It came out before I could stop it. A lie dressed as politeness. A wound dressed as an invitation.

She was already turning away, her mission accomplished, her reflection disappearing through the door. "Yes," she called back. "I'd love to."

I stayed at the sink long after she left, staring at my own hands — the hands Advik had held just hours ago — and tried to remember why I'd ever thought his violence was the honest thing.

Because this? This felt like the real violence. The kind that didn't leave bruises.

I went back to Sahil. He was at the counter, paying the bill.

He had always been a gentleman — paying, caring, making sure I was comfortable. But right now, standing in the harsh glow of the diner's neon, his kindness felt like a sweater two sizes too small. Warm, yes. But suffocating. We were in the talking stage. Nothing defined. Nothing certain. I didn't even know if I was his friend or something he was trying on for size. It felt like too much, too soon, and I was the only one suffocating under the weight of it.

I reached out, wrapping my arm around his shoulder, leaning in to tell him I was ready to leave.

My hand was snatched away.

Advik.

I hadn't heard him approach. I hadn't felt the shift in the air. But there he was, his fingers wrapped around my wrist, his body angled between mine and Sahil's like a wall that had grown up from the floorboards.

"Your father is asking about you," he said. His voice was quiet. Too quiet. "He told me to take you home."

Sahil stepped forward. "I could do that."

Advik didn't look at him. Not once. His eyes stayed locked on mine, dark and flat and utterly immovable. "She's my responsibility. And I don't ignore my responsibilities."

Then he dragged me.

His grip was iron-tight around my wrist, pulling me through the crowded restaurant like I was luggage he had already claimed. Bodies blurred past. Someone's elbow caught my shoulder. I stumbled, but he didn't slow down. He never slowed down.

"Advik, leave me!" I tried to dig my heels into the tile, but he was stronger, always stronger, and my resistance only made his fingers bite deeper.