Gone.
And she’d been dead for nearly a year before I evenknew.
While I was still searching, still hoping, still begging the universe to give me something—she had already become a statistic. A cold, quiet line in a confidential file.
She didn’t get a funeral.
Didn’t get closure.
And neither did I.
And then—like some cosmic joke—Aarohi came back.
For Vikram’s wedding.
But she wasn’t just Rohi. She washeartbrokenRohi.
I hadn’t told Vikram about Greesha’s death. I couldn’t. Not because I was protecting myself, but because we never really talked about her. Not in the way that mattered. So when Rohi showed up, freshly dumped and emotionally raw, Vikram saw...potential. A replacement. A safe fallback.
She wasn’t.
She isn’t.
Ishika gave me the whole run-down over lunch one day—how Rohi’s boyfriend had dumped her, how she was only in India for a few weeks, visiting from Toronto. How she wasn’t sure about a job she’d been offered.
But Ishika was in matchmaking mode.
“You’re both single, Viko! First time in eight years! She’s here, you’re here. What more do you need? This is your fucking chance!”
She was excited. Hopeful. Desperate for everyone to have a happy ending. But that’s not why I slipped into the Rohi bubble.
It wasn’t her presence.
It was her eyes.
That night at the bar... she looked lost. Cracked open the same way I’d seen her before—many,manytimes, years ago. Breakups always gutted her. And me? I’ve always been the idiot trying to patch her up.
But this time—I didn’t want to feel anything.
So I let it happen with a numbing ache. All while forcing the smiles that I hoped reached my eyes.
I recited the lines Ishika and Vikram fed me. I flirted the way I barely remembered how, curved my lips when I was supposed to, laughed when I could see others doing it.
And the whole time, I wondered...
Would Greesha have even cared?
Would she give a damn that I was letting someone else touch the wreckage she left behind in her death?
Probably not.
Because I wasn’t looking for a happy ending. Not really.
There wasn’t one. There was just me.
And this heart that hadn’t beaten right in two years.
I did what was expected. Faked my excitement for Vikram’s wedding. Played the role of the groom’s brother.
