I couldn't accept what had happened.
Even after Payel's last message, my mind refused to believe that it was really over.
I kept staring at our chat.
Her last words were still there.
"I don't know."
Four words.
But they had left me with thousands of questions.
Why?
What had happened?
Who had changed her mind?
Was there something I had done?
Had she stopped caring?
Or had someone else convinced her that whatever existed between us was wrong?
I didn't know.
And not knowing was killing me.
I needed answers.
Not assumptions.
Not guesses.
The truth.
So I called Kshitij.
Kshitij was one of our common friends.
He knew me.
He knew Payel.
And more importantly, he knew enough about both of us to understand what I was going through.
The call connected.
"Hello?"
The moment he heard my voice, he became quiet.
I knew he could hear it.
My voice was broken.
I wasn't crying.
But I sounded like someone who had already cried a thousand times inside.
He didn't immediately ask what happened.
Maybe he already knew.
Maybe he could hear everything in the silence between my words.
I took a breath.
"Bro..."
He replied softly,
"Haan?"
I didn't waste time.
"Kshitij, mereko bata na... kya hua?"
He was silent.
I continued,
"Payel ne aisa kyun kiya?"
Again, silence.
I could feel my voice breaking.
I didn't want to sound weak.
I didn't want anyone to feel sorry for me.
I just wanted the truth.
I needed it.
I needed to know why the person I cared about had suddenly decided she couldn't continue.
I took another breath.
Then I said something that came from a place of complete helplessness.
"Bro, mereko kuch fark nahi padta ki main jiyu ya maru..."
I stopped for a second.
My voice became even heavier.
"...mereko bas bata ki tereko pata hai kya yeh sab kyun hua?"
The line went silent.
Kshitij didn't say anything.
I could hear nothing except the faint sound of breathing through the phone.
For a few seconds, neither of us spoke.
I knew he understood how broken I was.
He tried to comfort me.
He told me to calm down.
He told me not to think like that.
But I wasn't looking for comfort.
Not then.
I didn't want someone telling me everything would be okay.
I wanted to know why it wasn't okay.
I wanted the truth.
Finally, Kshitij said,
"Ruk ja."
I stayed silent.
He continued,
"Mujhe Pritha se puchna hoga."
Pritha was his sister.
She was also a good friend of Payel.
If anyone knew what had actually happened, there was a good chance it was her.
I agreed.
"Please puch le."
"Tu wait kar."
The call ended.
I stared at my phone.
Now there was nothing left to do except wait.
And waiting was torture.
Every second felt longer than the last.
I kept wondering what Kshitij would hear.
Maybe Pritha wouldn't know.
Maybe she would say Payel simply didn't want to continue.
Maybe there was nothing more to the story.
Maybe I had been overthinking everything.
I desperately wanted that to be true.
Because if there was no reason...
then maybe there was still a chance.
Maybe things could somehow be fixed.
Maybe she would change her mind.
Maybe we could talk again.
Maybe—
My phone rang.
Kshitij.
I immediately answered.
"Bol."
He didn't speak for a few seconds.
That silence told me something was wrong.
"Kya hua?"
He finally said,
"Bro..."
I waited.
"Pritha se baat ki."
My heart started beating faster.
"Usne kya bola?"
He took a breath.
Then he began explaining.
He told me that Pritha had spoken to Payel.
And what she told him was something I never expected.
Some of their classmates had been insisting things about me.
They had been talking to Payel.
They had been putting thoughts into her head.
Making her question what we were.
Making her believe that maybe we didn't belong together.
I listened quietly.
Then Kshitij told me one particular thing that someone had said.
Something that stayed in my mind long after the call ended.
They had apparently compared us.
They had said that I was "city gold" and Payel was "gold."
And then they said that "gold and city gold doesn't look good together."
I went silent.
For a moment, I didn't even know how to react.
It sounded ridiculous.
Almost laughable.
But it had apparently mattered.
It had been one of many things people had told her.
One of many things that had slowly influenced her.
There were more.
Kshitij explained that it wasn't just one comment.
There had been several things.
Several conversations.
Several opinions.
Several people trying to convince her that being with me wasn't right.
And slowly...
those words had reached her.
They had stayed in her mind.
They had become doubts.
And those doubts had eventually become a decision.
The more I listened, the quieter I became.
I didn't interrupt him.
I didn't argue.
I didn't ask him to repeat anything.
I just listened.
Every word felt like another piece of a puzzle being placed in front of me.
Suddenly, I understood something.
Payel hadn't simply woken up one day and decided she didn't want me.
There had been pressure.
There had been people talking.
There had been opinions.
There had been things being said behind our backs.
And maybe, eventually, it had all become too much for her.
I remembered her words.
"I'm sry, bt things have been really difficult for me to handle."
Now they sounded different.
Maybe that was what she had meant.
Things had become difficult.
Not because of one conversation.
Not because of one mistake.
But because of everything happening around us.
I sat there silently.
Kshitij was still talking.
But I barely heard him.
My mind was somewhere else.
