The night felt too still.Even the air seemed to hang heavier than usual, like the city was holding its breath, waiting for something that would never come. Dhruve walked home without checking his phone, without a destination in mind, his footsteps echoing against the empty street.
He kept replaying her voice in his head — "I still think about you. Every damn day."It was funny how a single sentence could both hurt and comfort you at the same time.
He had imagined that meeting a thousand times in his head. Sometimes he'd scream at her, sometimes he'd walk away like a ghost, sometimes he'd say nothing at all. But reality was quieter, slower — it didn't explode, it just cracked somewhere deep inside him.
By the time he reached his apartment, it was past midnight. The city outside was alive in fragments — a distant siren, laughter from a balcony, a dog barking somewhere in the alley. But inside, it was just him.
He tossed his keys onto the table and slumped onto the couch. The silence was unbearable.
"Fuck…" he muttered under his breath, rubbing his face.
He hadn't cried. Not when he saw her. Not when she said sorry. Not when she looked like a stranger sitting across from him. But now, in the half-darkness of his living room, with the smell of stale coffee and his unmade bed staring at him, the tears finally came. Quietly, like a leak he couldn't stop.
He didn't sob or shout. He just sat there, letting it happen, his chest tight, his vision blurring.
This wasn't love anymore. It was grief — the kind that doesn't announce itself, just shows up one night and refuses to leave.
He laughed weakly through the tears. "You pathetic idiot," he told himself. "You still love her, don't you?"
He didn't know the answer. Maybe love doesn't vanish; maybe it just changes shape — from warmth to pain, from longing to resentment.
The clock ticked louder than usual. He stared at the ceiling. "What the hell do I even do now?"
His phone buzzed on the table. For a second, his heart jumped — maybe Anya, maybe someone else, anything to distract him. But it was an unknown number. He didn't open it. Probably spam, he thought. Or fate playing one more stupid joke.
He went to the bathroom, splashed water on his face. The mirror didn't lie — the dark circles, the tired eyes, the faint stubble that made him look older than thirty. The kind of face that had seen too much and felt too little.
For the first time, he said it out loud: "It's over."
And it sounded real this time.
He sat back down and stared at his old wedding photo on the shelf. He had meant to throw it away months ago but never could. Tonight, he finally stood up, took it down, and placed it face down on the table.
Not destroyed. Just no longer displayed.
His chest still ached, but there was a strange lightness mixed with the pain — like breathing after holding it for too long.
He opened a beer, sat by the window, and watched the city lights blur. Somewhere far away, thunder rolled.
He thought about what she said — about loneliness, distance, mistakes. Maybe she wasn't lying. Maybe both of them had broken something they didn't know how to fix. He wasn't blameless either.
Still, he couldn't forgive her. Not yet. Maybe not ever. But he could stop bleeding from the same wound every day.
He exhaled, long and slow. "I think that's enough for tonight."
Outside, a light drizzle began, tapping against the glass softly, almost like a lullaby. He leaned back, eyes half-closed.
And in that fragile, tired moment, he realized something he hadn't before — that revenge didn't fill the void. That anger had its limits. You can hurt others, you can destroy, but none of it heals you.
Healing, he thought bitterly, was the hardest kind of revenge.
He whispered, half to himself, "Tomorrow, I start over. No more ghosts."
But deep down, he knew ghosts don't disappear. They just follow quietly, waiting for the next time you look back.
Still, for the first time in months, he fell asleep without the taste of hate in his mouth.
And that small, fragile peace — it wasn't forgiveness, but maybe it was the start of something close.