"You okay?" Kairo asked as they walked, voice low so only she could hear.
She shrugged. "Same as always."
He didn't push. He never pushed. He walked beside her, the two of them moving in a rhythm that had been practiced since childhood: a shared silence that said more than words. They had raced each other on cracked sidewalks when they were small, shared mangoes under the guava tree, and learned to keep secrets in the language of glances. Now those glances carried weight.
At school, the day blurred into classes and the hum of fluorescent lights. Vani kept her head down, answered when called, laughed when a joke landed. It was easier to be ordinary in public than to explain the way her home felt like a balancing act. People asked about her mother sometimes-teachers with kind eyes, classmates with idle curiosity. Vani had learned the short answer: She's away. The long answer lived in the quiet between chores and homework.
During lunch, Kairo slid into the bench across from her with a sandwich and a look that said he had been watching the same sky. "You looked tired this morning," he said, handing her half the sandwich.
"Thanks," she said, and for a moment the world narrowed to bread and the warmth of someone who noticed.
"You don't have to do everything," he said, voice careful. "I can help with the clinic run tomorrow. I'll come after my shift."
She almost refused out of habit-pride and the reflex to protect others from her mess-but the thought of one less errand made her shoulders loosen. "Okay," she said. "If you can."
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