I don't feel love. I know that much. I can't. My heart isn't ready—and maybe it never will be. What I feel is quieter than love, heavier than friendship. And sometimes, when Meera smiles—not at me, but near me—it feels like something long dormant shifts, as if a locked door rattles but doesn't open. I don't step closer. I don't pull away. I just let the moment exist.
One morning, as we pass a painter's stall, she stops. A half-finished woman stares back at us from the canvas. Her face is there, her posture, her outline—but her eyes are missing. Meera studies it for a long time before pointing softly.
"You should complete her."
I ask why.
"Because I think you know how her eyes should look."
I don't answer.
Because I do.
Those eyes belong to someone I loved. Someone I lost.
And somehow… they are beginning to belong to someone standing beside me.
Later that day, I watch from a distance as a man argues with Meera on the bridge. His voice is sharp. Hers is breaking. I don't interfere. Watching isn't weakness—it's calculation. I wait. Eventually, he storms off, leaving her sitting on the cold stone floor, wiping tears into her cardigan sleeve. That's when I start painting again. Not her sadness. Not her collapse. I paint her strength. I paint her smiling, standing tall, sunlight touching her face instead of grief. I paint the version of her she forgets exists.
When I'm done, I fold the paper carefully and hand it to a balloon-selling boy nearby.
"Give this to the girl sitting alone there," I say.
He nods and runs off. I don't stay to watch. Some things don't need witnesses.
That night, in a quiet rented room, Meera opens the folded sheet with trembling hands. Her breath catches—not because she looks beautiful, but because someone saw her beyond the breaking. The painting doesn't explain her pain. It reminds her that she is more than it.
The next day, she returns to the bridge. I'm there again, brushing blue over an old canvas. She stands beside me until I look up.
"Thank you," she says softly. "Not for the painting. For seeing me when I didn't know how to be seen."
I nod. Words feel unnecessary.
She sits beside me, legs dangling over the railing, eyes lost in the mist.
"They say sharing pain reduces it to half," she says.
"Half the pain still stays," I reply, mixing colors.
"Then share it twice," she smiles faintly. "Maybe it disappears."
I finally look at her. "Nice math. But what if the pain is infinite?"
"There are two infinities," she says quietly. "Positive and negative. Put them together… maybe they cancel out. Maybe it becomes zero."
I smirk—not mocking, admiring. "Beautiful theory. But I'm secretive. I don't share easily. Especially with strangers."
She nods, accepting the boundary without hurt. "That's okay," she whispers and stands.
Something in my chest resists. I reach out, catching her wrist gently.
"I might not share mine," I say, voice low. "But maybe I can help carry yours."
She looks at me for a long moment—so long it feels like time pauses. Then she slips her hand away without a word and walks off. I sit there long after, holding her absence carefully. Because even in silence… she shared something.
And later that night, surrounded by laughter that doesn't reach her eyes, I see Meera again—this time under golden lights, among strangers who seem to know her better than I do.
I realize then…
Some silences aren't accidental.
They're protecting truths I'm not ready to hear.