The first time I looked at myself and didn't recognize my reflection, I thought it was the lighting.The second time, I realized it wasn't.
There was something different in my eyes — something colder, sharper.It wasn't pain anymore; it was awareness.
You can lie to everyone, but not to your reflection.The mirror doesn't flatter. It doesn't forgive.
I stood in front of it that morning, still shirtless, coffee in one hand, exhaustion in the other.The man staring back had everything under control — perfect posture, calm gaze, faint smirk.But that calm? It wasn't peace. It was precision.
I touched the mirror, ran my fingers across the glass."Who the hell are you?" I muttered.
The reflection didn't answer — it just stared back like it knew something I didn't.
Later that day, Nisha came over with breakfast. She had this warm energy that filled the silence of my apartment, like she was trying to convince the walls to smile again.
"You should eat something real," she said, placing the box on the table."You mean not coffee?"
She laughed. "Exactly."
I smiled, pretending it reached my eyes.
As she unpacked the food, I caught her watching me — not with affection, but with worry.Like she was trying to read between my words, decode the silence I wrapped myself in.
"You've changed," she said finally.
"How?"
"You don't… react. You don't get angry, don't get happy, don't even flinch when someone hurts you."
I leaned back, exhaling slowly. "That's called emotional maturity."
"No," she said quietly. "That's numbness."
Her words stung because they were true.Somewhere between revenge and regret, I had killed the part of me that could still feel deeply.Now I just observed emotions like a scientist — detached, analytical, safe.
When she left, I didn't stop her. I didn't even walk her to the door.I just sat there, listening to the echo of the latch clicking shut.
It was strange — the apartment used to feel empty when I was alone.Now it felt peaceful.
Maybe that's what damage does to you — it replaces the need for people with the illusion of control.
That evening, I opened the drawer where I kept my old phone — the one from before everything.The cracked screen still had a faint reflection, ghostly but familiar.It felt like looking into another timeline — one where I hadn't seen what I saw, hadn't done what I did.
I remembered Mira's voice. The way she used to say, "Welcome home, stranger."It used to sound like love.Now it just sounded like irony.
I scrolled through old photos.Us laughing in Goa.Her sleeping on the couch.The dinner table where everything ended.
Then, without realizing it, I whispered her name.And for a moment, I felt that sting of nostalgia — brief, cruel, beautiful.
That's when I realized something horrifying:I missed the version of me that existed before her betrayal.Not her. Just me.
But that man was gone.I'd buried him under layers of pride, revenge, and cynicism.
Later, I met Nisha again at the café. She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes either."I missed you," she said softly.
"Did you?"
She nodded, then added, "But I don't think you miss anyone. Not even yourself."
I looked at her for a long moment."You think too much," I said.
"Maybe," she whispered. "But I think you feel too little."
On the walk home, her words stayed with me.And when I passed by a store window, I caught my reflection again — tall, composed, dangerous.The kind of man people trusted in conversation and feared in silence.
But there was something else in that reflection too — something that looked a lot like Reya.Her smirk. Her poise. Her calm cruelty.She'd infected my gestures, my tone, even my stillness.
It wasn't that I'd escaped her — I had become her.
Back in my apartment, I poured a drink and raised it toward the mirror."To you," I said, to the stranger staring back. "To the monster you made me. And the monster I chose to be."
The reflection smiled.And I smiled back.
Because maybe this wasn't about redemption anymore.Maybe this was about acceptance —Of who I was,Of what I'd done,And of how far I'd go to never be weak again.