"The hardest goodbyes are the ones we don't say.

The ones that hang in the air like unfinished confessions."

The messages stopped.

The small, silly texts. The evening walks. The casual hellos in the corridor.

They didn't disappear, they just? slowly faded.

Like her smile whenever she saw me.

I kept telling myself it was the exams. The pressure. Maybe she was just tired. But something in her eyes said otherwise. There was hesitation where there used to be warmth.

Distance where there used to be closeness.

And I could feel her slipping away.

Not suddenly, but painfully - like sand through fingers I couldn't close tight enough.

Days passed.

I found myself walking alone again, headphones in, pretending I didn't care. Pretending I didn't notice the way she avoided looking at me during lectures, or how her group always seemed to walk the other way whenever I approached.

Reyan noticed too.

"You gonna talk to her?" he asked one night while we sat on the rooftop, sharing silence and cheap snacks.

"She doesn't want me to," I said. "Maybe she never did."

He leaned back on his elbows. "You're thinking too much, man."

"Or maybe I was thinking too little all this time."

Reyan didn't respond, but his silence wasn't judgmental. It was the kind of silence that knows pain when it hears it.

The next time I saw her, it wasn't planned.

She stood outside the girls' hostel gate, phone pressed to her ear, frustration painting her face. Her voice was low, tense. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but the wind carried her words too easily.

"I told you I don't want to talk about it, Meera... please stop... he's not - he's just a friend."

There was a pause, and then something that felt like a dagger.

"He doesn't matter like that anymore."

I didn't wait to hear the rest.

I turned away, heart pounding, footsteps numb.

I'd heard enough.

That night, I wrote something. I didn't plan to. But it spilled out anyway - raw and bleeding:

"You were always beautiful.

Not because of your smile or your eyes.

But because you could destroy me

And still make me feel like I deserved it."

The distance only grew.

Now even when we crossed paths, it was like I didn't exist.

And yet, it was Meera who wouldn't leave me alone.

She confronted me again - this time after class.

"You just don't get it, do you?"

I met her eyes, tired. "Get what?"

"She's been trying to move on. But you keep pulling her back into things she's trying to forget."

"And what about me, Meera?" My voice finally cracked. "Do I not get to feel anything? Do I not deserve to miss someone I loved for years?"

"Love isn't always healthy, Aarin," she said, quietly now. "Sometimes, it's just obsession dressed up as hope."

That one sentence crushed me.

Because for the first time, I didn't know whether I agreed? or hated her for saying what I was too afraid to ask myself.

One evening, I found a sketch I'd made of her back in school - folded in an old notebook. Her eyes half closed, soft smile on her lips.

I traced it with my fingers.

"You're still everywhere," I whispered.

A week passed.

One afternoon, Reyan came running to me, breathless. "Bro. You need to come."

"Why?"

He looked nervous. "It's Sia. She fainted in the middle of the library."

My heart dropped.

We ran there, and I saw her sitting on the floor, pale and weak, Meera holding her tightly. A few girls circled around. Someone handed her a bottle of water.

I didn't know what to do. I wanted to go to her. Kneel beside her. Hold her hand and ask if she was okay.

But when our eyes met -

She looked away.

And Meera stood up.

"You don't need to be here," she said, loud enough for everyone to hear.

That was it. The moment. The split.

I nodded slowly, forcing my feet to turn back, to walk away from the girl I'd once run to every time she broke.

She didn't need me anymore.

Maybe she never did.

That night, I couldn't sleep.

I sat with Reyan in the corridor, both of us leaning against the cold wall.

"Did I ruin her life?" I asked him, voice hollow.

"No," he said. "You just loved someone who couldn't carry the weight of that love."

I swallowed the ache. "I never wanted to be heavy."

"I know," he said. "But sometimes... even light can burn."