Page 88 of Scars and Crowns

"You lost theatrically." I don't bother arguing.

Her laugh is worth losing every game in the country. We wander from one stall to another after that. No destination. No plan. Just following whichever direction seems interesting next.

Somewhere along the way, almost without either of us noticing, her shoulders begin to relax. The constant glances toward her phone grow farther apart. Her smile arrives more easily now, without me having to work for it.

At some point, our hands find each other. Neither of us says anything. Our fingers simply lace together as though they've remembered something before the rest of us did. I spend more time watching her than I do watching the fair. Watching the way she throws herself into little moments once she finally gives herself permission to enjoy them.

There's nothing restrained about her happiness. When she laughs, she laughs completely. When she plays, she forgets to be careful.

For a little while, I catch flashes of the girl who used to climb trees higher than anyone thought she should, never once worrying about how she'd get back down until she was already sitting on the highest branch.

And underneath all of that, another thought settles quietly inside me. One that refuses to leave.

She did all of it alone. Every fever. Every scraped knee. Every sleepless night. Every moment of panic when Sara wasn't feeling well.Every decision that had to be made by one frightened parent pretending not to be frightened at all.

There was never anyone beside her asking, What do you need?

No one telling her they'd stay awake so she could sleep. No one insisting she take thirty minutes for herself while someone else carried the worry. Just her. For seven years.

Seven years of being the only adult in every crisis. The only person holding everything together. And somehow she carried it so quietly that most people probably never realised how heavy it actually was.

I watch her miss another shot as she aims for the elephant plushie before laughing at herself under her breath.

Something settles inside me with complete certainty. That part ends now. Not the worrying. I'd never ask her to love Sara any less fiercely than she already does. But the loneliness of carrying it all by herself . . . That has to end. I told her once that if she was falling, she should let me catch her. I meant every word. Not only on the frightening days. Not only when doctors are standing in the room.

On ordinary afternoons too. On noisy fairs. On ring tosses. On half hours that don't seem important until you realise they are.

We pass a stall selling fried chilli fritters near the edge of the fairgrounds. Without thinking too much about it, I stop. I buy a small paper cone and turn toward her, holding it out. She looks from the fritters to my face, clearly puzzled. Her gaze drops briefly to the small leather purse I've been carrying since we left the estate—the one I'd insisted on bringing myself instead of leaving with the driver.

She stares at it a bit longer as though she can’t believe what she’s seeing, “Why?” She whispers.

I don't answer straight away. I simply look at her for a moment, waiting to see if she'll ask again.

A familiar warmth settles quietly beneath my ribs. There is something strangely intimate about remembering a person's favourite fair snack after so many years. About handing it to her without needing to ask. And about carrying something far more precious than a paper cone of fritters inside that little leather purse, something that has travelled with me for years without either of us ever speaking of it aloud.

PHOTOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE

ANAMIKA

I spot it completely by accident.

Yuvaan opens his wallet to pay the man selling chilli fritters, pulling out a few folded notes with the absent ease of someone who's done it a thousand times. The leather opens just a little wider than he intends, and my gaze catches on what most people would tuck away behind their licence or an old receipt.

Photographs.

It's an idle glance at first. A simple flicker of curiosity about what someone like him keeps in his wallet. Then my feet stop moving. My breath catches somewhere in my throat. On one side is a photograph of me.

Not the woman I am now. Twelve . . . maybe thirteen years old. I'm sitting cross-legged on the palace ramparts with both hands full of daisies, my head thrown back in laughter. One of my front teeth is missing, leaving the most ridiculous little gap whenever I smile. My hair is escaping two uneven braids, and I look . . . happy. Entirely, carelessly happy.

The second photograph steals the rest of the air from my lungs.

It's us.

My eighteenth birthday.

I know that photograph instantly.

He's standing beside me with one arm resting loosely around my shoulders, both of us laughing at something outside the frame. Three days after that photograph was taken, he'd stood with me at the railway station and slipped a silver chain into my hand before I boarded the train.