Devendra sat by the window, knees pulled close to his chest.
Morning light entered the room, but it felt useless—like it didn't know where to land. The walls were quiet now. Too quiet. The girl was gone, yet her absence was not relief. It was pressure. A weight that pressed from the inside.
His mother watched from the doorway.
She didn't speak.
She had learned that words scared him now.
Devendra's eyes moved, unfocused, following something that wasn't there. His lips parted, but no sound came out. When he finally spoke, it was broken—pieces of sentences that didn't connect.
"I… I was… older yesterday."
Silence.
His mother stepped closer.
"Devendra," she said softly, as if calling him back from underwater. "Do you know what day it is?"
He blinked.
"…No."
The doctor had warned her.
His mind has learned to survive by disconnecting. Time won't feel real to him. Age won't feel real. Even himself won't.
At school, Devendra sat in the last row.
The classroom buzzed with normal life—pens tapping, friends laughing, teachers complaining. None of it reached him fully. Sounds arrived late, distorted, like they had passed through thick glass before touching his ears.
Someone called his name.
"Devendra?"
He didn't respond.
Another student nudged him.
"Hey… you okay?"
Devendra turned slowly. His eyes searched the face in front of him, as if trying to remember how humans spoke.
"I'm… here," he said.
But even as he said it, he wasn't sure.
The chalk screeched on the board.
That sound made his head jerk violently.
For a second—just a second—the laughter returned.
Not real. Not outside.
Inside.
His fingers dug into the desk. His breathing turned uneven.
She's gone, he told himself.
She's gone.
But trauma didn't listen to logic.
Trauma remembered better than he did.
During break time, Devendra sat alone. Food untouched. He stared at his hands as if they belonged to someone else.
A thought crossed his mind—quiet, dangerous, automatic:
If I disappear, will the noise stop?
His chest tightened.
He stood up suddenly, chair scraping loudly against the floor. Students turned. Teachers frowned.
Devendra didn't run.
He walked.
Slowly.
Like someone afraid that moving too fast might shatter him.
In the hallway, he pressed his forehead against the cool wall. Closed his eyes.
"I'm real," he whispered.
"I'm real… I think."
No laughter answered.
That scared him more than the laughter ever had.
That evening, the psychiatrist adjusted her notes.
"Devendra," she said calmly, "do you feel empty… or overwhelmed?"
He thought for a long time.
"…Both."
She nodded. "That means you're still fighting."
At home, night fell.
Devendra lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling fan as it turned and turned and turned—never stopping, never asking why.
For the first time in a long while, he cried.
Not loud.
Not dramatic.
Just tears sliding silently into his hair.
No voice told him to cry.
No one demanded it.
And that made it hurt in a different way.
Somewhere deep inside his fractured mind, something small shifted.
Not healing.
Not hope.
Just… space.
Enough space to breathe.