Mahi sat stiffly, her hands wrapped around a cup she hadn't touched. Across from her, Nikhil listened as the news audio finished playing on her phone.
Urmila Singh.
Witness.
Her family—gone, all of them gone, under circumstances no one wanted to name out loud.
The moment the audio stopped, Mahi's breath caught.
"It's not just a case," she whispered. "It's a pattern."
Her mind raced ahead—connections, silences, names that kept reappearing. The idea that Urmila was still alive, still willing to testify, made everything feel dangerously close. Like truth itself was being hunted.
Her chest tightened.
Nikhil noticed before she did.
"Mahi," he said quietly.
She shook her head, eyes fixed on the table. "If she testifies… if she says everything she knows… why is she still alive? Why now?"
Her breathing broke apart, uneven and shallow. Her fingers dug into the ceramic cup as if it could anchor her.
Nikhil didn't reach for her. Not anymore. That was a boundary time had drawn between them.
Instead, he leaned forward, voice steady. "Hey. Listen to me."
She didn't respond.
"You're spiraling," he said gently, not accusing. "And I know that look. You used to get it before debates. Before you'd imagine every worst outcome."
Her shoulders shook once.
"I can't—" she started, then stopped, breath hitching again.
"Okay," he said immediately. "Then don't talk. Just breathe."
He placed his palm flat on the table. "Count with me. Not fast. Not perfect."
He inhaled slowly, visibly. Exhaled.
Again.
The familiarity of it—his calm, his refusal to panic with her—slipped past her defenses. Her breaths resisted at first, then reluctantly followed.
"You're here," he said softly. "Not in that story. Not in Urmila's house. Not in the courtroom. Here."
The noise of the café returned. A spoon clinked. Someone laughed too loudly.
Her heartbeat began to slow.
After a long pause, Mahi finally looked up. Her eyes were damp, but clear.
"I hate that it still works," she said quietly.
Nikhil gave a small, sad smile. "I hate that you still need it."
They sat with that truth between them.
After a moment, he glanced past her—toward the college gate, barely visible from where they sat. "Do you remember," he said, carefully changing direction, "when we used to sit there after lectures and invent conspiracies about our professors?"
Despite herself, Mahi scoffed. "You were convinced the dean was hiding something."
"You said every system hides rot," he replied. "I said not every silence is guilt."
She looked at him. "And we broke up arguing about that."
He nodded. "Still arguing."
A quiet beat passed.
"This one feels real," she said. "Urmila feels real."
"She is," Nikhil agreed. "And that's why it scared you."
Mahi exhaled slowly, no longer shaking. "I keep thinking—what if truth always comes with a price?"
Nikhil didn't answer immediately.
"Maybe it does," he said finally. "But panicking won't protect you from it. Thinking clearly might."
She nodded, staring into her cup. "You always grounded me. Even when you stopped loving me."
He met her gaze. "I didn't stop caring. I just stopped being allowed to stay."
The words weren't sharp. Just honest.
Outside, the college bell rang—distant, nostalgic.
For a moment, they weren't ex-lovers or strangers circling an old wound. They were just two people who once learned how to breathe together.
And somehow, even now, that memory still knew how to save her. As we approach towards the car.
The car door shut with a dull thud.
Mahi slid into the passenger seat, the silence inside heavier than the traffic outside. The panic had left her body, but its echo still lingered in her bones. She reached for the seat belt, pulled it across her chest, and let it click into place.
Only then did she speak.
"You know," she said, staring straight ahead through the windshield, "after everything…"
Nikhil's hands froze on the steering wheel.
She didn't look at him.
"You still chose to cheat on me."
The words were calm. Too calm.
Nikhil inhaled sharply, as if the air had suddenly thinned. "Mahi—"
"That night," she continued, voice steady but distant, "the party. When I was looking for you."
Her mind slipped backward without permission.
The music had been loud. The lights uneven. She had been weaving through people, calling his name, smiling at strangers who didn't matter. That's when she saw them.
Nikhil standing near the car. Khushi beside him.
Khushi—who had always looked at Mahi like she was something unfair. Who laughed too loudly whenever Nikhil entered a room. Who noticed everything.
"I saw her notice me," Mahi said quietly. "The moment she realized I was searching for you."
