He looked directly at me then. The same expression he had when I told him about the teacher who made a pass at me in school, or when I asked him what I should study in college. The same face he had five years ago when I promised to stay away from his family. From him. From her. For the rest of my life.

I blinked back tears. I was an idiot for coming. This was too much. I should have stayed away from their home. I should have figured out some other way to stop the wedding. Some other way that didn’t involve me dragging myself and Kaavi’s entire family through all the tears and pain from five years ago.

But something in his face softened when he saw me cry. He could never stand to see me sad. I guess that’s where all his troubles started in the first place.

He started to lift his hand, maybe to touch my arm again, but the door to his study burst open.

“Thaththi!” a little girl screamed, launching herself at Mr. Fonseka and wrapping her arms around his knees. A disheveled nanny followed behind.

“Sorry, sir. Duwagena awa sir ge kata handa ahunama.” She came running when she heard your voice.

But Mr. Fonseka didn’t seem to mind. He picked her up and swung her onto his hip. I was frozen on the spot. He didn’t meet my eye.

“Kohomada mage Nadia patiyata?” How’s my little Nadia doing?

“Thaththi, ada beach ekata yamuda?” Can we go to the beach today, Dad?

I turned toward the window, to give them some privacy. The moment was too tender for me to lurk around, a voyeur to a life that I could never have. It felt hard to breathe.

“Hmm, we’ll see.”

“Thaththa, Amma wanted me to ask you whether I could take the BMW at four? The Merc has been put for a service, and I don’t know if I’ll have it back in—oh! You’re here.” This time it was Tehani who came barging into the study. The Fonseka’s middle daughter, who I’ve never been particularly close to. I don’t think she liked me taking up so much of Kaavi’s, and her family’s, time. I remember once, it was Mr. Fonseka’s birthday and they were meant to do a quiet family dinner. An anomaly, and only because Mrs. Fonseka had just finished throwing a huge gala for Fonseka Jewellers winning some award that year, and everyone was exhausted. Mr. Fonseka had flung his arms around the three of us—Kaavi, Tehani, and me—calling us his three girls and saying this was the best birthday ever, but Tehani had been so sulky when she realized I was coming too. She spent the whole evening glaring at me from behind her phone, and I heard her complaining to Mrs. Fonseka in the bathroom, although they both stopped talking the moment I went in.

And it didn’t feel like anything had changed. She narrowed her perfectly lined eyes at me and put her hands on her tiny waist. She was wearing a crop top, jeans with rips in them, and more makeup than I typically wore in a year. Only the very rich and the very privileged could get away with an outfit like that in Colombo. But now that I’ve had some time away from the Fonsekas, I’ve realized that it must have been hard being Kaavi’s younger sister—being compared to someone so perfect all the time. While Tehani had many of the same physical features as Kaavi, like the same wide eyes and the same full lower lip, they weren’t arranged the same way, somehow. It was like looking at Kaavi through a misshapen glass. Or maybe it was just Tehani’s hardness that always made me feel that way.