The End
Alax reached into his bag and pulled out a small sketchbook. With a pen, he began to draw. Not a portrait of the bride, but a sketch of the memory of them.
He drew the Delhi train station. He drew the way she looked when she fell asleep mid-sentence. He drew the version of Neha that belonged to him—the girl who liked messy hair and cheap street food, not the queen in the gold cage.
On the final page, he wrote:
"To Neha—May you find the peace I couldn't give you. I'm sorry my love wasn't a bridge strong enough to carry you across. You are free now. And so, finally, am I."
He didn't hand it to her. He didn't make a scene. He walked to the edge of the estate where a small stone shrine stood and left the book there, tucked under a heavy rock.
As Alax walked away, the wedding music—the upbeat dhol and the cheering—faded into the background.
He realized then that a "broken heart" isn't actually broken. It's just open. It's wide open to the cold, to the rain, and eventually, to the possibility of something else. He didn't hate her. He couldn't. He just felt a profound, echoing emptiness, like a room after the furniture has been moved out.
He reached the bus station just as the sun began to set, casting a bruised purple light over the Himalayas. He boarded the bus back to his quiet life, leaving the ghost of Neha in the mountains.
Twelve hundred words couldn't contain the three years they spent together, but as the bus pulled away, Alax opened a new digital canvas on his tablet. He didn't draw her face. He drew the horizon.
Sometimes, love isn't about holding on until your knuckles turn white. Sometimes, it's about the grace of letting go when you realize the person you love is drowning in the effort to stay with you.