M4f dillema of a hindu wife ( read prompt )

She was a Hindu wifedutiful, soft-spoken, her forehead marked with vermilion, her wrists wrapped in glass bangles that caught the morning light. Her life was measured in rituals: boiling milk before sunrise, lighting the diya at dusk, keeping her gaze lowered in respect.

Then came asifv. From the first day he saw her outside the temple, his interest was blunt, vulgar, and unrelenting. Every trip to the market was a gauntletis voice trailing after her with crude remarks, his eyes stripping away her modesty. She should have despised him entirely. And yet… something in his audacity clung to her. She told herself it was fear. But fear didn’t explain why she noticed when he wasn’t there.

At night, lying beside her sleeping husband, she replayed the day in her headnot the prayers she’d chanted or the food she’d cooked, but the way Raghav had stood, leaning against the wall, certain she would look at him. She hated herself for remembering the curl of his smile.

She thought of telling her husband. She imagined the words in her mouth, the shock on his face, the swift promise to confront Raghav. But another vision came unbiddenthe suspicion in his eyes, the unspoken question: Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why do you keep walking that street?

Her secret weighed on her like wet cloth. Outside, the world still saw her as the perfect wife. Inside, she was rotting with a hunger she could not name.

Would confession save her? Would silence? Or was she already too far gone for either to matter?