Rancy stood by the frosted window, fingers wrapped around a mug of masala chai, watching delicate snowflakes melt against the glass. It had been three months since she moved to Ottawa from Kochi. The city, white and sprawling, felt like a blank canvas — or a test she hadn’t studied for.
Nick, her husband of two years, was kind, soft-spoken, and relentlessly structured. An analyst by day and a Netflix documentary buff by night, he kept their apartment warm and their routines warmer. But routine was precisely what began to feel like a gentle cage.
The apartment next door had been empty when she arrived. That changed the day Prince moved in.
He was everything Ottawa wasn’t — sun-drenched, unruly, loud in his laughter and casual in his charm. Their first conversation happened over shared groceries in the hallway. The second, over wine. The third — over a song she hadn’t heard since college.
The first time they crossed the line, it wasn’t planned. Rancy had been helping Prince unpack a box of old vinyls. Music floated between them, low and heady, as a storm raged outside. He reached for her hand to show her a record sleeve, and she didn’t let go. Her breath hitched as his fingers trailed her wrist. A look passed — questioning, loaded, unspoken — and then they kissed, deeply, hungrily. It wasn’t just physical; it was release, a gasp after years of holding her breath. They tumbled back onto the couch, intoxicated by desire and by the idea that someone finally saw her.
She hadn’t realized she was starving — not for love, but for attention, spontaneity, a mirror that showed her more than "wife."
The affair began on a Thursday. Snow fell in sheets. Prince kissed her as if they were in a film that could never be rewound.
Nick found out the way most men do — not through confrontation, but through intuition. He didn’t rage. He simply sat her down, eyes heavy, and asked, “Do you still love me, Rancy?”
She wept. For her choices. For the honesty. For the way he said her name like it still belonged to him.
“I don’t know what I was looking for,” she whispered.
“I know,” he replied. “But I still see the girl I married. And I want her back — if she wants this too.”
It took time. The second winter in Ottawa was longer than the first. Rancy deleted every message, ended things with Prince, and began again — this time with slower walks, more conversations, and the courage to admit when something felt missing.
Forgiveness, she learned, wasn’t the absence of pain — but the presence of hope.