After Sonna left, something inside Aahan finally shut down. Not broken just numb.
He wasn't capable of loving, begging, crying, or chasing anymore.
He had already exhausted every version of himself trying to hold people together while quietly falling apart on his own.
For the first time in months, Aahan wasn't looking for anyone and that's exactly when Khushi came back.
It started with a random account following him- No name he recognized, No face he knew.
At first, he thought it was Sonna.
Another attempt to see if she was still there.
He asked directly,
"Are you Sonna?"
She denied it.
So Aahan did something he never planned to do, He talked.
He told this stranger everything about Sonna, about the breakup, about how love slipped out of his hands because of one careless moment and about how he had changed cities.
How he had become colder.
How he felt lonelier even when surrounded by people.
The account replied with sharp chats like she knew him and blaming him that it was all his fault.
Men-hater lines, Subtle sarcasm.
Hashtags aimed straight at him.
The tone felt familiar, typing style and the timing. 'Old wounds stirred.
It was Khushi.
The girl he once talked to every day, shared his inner world with- who rejected him and who taught him the first brutal truth of his life-
Anyone can leave, Even the closest ones but now she wasn't Khushi.
She was a stranger and somehow, that hurt more still, Aahan kept talking because it felt safer to open up to a stranger than to someone who once mattered.
He told her everything, how many girls came and went, Why he became the way he did, how he genuinely loves Sonna, how he lost her and how the guilt never really left.
Khushi read it all. Quietly;
Without revealing herself, without interrupting.
When Aahan finally confronted her identity, she didn't deny it.
She just said,
"Mera toh tagda glow up ho gaya."
(I glowup after you left)
It wasn't pride, It was distance.
Her way of saying she wasn't the same girl anymore and She didn't come back for love.
She didn't come back to fix anything.
She came back for answers.
Did he replace her?
Did he forget her?
Did he suffer?
Did he change?
Did he regret?
Did he ever realize what he did to her? and most importantly... Why did everything break when they never even tried properly? then she said the line that hit him the hardest.
"When we were just friends, you treated me like shit for months. No one ever treated me like that."
Aahan remembered that phase.
Pulling away, acting distant, being jealous without admitting it, pushing her because he was scared to confess and treating her like she already belonged to him while pretending she didn't? yet, she stayed.
That question haunted him...
Why did she stay if I hurt her so much?
Why didn't she leave earlier?
She never answered.
Maybe she was attached...?
Maybe she expected him to change.
Maybe she loved him more than she admitted.
Maybe she waited for him to understand what she never said out loud but she didn't come to heal that wound.
She came to inspect it.
When everything was finally out, she took her closure.
She said she didn't feel anything for him anymore.
She said she was loyal during their friendship.
She said he ruined her peace, her exams, her mental state.
Aahan didn't argue.
He accepted everything because the guilt of losing Sonna was heavier than the pain of Khushi because this chapter was already over because he didn't have the strength to reopen something that should've ended long ago.
He also learned the truth about the friend incident.
The boy whose number he shared only to check on her was never inappropriate.
He never crossed limits.
He never asked anything wrong.
But when he messaged her, she overreacted.
Threats.
Fear.
Victim card.
At that moment, Aahan understood something clearly.
Khushi didn't come back to reconnect.
She came back to protect her version of the story.
Even after all this, she talked to him once more.
"I just wanted to know how you've been."
That was the truth.
She didn't return for love.
She returned for closure.
To confirm she wasn't the only one hurt.
To see if he still cared.
To check if he had changed.
And once she had her answer, there was nothing left.
So she blocked him.
Quietly.
Finally.
Without drama.
Not out of hate.
Not out of anger.
But because she had what she came for.
Khushi wasn't the ending.
She wasn't the beginning either.
She was the mirror.
Of his guilt.
His patterns.
His emotional damage.
His attachment issues.
His fear of abandonment.
His need to be chosen.
His inability to let go.
She came back so he could see all of it clearly one last time.
Not to fix him.
Not to love him.
Not to stay.
Just to show him this truth
"You were not the only one hurting."
THE PROPER ENDING OF KHUSHI
Khushi left again but this time, she didn't leave a hole.
She left closure.
She left truth.
She left a finished chapter, not an abandoned one.
Her part in his story is done.
She didn't return to reunite.
She returned to deliver the final line of her chapter
"We were never meant to be. But that doesn't mean it wasn't real."
Aahan blocked her.
He never messaged again.
He respected her boundary.
He didn't chase.
He didn't explain.
For the first time, he chose silence and that is how Khushi's story ends.
Not with a patch-up.
Not with a second chance but with acceptance.
A Story by Ayan.