My fists were clenched so tight I could feel my nails cutting into my palms.

I stood by the car, paralyzed. Every instinct in my body was screaming at me to get in, start the engine, and drive until the tires melted. But I couldn't move. My feet were lead, anchored to the dirt road by the voice coming from inside the house.

Katha was still walking around in there. I could hear her footsteps—light, deliberate steps on the wooden floorboards.

"Dhruv, it's weird, right?" her voice floated out, laced with a mocking curiosity. "When I came here, I saw some workers leaving. Gardeners. Cleaners."

I stiffened.

"How?" she asked, her voice getting closer to the window. "This house is abandoned, right? The owner of this house... what was her name? Ahh... something like Isha?"

My breath hitched.

"Isha Fernandez, right?"

The name was a blade sliding between my ribs. I hadn't heard that name spoken aloud in twenty years.

"But she's not here," Katha continued, relentless. "No one knows where she is. So who is taking care of this house? You know, Dhruv?"

"I... I don't know," I stammered, staring at the peeling yellow paint. "And I don't want to know."

The footsteps stopped.

"You have to know, Dhruv," she countered sharply. "Cause this property was bought by the Rathore Group. Not just this house, but the area around it."

She paused, letting the silence stretch.

"Weird. You know about it?"

I didn't say anything. I bit the inside of my cheek, tasting blood.

"Hmm," she hummed. "You bought it, right, Dhruv?"

She walked back into my line of sight, standing in the open doorway, leaning against the frame like she owned the place.

"Well, you are a businessman," she said, her eyes boring into mine. "You bought it to sell it at a higher price? Or maybe destroy this old house and build a hotel, a resort, or something?"

She tilted her head. "But why didn't you destroy it till now? It’s been years."

"It's none of your business, Katha," I snapped, my voice cracking. "You don't need to know."

"I don't need to know, Dhruv, cause I know."

She stepped onto the porch. The shadows of the evening were lengthening, casting her in a strange, somber light.

"You keep saying that you hate this place," she whispered, her voice carrying across the yard. "But you still wanted to keep it as it is. You bought the property telling your father that you will make a resort here. You lied to the board. You lied to everyone."

She pointed at the pristine floor behind her.

"There is no resort made here. Why?"

She walked to the edge of the steps.

"Dhruv, you are not lying to me. You are lying to yourself. You never visited this place, I know that. But you also never left this place from your heart."

Her gaze softened, turning into that pity I hated so much.

"How can you destroy it?" she asked softly. "It's your mother's."

"I was going to do it!" I shouted, the lie tearing out of my throat. "But it's not the right time! I will make a resort here. A luxurious one. I will bulldoze this place to the ground cause I hate this house! I hate this!"

My chest heaved. I felt like I was drowning in the humid air.

"Come out of there, Katha," I warned, my voice trembling with rage. "It's my last warning. Now. I will not say anything after that. Assume what you want to, cause I am not answering any of your questions."

I turned around. I grabbed the car door handle and yanked it open.

Leave. Just leave her here.

"Right, Dhruv," Katha’s voice came again, distant and contemplative.

I paused, looking over my shoulder.

She was holding something. A wooden frame.

"This photo looks so old," she murmured, wiping dust off the glass with her thumb. "And if you are going to destroy this house... we should also throw this photo away. It’s trash, right?"

My eyes focused on the object in her hands.

Even from this distance, I knew what it was. It was the only photo we had. Me, sitting on my mother's lap on this very porch, both of us laughing.

"Whose photo is this?" she asked innocently. "In this, it's a beautiful woman and a small kid."

She held it out over the edge of the porch railing. Below was the concrete foundation, hard and unforgiving.

"I should throw it," she decided.

My heart stopped.

"Katha, don't," I whispered.

She let go.

The frame slipped from her fingers.

Time fractured. The world went into slow motion. I saw the wood tumbling through the air. I saw the glass glinting in the dying sunlight. I saw my mother’s face falling toward the concrete.

"NO!"

I didn't think. I didn't breathe. I ran.

I lunged across the distance, my body moving faster than it ever had in my life. I threw myself toward the porch steps.

As the photo neared the ground, I dove. My knees slammed into the dirt, skidding painfully, but my hands shot out.

Thud.

I caught it.

I caught it inches before it smashed against the stone step.

I knelt there in the dust, panting, clutching the frame to my chest like it was a living thing. My heart was hammering so hard I thought it would explode.

I looked at the photo. The glass was intact. Isha was still smiling.

A wave of pure, white-hot adrenaline surged through me.

I scrambled up, gripping the frame in one hand, and stormed up the steps.

Katha was standing there. She hadn't moved.

"Are you fucking out of your mind?" I roared, my voice raw. "How dare you! How dare you throw my mother's photo!"

I grabbed her upper arm, my fingers digging into her skin, squeezing tight enough to bruise. I pulled her close, shaking her.

