The next morning, I woke before him. The sunlight filtered softly through the hotel curtains, painting his face in shades of gold. He looked so calm, so untouchable, as though the universe had carved him out of silence and placed him beside me for a fleeting moment.
I wanted to reach out, to trace the line of his jaw, to memorize every feature before reality could take him away. But then, I remembered the whisper from the night before. The name that was not mine.
It echoed in my head like a haunting refrain.Who was she? Why did her name live inside his dreams?
I carried the question silently through breakfast, through the laughter we shared over coffee, through the way he teased me for taking too many photos. He seemed present, genuine, even tender. But the whisper had already planted doubt, and doubt has a way of poisoning even the sweetest moments.
Later that day, as we walked along the shoreline, his hand wrapped around mine, I tried to silence my thoughts. The waves crashed gently, children laughed in the distance, and for a moment I allowed myself to believe in us. Perhaps the whisper had meant nothing. Perhaps it was only a shadow from his past, one that no longer mattered.
But fate has a cruel sense of timing.
That evening, while he showered, his phone buzzed on the nightstand. I told myself not to look. I told myself to respect his privacy. Yet my eyes betrayed me, sliding toward the screen, reading the single line of the message that lit up the room:
"I miss you. When are you coming home?"
My breath caught in my throat. The sender's name matched the whisper I had heard in the night.
I froze, the sound of running water echoing like a warning. My heart wanted to deny it, but the truth had arrived—silent, undeniable, devastating.
I placed the phone back where it was, my hands trembling, my soul screaming. By the time he returned from the shower, smiling, carefree, wrapped in a towel as if nothing had happened, I was already breaking inside.
I smiled back at him.I pretended nothing was wrong.But deep within, something had shifted.
That night, as he kissed me, as his arms wrapped around me, I made a silent vow.
If he was capable of whispering another woman's name while lying next to me, then I was capable of something far greater.
And that was the night I decided to awaken the power I had buried long ago—the path of sukma raga.