After Khwaish left me, I didn't think I would feel that empty again. Her goodbye—no closure, no answers—left a quiet space inside me. That's when Krivika returned to the group chat. She had vanished months ago, quietly, while trying to patch things up with her ex. No drama. Just silence. Now she was back.
At the same time, my friend Akshat started acting differently. Around Krivika, he became sharper, more attentive. He laughed a little louder when she spoke, typed faster, dropped compliments that didn't quite sound like jokes. I noticed, but I stayed quiet. Jealousy? Competition? I didn't know.
Krivika didn't seem to notice Akshat—or maybe she didn't care. Her attention shifted to me instead. It started small—a fast reply, a voice note with my name. Then one night, I was joking around with others in the chat. She noticed. She didn't like it. Later that night, she messaged me. "DM me," I said. "Why? What's up?" She typed. "Stop pretending like you don't know. What do you want from me?" I froze. Not until she said it directly: "Let's just start. Let's try." No confession, no buildup. Just a decision. And I agreed.
What Krivika didn't know was that Akshat had feelings for her too. I knew, but I said nothing. Not when he messaged me, not when he confessed. I pretended to be neutral. Deep down, I knew how it would end. And it did. Akshat found out. Maybe from the chat, maybe from her replies, maybe from the change in my tone. He never confronted me. He didn't have to. Something between us cracked quietly, like glass under a rug. No noise. Just damage.
That same night, she called me. Her voice was gudd than I expected—nervous, like she carried something heavy. We talked for nearly two hours. Not about us, but her past, her ex, and the mess she was still untangling. "I've been trying to move on," she said. "I thought I had. But there are still pieces of him everywhere—in my music, my habits, my sleep." I listened. Patiently. Quietly. The more she spoke, the more I realized she hadn't started something with me. She was trying to finish something with someone else. And I? I was just a temporary landing spot—a warm voice in a storm she hadn't left behind yet. When the call ended, I stared at the screen. Two hours. And I already knew the result.
Akshat and I stopped talking like before. He wasn't angry, just quieter. We carried something unspoken. Krivika faded too. The silence wasn't sudden. It came slowly, softly, like fog rolling in until I couldn't see what we were anymore.
You can lose two people at once—and never fight about it. Sometimes, you're not someone's beginning. You're their intermission. Being a safe space is noble, but it hurts when you're never the first choice. A two-hour call can feel like a lifetime. The people who leave don't always walk out—they just stop showing up.
This wasn't love. It was a quiet collapse. A girl trying to close her past, and a boy trying to find something real in the middle of it. Two hours of voice notes, then silence for weeks.
— Ayan