Chapter 20

Abhimanyu

I had made up my mind. This silence between us had stretched too far. I needed to confront her—to ask why she was avoiding me, why she had been distant even after things seemed to get better. It was frustrating, confusing, and somewhere deep inside, it hurt.

I spotted her near the library, scrolling through her phone, lost in thought. My steps were firm as I approached, rehearsing in my mind how to begin. But before I could say a word, she looked up at me—and in that instant, something changed.

Her eyes, which always held a spark of defiance, were suddenly clouded. Conflicted. As if she had just figured out something—something that broke her from within. Her grip on the phone tightened, knuckles turning white.

“Shubhi?” I hesitated, noticing how her expression turned colder.

She didn’t answer. Instead, she gave a sharp, humorless chuckle, looking down at her phone once again. My chest tightened.

“What?” I asked, trying to keep my voice calm.

She finally met my gaze, and for the first time, I felt like a complete stranger to her.

“I was such an idiot, wasn’t I?” she whispered, more to herself than to me. “Thinking we had—never mind.”

Her words confused me. What was she talking about?

She turned her phone slightly, just enough for me to see the screen. My breath hitched. It was my wallpaper—the one picture I had never changed, never had the heart to.

Her.

Not her.

But she didn’t know that.

I realized it too late. The assumptions had already settled in her mind, twisting the truth into something painful.

"Shubhi, it's not—"

“Don’t,” she interrupted, her voice barely above a whisper. “You don’t have to explain anything, Abhimanyu.”

The way she said my name—it was distant, final, like she had already made her decision.

A part of me wanted to shake her, to tell her the truth, to stop her from walking away. But another part of me—perhaps the damaged, exhausted one—stood frozen, watching her go.

And just like that, she left.

Left with a misunderstanding I never meant to create.

Left with a heartbreak she shouldn’t have felt.

And I… I was too late to stop it.

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