Every sentence is a reminder that I’m still bleeding. That I’ve been bleeding since the day Greesha walked out of my life.
And what makes it worse is knowing I can’t say any of it out loud.
I can’t scream. Can’t fall apart. Not here. Not now.
I’d look insane. As insane as I’ve felt for the past two years.
Because while Rohi reaches for a future, and Lucian begs for a second chance—
I’m still stuck in the wreckage of a goodbye I never got to say. And Greesha’s ghost hasn’t left me since.
“I’m going back to Canada in a few weeks,” she says, breaking the silence, her gaze fixed on our entwined hands.
I nod. “I know.”
This—this—is what Ishika and Vikram wanted, wasn’t it? Rohi, finally initiating something that might help her move on.
They just don’t realize that I won’t be moving on with her. Not because I’m noble or emotionally mature.
Because I’m... empty.
Sometimes I wonder why no one questioned how I’ve stayed uninvolved,untouchedsince Greesha disappeared. Then it hits me—maybe they think I was just waiting for Rohi all along. That I’ve been biding my time for this so-called perfect alignment of stars.
But I wasn’t waiting.
I wasdone. Static. Frozen in time—reliving the night I lost her. At 2:13 a.m. in the haze of alcohol.
“What if us... kissing, ruins our friendship?” she says softly.
Her words pull me out of my spiral—and cut straight into what’s left of me.
Friendship?
Is that what she thinks this always was? Just friendship?
I want to scoff, even scream. Not at her—but at the past. At myself. At the cruel joke of it all.
This “friendship” already cost me everything.
And maybe it was innocent for her. But for me? It was never that simple. I can’t let her live under that illusion anymore.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but...” My throat tightens around the words. “Ours is the type of friendship that’s never been just friendship, Rohi.”
And it never will be.
Because I’m done carrying this weight—the ghost of what was almost something. The unspoken feelings that lingered like smoke. A cosmic error that made my mistakes seem valid.
I’m done letting it haunt me—and done letting it have any power over what I lost. OverwhoI lost.
“So whatever this is... it stays here?” she asks, her eyes almost hopeful.
Here?Where? Like it’s a time capsule that will contain the tainted reality of my limbo? Like I can even pry my way out of this ruinous spiral?
Her ‘here’is not the same as mine. Because I’m nowhere anymore.
I force the grin, make it look easy. “Like a wedding favor. But with more sexual benefits.”
Burn it.