I was thinking about Payel.
What had she been going through?
How many times had she heard those things?
How many people had spoken against me?
How many doubts had she kept inside without telling me?
And why hadn't I noticed?
I had been so focused on what I felt that I hadn't thought enough about what she might have been dealing with.
That realization hurt.
But then another thought came.
If people had really convinced her that I wasn't good enough for her...
then there was no point trying to force her back.
Because even if she came back today, the same voices would still be there tomorrow.
The same people.
The same opinions.
The same doubts.
I finally understood.
There was no easy way to get her back.
Maybe there was no way at all.
And for the first time...
I accepted it.
Not because I wanted to.
But because I had to.
The call ended.
I put my phone down.
My room became completely silent.
I sat there for a long time.
I thought about the phrase again.
"Gold and city gold doesn't look good together."
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
But because it was such a ridiculous way to decide whether two people belonged together.
Who were they to decide?
Who gave them the right?
And if they thought I was "city gold"...
then fine.
Let them.
Because I knew one thing.
If they had decided what I was capable of based on where I came from, how I looked, what people thought of me, or whatever image they had created...
then I was going to prove them wrong.
Not by arguing.
Not by fighting.
Not by begging Payel to come back.
I was going to prove them wrong by becoming someone they could never look down on again.
That night, something inside me changed.
The broken version of me was still there.
The pain hadn't disappeared.
I still missed her.
I still wanted her.
I still wished things had been different.
But something else had started growing inside that pain.
Determination.
I had spent so much time thinking about what I had lost.
Now I started thinking about what I could become.
I remembered one of my biggest dreams.
Japan.
The dream I had talked about before.
The dream that had once felt almost impossible.
MEXT.
The scholarship.
Studying in Japan.
Building a life there.
Standing somewhere far away from everything I knew and proving that I could create something of my own.
That night, I made a decision.
If I couldn't change what had happened...
I could change myself.
I would prepare.
I would work.
I would study.
I would build myself from the ground up.
And one day, I would make everyone who had underestimated me realize exactly who they had underestimated.
I opened my notebook.
On the first page, I wrote one word.
MEXT.
I stared at it.
Then underneath it, I wrote:
I have to do this.
It wasn't just about Japan anymore.
It wasn't just about a scholarship.
It wasn't just about proving something to myself.
It became a promise.
A promise that I would not allow one heartbreak to become the end of my story.
If anything...
it would become the beginning of the next chapter.
I started researching.
I started making plans.
I started thinking about what I needed to improve.
My studies.
My discipline.
My confidence.
My communication.
Everything.
I knew it wouldn't be easy.
I knew there would be setbacks.
But I didn't care.
For the first time in days, I had something else to think about besides Payel.
I had a goal.
A direction.
Something waiting for me ahead.
But there was one problem.
One subject that had always been my weakness.
Economics.
I could handle many things.
But Economics...
that was different.
It was the subject that always made me nervous.
The concepts.
The questions.
The way one small mistake could change an entire answer.
I knew I had to improve it.
So I tried.
I studied.
I practiced.
I revised.
I made mistakes.
I tried again.
But no matter how much effort I put in, Economics remained my weakest point.
Then the exams came.
And honestly...
that year didn't go the way I had wanted.
Especially Economics.
I walked out of that exam knowing I hadn't performed the way I had hoped.
There were questions I should have answered better.
Things I should have remembered.
Mistakes I knew I had made.
For a while, I thought my result was going to be terrible.
I thought maybe everything I had worked for would fall apart.
But when the results finally came...
I stared at them.
And I couldn't believe it.
Despite everything.
Despite the heartbreak.
Despite the pressure.
Despite Economics.
Despite all the things that had gone wrong...
I had still managed to secure 3rd rank in my class.
Third.
I looked at the result again.
Then I smiled.
Not the fake smile I had been forcing after Payel left.
A real one.
Because suddenly I understood something.
I didn't need everyone to believe in me.
I didn't even need everyone to understand me.
I just needed to keep moving.
People could call me whatever they wanted.
They could underestimate me.
They could compare me to someone else.
They could say I wasn't good enough.
They could believe I couldn't do something.
But none of that would decide my future.
I would.
And that was the moment I stopped thinking about proving myself to just a few people.
I wanted to prove something to myself.
That I could take pain and turn it into strength.
That I could lose something important and still continue.
That I could fall apart and rebuild myself.
That I could start from nothing and still reach somewhere.
Maybe Payel had been a chapter of my life.
Maybe she would remain one of the most important chapters.
Maybe someday I would look back and wonder what could have happened if things had been different.
But I couldn't live inside what if.
I had to live inside what next?
And my answer was simple.
MEXT.
Japan.
A new beginning.
A new version of me.
I closed my notebook.
The pain was still there.
It hadn't disappeared.
But now I knew what I was going to do with it.
I was going to turn it into fuel.
Because if the world had decided that Sarthak Chatterjee wasn't good enough...
then I had only one thing left to say.
They hadn't seen anything yet.
To be continued...