"Do you even know who she is?" I screamed into her face, my eyes wild. "Do you have any idea what this is?"

I waited for her to flinch. I waited for her to cry, to apologize, to look terrified of the monster she had unleashed.

But Katha didn't cry.

She looked down at my hand gripping her arm, then up at my furious, tear-filled eyes.

And she smiled.

Her smile was the most terrifying thing I had ever seen.

I was gripping her arm hard enough to leave marks. I was screaming in her face, my chest heaving with the violence of my panic. I was holding the evidence of my mother’s existence against my heart like a shield.

And she was smiling.

"Katha..." I breathed, my voice trembling with confusion and rage. "Why are you smiling?"

She didn't pull away. She didn't look at my hand crushing her skin. She looked at the peeling yellow paint behind me.

"Because you are in this house, Dhruv," she whispered. "Your house."

I looked around wildly. The wooden pillars. The red floor. The ocean roaring in the distance. It was a graveyard of memories, and she had forced me to dig up the coffin.

I looked back at her, betrayal turning my blood to ice.

"Katha, you are taking revenge on me, right?" I hissed, releasing her arm as if she burned me.

I took a step back, clutching the photo frame tighter.

"By hurting me?" I asked, my voice breaking. "I was being nice to you till now. I bought you clothes. I drove you here. Why the fuck are you interfering in my life? What problem do you have with me?"

"Interfering in your life?" Katha laughed, but it was a broken, watery sound.

She took a step toward me.

"It was not me, Dhruv," she said, her voice rising with a sudden, fierce intensity. "It was you who brought me into your life. It was not my choice. It was my uncle's greed and your wish."

She poked my chest hard.

"It was never my choice."

The words struck me like a physical blow. She was right. I had bought her. I had dragged her into my mess.

"So you are now taking revenge on me by hurting me like this?" I accused, gesturing to the empty, haunting house. "By taking me back to my past? You think this is a game?"

"I am not taking any revenge on you, Dhruv," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper that carried more weight than a scream. "Cause that's not how I am. It's not what my mother taught me."

She looked at the house, then back at me with eyes that saw too much.

"I am just trying to take you out of the hell you have been living in for all these years."

"Hell?" I scoffed, a tear finally escaping and tracking through the dust on my face. "I live in a palace, Katha. I have the world."

"You have a cage," she corrected softly.

"It's my life!" I shouted, the agony ripping through my throat. "You don't have to care about it! I told you so many times to stay away!"

"So why did you take my life's decision?" she countered instantly. "It was also my life, Dhruv. You signed that contract for me."

She stepped closer, invading my personal space, ignoring the fury radiating off me.

"But you know what? I know that you are not like this," she whispered. "It's just that you were never loved. You always tried to run away from your past because you think you don't deserve the memories."

"Stop analyzing me!" I roared. "You don't know anything!"

I slammed my hand—the bandaged one—against the wooden pillar. The pain shot up my arm, but it was nothing compared to the fire in my soul.

"Do you even know how it feels?" I gasped, looking at her with wild, desperate eyes. "Do you know how it feels to lose your mother at the age of seven and live with relatives who get disgusted by just your existence?"

I choked, the twenty years of silence pouring out.

"For twenty years, Katha... twenty years of walking into a room and seeing people wish you weren't there. It's suffocating. It's a living hell. Do you even know how it feels to be the mistake everyone tolerates but no one wants?"

I waited for her to look away. I waited for her to be horrified by the broken, pathetic man standing in front of her.

Katha didn't look away.

She looked up at me. Her smile was gone, replaced by an adoration so profound it confused me. Her eyes were swimming in tears, mirroring my own.

She reached out.

She placed her hands on my face. Her palms were warm against my cold, tear-stained skin. She cupped my cheeks, forcing me to look at her.

"I know, Dhruv," she whispered, her voice cracking.

I froze.

"My father left me when I was born," she said, a tear slipping down her cheek to land on her thumb stroking my jaw. "Me and my mother, alone against the world. And then... my mother left me in an accident."

She looked deep into my eyes, baring her own soul.

"I lived with my uncle. My mother's own brother. And he treated me like trash. Like a burden he had to feed."

She leaned her forehead against my chest, her hands still holding my face.

"I was the mistake in their house too, Dhruv. I was the girl who owed them for every breath I took."

She looked back up, her eyes fierce and wet.

"Who would know better than me, Dhruv?"

The world stopped spinning.

The rage in my chest evaporated, leaving behind a cold, crushing wave of shame.

I looked at her. Really looked at her.

I saw the girl I had treated as a transaction. I saw the girl I had accused of not understanding pain.

Fuck.

My heart plummeted.

Fuck, Dhruv. How did you forget?

In my arrogance, in my own blinding grief, I had forgotten the most basic truth about my wife. I wasn't the only orphan in this marriage.

She wasn't trying to hurt me. She was the only person on this planet who was bleeding from the exact same wound.