The words left your lips with a terrifying, hollow weight.
I don't hate anyone.
That was the moment something in me fractured.
Hatred, I could fight. Hatred would have given me a foothold, something sharp to grab onto, something I could twist into passion or rage or even desire. Hate would have meant I still existed to you.
But indifference?
Indifference was a desert.
And I was wandering through it alone, screaming your name while you stared past me toward a horizon I could not see.
A soft, broken sound escaped my throat as my forehead knocked gently against the side of the box. The cardboard was thin, fragile nothing like the distance between us.
"You don't hate me," I whispered, my voice thick, almost unrecognizable to my own ears. "You don't care about the world. You don't even care about your own life."
The truth of it sank in slowly, cruelly.
"You're willing to turn into dust right here," I continued, my words trembling, "on my floor… just to stay inside that nothingness you call your soul."
I stood abruptly, my heels striking the floor as I began to pace. Back and forth. Back and forth. The room felt smaller with every step, my shadow lashing against the walls like a trapped animal. My eyes darted to the untouched glass of water, then back to you curled inward, hidden, retreating deeper into a name I was beginning to hate with a frightening intensity.
"You think death is an escape, Manu?" I stopped suddenly, leaning over the box, my hair falling like a dark curtain around it. "You think dying here will take you to her? That you'll reach the feet of your Radha and finally leave me behind?"
Something sharp ignited in my eyes manic, desperate, unhinged.
"I won't let you," I hissed. "If you stop breathing, I'll breathe for you. If your heart stops, I'll beat on your chest until it breaks just to make it start again. And if you think you can disappear into the next world" my voice dropped, lethal and certain.
"I will follow you. I have the power, the money, the will. Even there, I will make sure I am the first thing you see."
The glass of water left my hand before I realized it. It shattered violently against the far wall, crystal spraying across the room.
You didn't flinch.
That hurt more than anything else.
I dropped back down beside you, my movements suddenly unsteady. My hands shook as I reached out not for the box, but for the small patch of skin at your neck. I touched it lightly, reverently, feeling the coolness of a body beginning to give up.
"Eat and drink my favorite dishes?" I repeated, a bitter laugh tearing out of me. "I haven't tasted anything but the thought of you for too. I'm starving too, Manu. I'm dying of thirst for a single look that isn't empty. A single word that isn't an apology."
I leaned forward, pressing my face against your shoulder, my tears finally soaking into the fabric you wore like armor.
"Please," I whispered.
Not the CEO.
Not the woman who commands rooms.
Just a girl unraveling.
"Just say my name once. Not Miss. Not CEO. Just… Smriti."
My voice broke completely.
"Give me one word from this world," I begged softly, "and I'll let you have all the others for her. Just one, Manu. Before you disappear completely."
The room waited.
So did I.