I held her name in my mouth for so long it started to turn into something else. A weight. A stone. Not a name anymore, just the residue of it. The sound of someone you once whispered to sleep now rotting behind your teeth. She loved tulips. She loved rainy days. I remember thinking I’d give her both, forever, even if it meant standing out in the storm with my hands full of flowers I didn’t know how to keep alive.
But I never learned how to build anything without destroying something else. When she cried, I told myself it was just the weather. When she laughed, I thought maybe she was forgiving me. Maybe I’d earned a few more days. I hadn’t.
She didn’t leave dramatically. No screaming. No suitcases. Just a quiet unraveling, like a thread pulled until the whole thing disappeared. One day she said, “I can’t do this anymore.” And then there was nothing. Not a goodbye. Not really. Just the hum of a phone screen, still glowing. I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. I was already halfway gone myself.
I used to be terrified of losing her. Every day, some new version of the nightmare. I rehearsed my pain like a ritual. But none of those versions prepared me for what it’s actually like. To lose someone not with a bang but with silence. A silence that doesn’t even echo. A silence so complete it makes you question if they were ever really there.
Would I do it again? Yes. Even now. Even with the ending written in blood. Even with the sleepless nights and the sick feeling every time I saw her name on a photo someone else took. I would walk back into it with my eyes open. I would love her again. And maybe this time, I’d say all the things I kept buried. I’d be kinder. I’d listen more. I’d let her see the soft parts of me I was too ashamed to share. I’d let her know that the way she looked at the sky made me believe in something bigger than myself.
But I don’t get to do it again. And there’s something holy in that. Something in knowing I could’ve done better that keeps me human.
She’s not a monster in my memories. She’s that song that plays quietly in the background of everything I do. Sometimes I hum along without realizing. Sometimes I forget the words.
And the fear of losing her? It died with the part of me that thought I could keep her. And what’s left now isn’t fear. It’s the silence. It’s the space she once filled. And it’s mine.
-aaditya
Aaditya Bajpai 