I stared at her message for a few seconds.
"Ek baat hai… tu promise kar, tu bura nahi manega."
My fingers stopped moving.
Something about that message didn't feel right.
It wasn't a normal message.
It wasn't the kind of thing someone said before telling you something small.
There was hesitation in her words.
There was fear.
And somehow, I could feel it even through a phone screen.
I didn't know what she was about to say.
But somewhere inside me...
I already knew I didn't want to hear it.
I wanted to ask her what happened.
I wanted to tell her that she didn't need to make me promise anything.
I wanted to tell her that she could just say whatever she wanted.
But at the same time, a strange fear had started building inside me.
My heart began beating faster.
I stared at the typing indicator.
Three dots appeared.
Then disappeared.
Then appeared again.
I waited.
Finally, I replied,
"Haan, promise. Bol."
The moment I sent it, I regretted it.
Not because I didn't trust her.
But because I suddenly felt like I had just opened a door I wasn't ready to walk through.
I put my phone down for a second.
Then picked it up again.
Nothing.
I waited.
A few seconds later, her message appeared.
I read it.
And everything inside me went silent.
"Sarthak please tu promise kar tu bura nahi manega aur kuch galat nahi karega."
I froze.
I read the message again.
And again.
The words looked simple.
But they didn't feel simple.
Why was she saying this?
Why did she need me to promise that I wouldn't do anything wrong?
Why was she so worried about how I would react?
My heart sank.
I suddenly felt like something terrible was coming.
I didn't want to hear it.
I genuinely didn't.
I wanted to close the chat.
I wanted to throw my phone somewhere.
I wanted to go back a few minutes in time, before I had replied to her.
Before she had started typing.
Before she had said those words.
But there was no going back.
I stared at the screen.
My hands felt cold.
I typed,
"Kya hua?"
Then deleted it.
I typed again.
"Bol na."
I sent it.
The typing indicator appeared.
My heart was pounding.
I could almost hear it.
Then her message came.
And those words...
They broke something inside me that I didn't even know could break.
"I can't continue our thing anymore."
I stopped breathing for a moment.
I stared at the sentence.
I didn't understand it.
Or maybe I understood it too well.
My eyes moved across the words slowly.
"I can't continue our thing anymore."
Our thing.
Those two words hurt.
Because I knew exactly what she meant.
Everything between us.
Everything we had started building.
Everything I had started believing in.
She was saying she couldn't continue it.
I didn't reply.
I couldn't.
My mind had gone completely blank.
I was still looking at the screen when another message arrived.
"I am ending this from my side."
That sentence destroyed the tiny bit of hope I was still holding.
The first message had shocked me.
The second one made it real.
She wasn't asking for a break.
She wasn't saying she needed some time.
She wasn't saying she was confused.
She was ending it.
From her side.
I stared at those words for what felt like an eternity.
My heart was screaming at me to do something.
Say something.
Stop her.
Ask her why.
Tell her not to leave.
Tell her that we could fix it.
But my hands wouldn't move.
I couldn't find a single word.
Then came the third message.
"I'm sry, bt things have been really difficult for me to handle."
Three messages.
Three lines.
That's all it took.
Those three lines broke me completely.
I don't know how to explain what happened inside me at that moment.
It wasn't just sadness.
It wasn't just heartbreak.
It was like everything I had been holding inside for so long suddenly collapsed at once.
I felt empty.
Completely empty.
I looked at my phone.
Then at the wall.
Then back at my phone.
I couldn't understand what I was supposed to do.
A few minutes earlier, I had been waiting for her message.
I had been smiling because she had said,
"Oye sun na ek baat tha."
I had been curious about what she wanted to say.
And now...
I wished I had never asked.
I wished she had never typed those words.
I wished I could go back.
But I couldn't.
The messages were still there.
They weren't disappearing.
They weren't changing.
They were real.
She had made her decision.
And I had to face it.
My first thought was,
I have to stop her.
I wanted to tell her that we could work things out.
I wanted to tell her that whatever was difficult could be handled.
I wanted to ask her to give me one more chance.
I wanted to tell her that I wasn't ready to lose her again.
But then another thought came.
What if she really can't handle it anymore?
What if things were genuinely difficult for her?
What if staying with me was making things harder?
What if she had been struggling silently and I hadn't noticed?
I didn't know.
And that uncertainty hurt almost as much as the breakup itself.
I wanted answers.
But I didn't want to make her feel worse.
So I just sat there.
Silent.
Broken.
I looked at her name on the screen.
The same name that had made me smile so many times.
The same person whose messages I had been waiting for all day.
The same person I had slowly started letting back into my heart.
And now she was telling me she couldn't continue.
I didn't know how to accept it.
I didn't even know if I wanted to accept it.
I picked up my phone and called Abhi.
He answered.
"Hello?"
For a second, I couldn't speak.
My throat felt tight.
Then I somehow managed to say,
"Bro..."
He immediately noticed something was wrong.
"Kya hua?"
I told him everything.
I don't remember exactly how I explained it.
My words were all over the place.
I told him what Payel had said.
I told him the three messages.
I told him that she wanted to end things.
Abhi went quiet for a moment.
Then he said,
"Bro, stop her."
I didn't answer.
He continued.
"Talk to her. Don't just let her end it like this."