Nikhil swallowed. He remembered now. Too clearly.
"She stepped closer to you," Mahi went on. "Said something I couldn't hear."
Nikhil's voice finally broke through. "I didn't—"
"She grabbed your collar," Mahi said, still not looking at him. "And she kissed you."
The memory burned—not because it was loud, but because it was fast. Sudden. Unasked for. The way Nikhil had stiffened. The way the world had tilted.
"I didn't kiss her back," Nikhil said immediately, turning toward her. "Mahi, I swear—"
"I know," she said.
That made him stop.
"I know you didn't," she continued. "But you didn't push her away fast enough for it to not break something."
Her fingers tightened briefly around the seat belt strap.
"You stood there," she said. "Stunned. Silent. And by the time you moved, it was already done."
Nikhil's voice was low now. "I was shocked. I didn't expect—"
"I wasn't angry at first," Mahi admitted. "I was humiliated. Because she wanted me to see it. And I did."
The car hummed quietly around them.
"I never accused you that night," she said. "I just… started leaving."
Nikhil leaned back, closing his eyes for a moment. "I should have run after you."
"Yes," she said simply. "You should have."
He opened his eyes. "But calling it cheating—"
"That's how it felt," Mahi said finally turning to him. "Because you didn't choose her. But you didn't choose me either. Not loudly enough."
The words settled between them.
"I didn't betray you," he said softly.
"No," she replied. "But you didn't protect us."
Silence returned—not angry, not sharp. Just tired.
Outside, a car passed, headlights washing over their faces for a brief second—two people caught between what happened and what was misunderstood.
Nikhil rested his forehead against the steering wheel. "I wish you had asked me."
Mahi looked ahead again. "I wish you had given me nothing to ask about."
The car was still.
"Mahi… I need you to hear this properly," he said, turning toward her. "Because that night wasn't an accident. It wasn't confusion. It was planned."
She didn't move.
"Khushi planned that party," he continued. "The after-graduation one. Not for celebration. For separation."
Mahi's throat tightened.
"She knew I'd come," he said. "She knew you'd be looking for me. And she knew exactly where to stand so you would see us first."
His hands clenched briefly before relaxing again.
"She had been waiting for months," he admitted. "Watching. Comparing. Hating."
Mahi finally whispered, "She was my best friend."
"I know," Nikhil said quietly. "That's why it worked."
The words cut deeper than anger ever could.
"That night," he went on, "I was near the car, checking my phone. She came up to me like it was normal. Like she belonged there."
He paused, swallowing.
"She said, 'She doesn't deserve you.' I laughed it off. I told her to stop."
Mahi's chest tightened.
"And then," he said, voice dropping, "she grabbed my collar."
Mahi's eyes burned, but she didn't blink.
"She kissed me," Nikhil said. "Suddenly. Forcefully. And she did it knowing you were watching."
His voice cracked for the first time.
"I froze," he admitted. "Not because I wanted it—but because I didn't understand what was happening fast enough to stop it."
He looked at her desperately. "The moment I realized—you were there—I pushed her away."
Mahi remembered it now.
The way Khushi had smiled afterward.
The way she had looked straight at Mahi, unashamed.
"I called your name," Nikhil said. "You had already turned away."
Silence swallowed the car.
"I followed you," he continued, "but you didn't stop. And I thought—maybe you need space. Maybe you don't want to hear excuses."
His voice dropped to a whisper. "So I left."
Mahi's fingers slowly loosened from the seat belt.
Khushi wasn't just jealous.
She wasn't just a stranger.
She was the person Mahi trusted with her secrets.
Her fears.
Her love.
"So all those years," Mahi said softly, almost to herself, "when I thought I was stupid… when I questioned my worth… when I wondered what I missed—"
She laughed once. Empty. Broken.
"It wasn't me," she whispered. "It was a story she wrote."
Nikhil didn't interrupt.
Mahi leaned her forehead against the window. The glass was cold.
"My best friend," she said, voice trembling now. "And the man I loved—caught in a moment that was designed to destroy me."
She closed her eyes.
"And I believed the lie," she finished. "For years."
The car remained still.
Nikhil said nothing—because for once, there was nothing left to explain.
And Mahi sat there, realizing that the past she had blamed herself for
had never been the truth at all.