The bus doors closed with a dull hiss.
And then—
Silence.
No footsteps beside her.
No presence behind her.
No voice.
Maria blinked.
The bench was empty.
The space where Anan had stood—
where she swore he had been
breathing, blinking, existing—was nothing but air and yellow streetlight.
Her phone buzzed in her hand.
A notification.
She looked down instinctively.
No messages.
No location.
No unread chats.
Nothing.
Her heart began to race—not fast, not dramatic—but slow and heavy, like something sinking.
She turned around once.
Twice.
The bus stop was exactly what it had always been.
A cracked bench.
A torn poster.
A stray dog sleeping near the pole.
Traffic moving on, indifferent.
No parallel timelines.
No choice waiting to be made.
No one who would disappear.
Her knees weakened, and she sat down on the bench—the same bench she had imagined sharing.
"That's it?" she whispered to no one.
Her mind replayed everything in fragments:
The voice.
The eyes.
The words "you had me."
Too vivid to be a dream.
Too empty to be real.
Slowly, painfully, the truth settled.
Anan was never there.
He wasn't a visitor from another world.
He wasn't a memory returning.
He was a shape her loneliness had learned to wear.
A version of someone she never had—but wished had stayed.
Maria pressed her palms against her eyes.
No tears came.
Because this wasn't the kind of pain that cried loudly.
This was the kind that stayed quiet and permanent.
She finally understood what terrified her the most.
Not that he disappeared.
But that he had only ever existed where she kept waiting.
ln her thoughts.
In her dreams.
In the parts of her that kept hoping effort could turn into love.
She laughed softly—once. Bitter. Small.
"So that's what it is," she said.
"One-sided effort doesn't create a connection.
It just creates stories."
Stories where someone stays.
Stories where choices matter.
Stories where love feels mutual—until reality arrives like a late bus that never stops for you.
The streetlight flickered.
Maria stood up.
This time, there was no hesitation.
She didn't wait for a bus.
She didn't look back.
Because there was nothing there anymore.
And as she walked home alone, one thought stayed with her—sharp, clear, and terrifying in its honesty:
There was a love.
But when all the effort comes from one side—
it doesn't become real.
It just becomes heavier.
The next morning she woke up like nothing had happened.
That was the worst part.
The sun rise.
Alarms rang.
Her uniform lay folded on the chair like always.
The world hadn't paused for her breakdown at a bus stop.
Maria stood in front of the mirror longer than usual.
Her face looked the same.
Maybe a little paler.
Maybe a little older.
No red eyes.
No visible cracks.
She tied her hair neatly, the way she did when she didn't want questions.
At school, everything felt louder than before.
Not because it was noisy—
but because she wasn't hiding inside her head anymore.
Friends laughed beside her.
Someone complained about homework.
A teacher scolded the class half-heartedly.
Maria responded when spoken to.
Smiled when expected.
Normal.
Too normal.
But something was missing.
She no longer searched faces in corridors.
No longer slowed her steps near staircases.
No longer replayed moments that were never promised.
Because now she knew.
Waiting doesn't make someone arrive.
Loving harder doesn't make someone stay.
During lunch, her friends talked about crushes—who texted first, who ignored whom, who almost confessed.
Maria listened.
She didn't interrupt.
Didn't judge.
She just felt… distant.
Like she was hearing a story she had already finished reading.
Someone asked her, "What about you? Anyone special?"
She paused.
Just a second too long.
Then she said, calmly, "No."
And for the first time, that word didn't ache.
After school, she walked past the bus stop.
The same one.
She didn't slow down.
Didn't look at the bench.
Didn't imagine a voice behind her.
Because imagination needs hope to survive.
And hope—
she had finally stopped feeding it.
That night, Maria opened her notebook.
Not her phone.
Not her messages.
A blank page.
She stared at it, pen hovering.
Then she wrote:
I thought love was about holding on.
Turns out, it's also about knowing when nothing is holding you back.
The words surprised her.
They didn't sound like a girl waiting anymore.
They sounded like someone who had learned something too early.
Days passed.
Then weeks.
And slowly, people noticed.
Maria spoke less—but when she did, she meant it.
She laughed—but never forced it.
She focused—on studies, on herself, on things that didn't disappear when ignored.
Sometimes, late at night, the memory tried to return.
A voice that almost felt real.
A presence that once felt warm.
But now she recognized it for what it was.
Not destiny.
Not another world.
Just her heart trying to protect itself from the truth.
And the truth was simple, brutal, and freeing all at oncove that lives only in your effort
is not love shared—
it's love imagined.
One evening, while waiting for her bus, she noticed someone else standing where she once saw.
A girl.
Same age.
Same hopeful restlessness.
Maria watched her for a moment.
Then looked away.
Not because it hurt.
But because she knew—
Everyone has to learn this lesson on their own.
The bus arrived.
Maria stepped on without hesitation.
As the city lights passed by the window, she rested her head against the glass and closed her eyes.
No voices called her name.
No memories tried to return.
Just silence.
And for the first time—
the silence didn't feel empty.
It felt heavy
The bus ride home was uneventful.
Maria watched buildings blur past, her reflection faint in the glass. She didn't think about the bus stop. She didn't think about him.
She told herself she was done.
At home, she dropped her bag, washed her face, and sat on her bed with her notebook still open beside her. The sentence she had written stared back at her.
Love that lives only in your effort is not love shared—it's love imagined.
She closed the book.
Her phone vibrated.
Once.
She ignored it.
It vibrated again.
Annoyed, she picked it up—expecting a class group message or a reminder.
It wasn't.
Unknown number.
Her heartbeat didn't spike.
Not anymore.
She opened it anyway.
Dhiran:
Hey. Is this Maria?
Her fingers went cold.
Not Anan.
Not imagination.
Not another world.
Him.
Real. Present. Late.
She didn't reply.
Another message came almost immediately.
Dhiran:
I know this is sudden. I wasn't sure if I should text you.
Maria stared at the screen.
This was the moment she had replayed a hundred times in her head—
the message she thought would fix everything.
And yet, now that it was here, it felt… hollow.
A third message appeared.
Dhiran:
I just wanted to ask…
——×——×——×——×——×——×—–
Thank you so muchhh for reading my novel guysss 🎀✨
Please support me 🤧💫
Let's see what Dhiran messaged her,in the next chapter... until then byee guys 👋🏻❣️
Secret★:In real life Dhiran and Maria had never messaged