The terrace was theirs.
It had been theirs for five years — ever since the third time Meera had come to the haveli and Anaya had led her up the narrow back staircase that most guests didn't know about, and they'd sat on the old stone ledge with their feet dangling and watched the city below and talked until they'd lost track of what time it was. After that it had simply become the place. When things were complicated or heavy or when they just needed to be somewhere that wasn't a room, they came up here.
Tonight the city was laid out below them, all amber and white, and the sounds of the haveli had faded to a comfortable murmur. The tea had gone cold, which neither of them had gotten around to mentioning. Anaya was sitting cross-legged beside her with that quality she had of being completely present — not distracted, not managing something else in her head, just here.
This was one of Anaya's gifts. She made you feel heard before you had even spoken.
Meera had been trying to figure out how to start for twenty minutes. She watched the city and thought about starting points and kept not finding one.
"You don't have to figure out how to say it," Anaya said.
"I wasn't—"
"You were doing the thing where you sit very still and look like you're solving a problem. You've been doing it since dinner."
Meera exhaled. "I'm scared," she said. Just that. Three words, dropped into the air between them.
Anaya waited.
"Not of the wedding," Meera clarified. "Not of — the family, or the house, or any of it. I love all of that. I have loved all of that for five years." She pulled her dupatta tighter around her shoulders, even though it wasn't cold. "I'm scared about — him. About spending my whole life next to him and never knowing." She paused. "Whether I'm here because he wants me here. Or because it was — convenient. Logical. The right match, on paper."
Anaya was quiet for a moment. Then: "Tell me what you mean by knowing."
"I mean — I want to know if he sees me." The words came out simpler than she'd expected, and somehow that made them heavier. "Not Anaya's friend. Not the Kapoor girl. Me. If he — looks at me and sees something specific. Something that matters." She stopped. Started again. "I know how that sounds. I know arranged matches aren't supposed to — I know feelings aren't the point, necessarily. I know couples build things after. But—"
"But you've already built something," Anaya said quietly.
Meera looked at her. Anaya's face was even, careful, giving nothing away — but she'd said it with the tone of someone who understood the exact shape of what they were describing.
"I've been in love with him for five years," Meera said. She'd said it to Anaya before, obliquely, in the roundabout language of people who are not quite ready to be direct about their most important things. But she was saying it now without the oblique, just plainly, and it felt like setting something down that had been heavy for a long time. "I have tried very hard not to be, because it was inconvenient and a little embarrassing and — because I couldn't tell if it was returned. And I can survive an arranged match with no feelings involved, I can build something from nothing, I know how to do that. But what I can't do — I don't think I can do — is spend my entire life in the same house as him wondering." She exhaled. "Is that — am I being—"
"No," Anaya said.
The single word, very firm. Meera felt something ease slightly.
"You're not being unreasonable. Or overdramatic." Anaya looked out at the city. "You're saying that you want to be chosen. That's not a small thing."
"It feels small. When I say it out loud it sounds—"
"It's not small." Anaya's voice was quiet but absolute. "Wanting to be chosen by the person you're going to spend your life with is not a small want. It's the whole thing."
Meera was quiet. The city hummed below them.
"Can I ask you something?" Anaya said after a moment.
"Yes."
"Has anything happened — in the last few days, since you've been here — that felt like he doesn't see you? Specifically." She paused. "Not the absence of something. Something that actually felt like absence."
Meera thought about it honestly. Dinner, where he hadn't looked at her. The courtyard, where he'd walked past. The way he'd managed the household without seeming to register her presence.
"He doesn't—" she started. "He doesn't look at me, is the thing. Most people, when someone enters a room — there's a reflex. A glance. He just — I'm not in his field of vision. I don't register."
Anaya was quiet for a long moment. Long enough that Meera looked over at her.
Anaya was looking at the city with an expression that Meera couldn't quite read. Careful. Working something out.
"Veer doesn't do anything without a reason," she said finally. "Not anything. The way he talks to people, the things he notices, the things he — doesn't appear to notice." She glanced at Meera, brief and direct. "Including being oblivious."
Meera stared at her. "What does that mean?"
"It means exactly what it means."
"Anaya—"
"I can't say more than that." Her voice was gentle but final. "It's not my thing to say. But think about what I said. About reasons."
They sat in silence for a moment. The city continued its amber murmur below them.
"I wish he would just—" Meera started, and then stopped.
"I know," Anaya said.
"Say something. Anything. Even—"
"I know."
Meera exhaled. "Is the tea cold?"
Anaya picked up her cup, took a sip, and set it down. "Completely undrinkable."
"Great." Meera picked up hers and drank it cold because she needed something to do with her hands. "Nine more days."
"Nine more days," Anaya agreed.
They stayed on the terrace until the city started to go quiet, and Meera turned over Anaya's words the way you turned over something you'd found that might be important — not sure yet what it was, but not ready to put it down.