15th February, 2026.
Dear Arth Upadhyay,
The ten months and twenty six days I spent yearning for you, and the one year and twenty two days we spent together, were the best time I have ever experienced. I still remember your first 'I love you' that was meant for me. I still remember the last 'I love you' you said to me. From the very start, since the day I first saw you, I knew you would never be wholly mine. In the beginning, you were the muse of my poetry — a love of mine that you hadn't returned. When my love was finally requited, we shared something whole. Now that our love has become incomplete again, you have become my story of love. I used to be a sunflower, and you were the sun I craved. The world around me faded as I lost myself in loving you, and you showered me with your love like rays of light — the only light in my world of darkness. As cracks formed and deepened over time, I realized I had forgotten myself: my hobbies, my interests, my likes, my devotion. I had forgotten everything I once wore like a crown. When I tried to pursue those things again while still being in a relationship with you, you refused to even listen to what I liked. You taunted my actions, criticized my interests, and tried to control me. I still remember the anger and frustration in your eyes when I agreed to help a brother-like friend by teaching him a few concepts. I remember the silence you gave me after you found out I was on a call with my female best friend in front of my parents. I remember the fear I felt when you called me after I registered for a school activity without telling you first — your voice was full of disappointment and irritation. I remember how my hands and legs shook, terrified that you would leave me because of it. I didn't want you to leave. I remember begging for forgiveness when you weren't even online. As much as I know myself, I love talking… or maybe I used to love talking about my life, about new gossip, about anything. At the start, you promised you would always be my listener, no matter what. And you kept that promise — until we had started dating. I remember sharing my most sensitive and private thoughts with you while you stared blankly at the empty blackboard ahead of us, Arth. There were no teachers in our class at that moment, and I was sharing a part of me that no one else in my life knew about. I wished to be taken seriously too. Even when we talked on calls, you always waited for a chance to talk about the incidents in your life but never listened to mine. You got mad at me many times, and the reason was always that I couldn't read your mind and do what you wanted me to do. You got mad whenever things didn't go your way. I remember how much I begged for your forgiveness. I remember typing out my true feelings and the ways your actions had hurt me, intending to let you know about your mistakes, but something in my heart told me to suck it up and not beg for attention. As a result, I deleted all those texts just so I wouldn't hurt you. I remember all those nights when I either cried myself to sleep or just stared at the ceiling doing nothing while you slept peacefully through the same nights. I remember our last conversation, Arth. The distant coldness in the tone of your texts made it impossible for me to believe that you were the same sweet and joyful person I had fallen in love with. All the efforts were one-sided, Arth. You went along with how everything was going while I kept fighting and pulling the ropes of our love just to keep everything together. Didn't you once notice how my hands were shaking in class each and every day? While I seemed to know every crack in your composure, why didn't you ever notice the way I shook every time I had a panic attack in public? Even once? You were unbothered when I told you about one of the many panic attacks I used to get during that time. I remember that after the day you dismissed my panic attack, I stopped sharing anything with anyone entirely. My mumma kept asking me what had happened and why I was so dull. I used to lie and say it was just exam pressure and nothing more. How was I supposed to tell her that her daughter had lost and broken herself in search of love? I am sorry, Arth Upadhyay, but I cannot continue living like this anymore. I know that I will never be able to love someone else after leaving you, but for once, I choose myself. Your actions, your words, and your voice do *not* have the authority to dictate the way I live. It's my life, and I will live it the way I want to. I choose myself for the first time ever. I know that leaving you is going to affect me the most, yet I will choose myself over anyone, and that's my final decision. My words might seem rude to you, yet to this day, I haven't forgotten the lines I once promised you. In the end, I finally won all the 'I love you more' battles. I know I will never be able to move on from you and will keep the promise of you being my last love. My wishes and prayers of spending eternity with you have been painfully broken by myself. If I'm being honest, I still haven't figured out how to exist in a world where you are just a faded memory, yet I don't want you back in my world. I miss you a lot, yet I don't want you back. I still miss the sweet names you once called me, yet I don't want you to repeat those words. I loved you, yes. I am still in love with you, but I don't want you to confess your love again. I miss you a lot. I miss the way your eyes landed on mine. Yet, please, don't look back at me ever again. I am still a sunflower, yet the sun I craved has set for an everlasting night.
~ a person who loved you
(Vartika Tripathy)