The night after hearing it from his roommate, he
felt as though the walls were closing in. His chest was heavy, breaths uneven.
Sleep never came—only questions and shadows. By morning, he couldn't bear it
anymore. He sought out Rahul and Riya, the only two people who had always stood
by him.
They were waiting at their usual spot, the old
tea stall with cracked benches and the smell of chai mixing with dust. The
moment they saw his face, both of them knew something was terribly wrong.
Rahul leaned forward. "Bhai, what happened? You look like you've been
dragged through hell."
He sat down heavily, words trembling at his
lips. "I… I need to tell you something."
And then it poured out of him—the ghosting, the
silence, his desperate wait outside her hostel, and finally, the words Sayan
had brought to him. By the end, his voice was barely audible.
Riya's hand flew to her mouth. "She said that?" Shock filled her eyes. "But… you? No.
Never. I know you. This doesn't make sense."
He lowered his gaze. "But if she believes it… if she told someone else… what
am I supposed to do?"
Rahul slammed his fist lightly on the table,
anger flashing. "Bhai, this is wrong. She should've told you directly, not
twisted things like this."
Riya, still shaken, placed a hand gently over
his. "Listen. Maybe it's a misunderstanding. Maybe she felt something you
didn't mean. Or maybe it's intentional. Either way—you can't let this eat you
alive. Talk to her. Clear it up. If it's a misunderstanding, fix it. If it's
intentional…" she sighed, voice softening, "…end it, for your own peace."
Her words cut through the fog in his mind. His heart raced as he pulled out
his phone. His thumb hovered over the call button. Rahul and Riya exchanged a
glance, but neither stopped him.
He pressed it. The line rang once, twice, and
then—
"Hello?"
Her voice. The same voice that had once been
sweetness and comfort, now distant and heavy.
For a moment, he couldn't speak. Too many emotions surged inside him—love,
anger, hurt, betrayal. Finally, he found his voice. "Is it true… what you told
Sayan?"
A pause. Then she answered flatly, "You placed
your hand on my shoulder. I felt uncomfortable."
His breath hitched. His mind reeled back to
that evening—her shyness, the way he had gently stopped her, his hand lingering
for just a second. He had thought it was a tender, harmless gesture. Now it was
something else entirely in her eyes.
He swallowed hard. "If that's how you felt…
you could have told me. You didn't have to ghost me. You didn't have to send
your message through someone else. We… we had something between us, didn't we?"
Her reply came sharp, cold enough to pierce through his chest. "There was
nothing between us. At least… I never said so."
It felt like the ground had split beneath his
feet. All the laughter, the chai in the rain, the poems, the promises—they
collapsed in a single sentence. His hands shook as he held the phone. His
throat burned.
With a trembling voice, he whispered, "Okay…
you said there was nothing between us. Then so be it. From now on… I'm just
your senior, and you're just my junior."
And before his heart
could beg him otherwise, he hung up.
The phone slipped from his fingers onto the table. His chest heaved, his
vision blurred. Around him, people at the tea stall were already staring—the
boy who was always quiet, now breaking apart in front of the world.
Rahul gripped his shoulder. "Bhai, breathe,
please…"
Riya knelt beside him, her voice desperate.
"Don't let her words destroy you. You're not what she says. You're not what she
makes you feel."
But nothing reached him. His world had cracked beyond repair. His chest
ached with a pain words could not describe.
And in that crowded tea stall, beneath the
noise of clinking glasses and murmured conversations, a love story ended—not
with closure, not with dignity, but with silence and brokenness.