I knew what he meant.
And honestly, a part of me wanted to do exactly that.
I wanted to stop her.
I wanted to fight for us.
I wanted to tell her that she couldn't just walk away.
But another part of me...
the part that still cared about her more than myself...
didn't want to force her.
So after the call ended, I called Sayan.
I told him everything too.
His reaction was almost the same.
"Bro, try to stop her."
"Talk to her."
"At least ask her why."
I listened.
Both of them were telling me to fight.
To not give up.
And for a moment, I thought maybe they were right.
Maybe I shouldn't accept it so easily.
Maybe I should fight for what we had.
I opened our chat again.
I stared at her last message.
"I'm sry, bt things have been really difficult for me to handle."
I wanted to ask,
"What happened?"
I wanted to ask,
"Why?"
I wanted to ask,
"Is there anything I can do?"
But instead, I typed something completely different.
"It's okay. I understand."
I stared at the message before sending it.
I knew it wasn't okay.
I didn't understand.
Not even a little.
But I didn't want to make her feel guilty.
If she had already made the decision, I didn't want my pain to become another burden for her.
So I sent it.
Then I typed again.
"But can we be friends again?"
I stopped.
I thought about it.
Then I added,
"Just as before."
I pressed send.
And waited.
The typing indicator appeared.
My heart jumped.
I thought maybe she would say yes.
Maybe she would say no.
Maybe she would say she needed time.
Maybe she would explain everything.
I waited.
Her reply finally appeared.
"I don't know."
That's it.
Four words.
No explanation.
No promise.
No certainty.
Just—
"I don't know."
I stared at the message.
I didn't know what to say anymore.
I could have replied.
I could have asked another question.
I could have begged her to stay.
But something inside me had already become exhausted.
So I didn't.
That was her last message.
After that...
nothing.
The chat went silent.
I kept looking at the screen, waiting for another notification.
Nothing came.
I checked again.
Still nothing.
I put the phone down.
And that's when I broke again.
But strangely...
I didn't cry.
I wanted to.
I felt like I should.
My chest hurt.
My heart felt crushed.
My eyes felt heavy.
But no tears came.
Instead...
I started laughing.
I don't know why.
At first, it was just a small laugh.
Then another.
Then I couldn't stop.
I was sitting alone in my room, laughing at absolutely nothing.
There was nothing funny.
Nothing.
My entire world had just fallen apart, and somehow I was laughing.
I looked at my phone.
Then laughed again.
It didn't make sense.
I didn't understand myself.
Why was I laughing?
Why wasn't I crying?
Why couldn't I react normally?
Maybe my emotions had simply become too much.
Maybe my mind didn't know how to process the pain.
Maybe the tears were trapped somewhere inside.
I laughed harder.
Then suddenly stopped.
Silence.
I looked down at my hands.
They were shaking slightly.
I took a deep breath.
But the heaviness didn't go away.
I opened the chat again.
Her last message was still there.
"I don't know."
I stared at it.
Those four words felt like the end of everything.
I put the phone down again.
I lay back on my bed.
I stared at the ceiling.
My mind started replaying everything.
Every conversation.
Every memory.
Every little moment.
Every time I had thought things were getting better.
Every time I had smiled because of her.
Every time I had waited for her message.
Every time I had imagined that maybe...
maybe this time it would work.
And now I was lying there trying to understand how something that had felt so beautiful could suddenly hurt so much.
I didn't know how long I stayed like that.
Maybe minutes.
Maybe longer.
Time didn't feel real anymore.
Eventually, I picked up my phone again.
There was someone I thought might know something.
A previous classmate of mine.
Someone who was also a mutual friend of Payel.
Someone who knew both of us.
I had never thought I would need to ask him something like this.
But now I needed answers.
I opened his chat.
I typed,
"Bro, ek baat puchu?"
He replied.
"Haan bol."
I hesitated.
Then I told him everything.
I told him what Payel had said.
I told him that she had ended our thing.
I told him that I didn't understand why.
Then I asked him,
"Do you know what's actually going on?"
This time, he didn't reply immediately.
The silence felt different.
It made me nervous.
I watched the screen.
The typing indicator appeared.
Then disappeared.
Appeared again.
Finally, his message came.
And the moment I read it...
I knew.
He knew something I didn't.
Something Payel hadn't told me.
Something that had been happening behind the scenes.
Something that could explain why she had suddenly decided to end everything.
I read his words slowly.
Once.
Then again.
And again.
My heart sank.
The truth was finally coming to me.
But instead of making me feel better...
it made everything hurt even more.
Because suddenly, those three lines from Payel didn't sound the same anymore.
"I can't continue our thing anymore."
"I am ending this from my side."
"I'm sry, bt things have been really difficult for me to handle."
There had been a reason behind them.
A reason I hadn't known.
A reason that had been hidden from me.
And now...
I was finally beginning to understand.
I sat there silently, staring at the screen.
I didn't know what tomorrow would bring.
I didn't know whether Payel and I would ever talk the same way again.
I didn't know whether our friendship could return.
I didn't know whether what had happened could ever be fixed.
All I knew was that something had ended that day.
And I had been left standing in the middle of it...
trying to understand how everything had fallen apart so quickly.
But the truth I had just learned...
was only the beginning.
To be continued...