Chapter 22

Abhimanyu

The silence between us was unbearable. It wasn’t just an absence of words; it was an invisible wall, thick with unspoken emotions, misunderstandings, and something I couldn’t quite place.

I had reached my limit. Enough of this distance, enough of pretending like we were strangers again.

I found her standing near the library, lost in thought, her fingers gripping her phone tightly. My footsteps were firm as I approached her, but as soon as our eyes met, something in her expression shifted—something cold, distant.

"Shubhi," I said, my voice steady, but inside, I was anything but.

She looked at me, her gaze unreadable, yet filled with something sharp. Anger? Hurt? I didn’t know.

"Abhimanyu, what do you want?" she asked, her voice laced with frustration, but there was a tremor in it too.

I took a deep breath. "What do I want?" The question stung more than it should have. "I want to know why you’ve been ignoring me. Why you’ve been acting like I don’t exist."

She let out a hollow laugh, shaking her head. "Are you seriously asking me that? After everything?"

I frowned. "What do you mean—"

"Don’t," she cut me off, lifting her phone slightly, as if it held some kind of proof. "You think I don’t know? You think I haven’t seen?"

A strange chill ran down my spine. "Seen what?"

She exhaled sharply, like she was trying to hold herself together. "Your wallpaper, Abhimanyu. I saw it. I saw her."

For a second, I couldn’t process what she was saying. Then, it hit me. My phone. My wallpaper.

Shubhi’s voice dropped, laced with something that sounded dangerously close to pain. "All this time, I kept wondering why you were being so distant. Why you were pulling away from me. And now I get it. I was just… an unwanted presence. A third person between you and her."

Her words left me breathless. "What?"

She clenched her jaw, as if forcing herself to stay composed. "I get it now. I was stupid to think I mattered."

A storm raged inside me. She thought—she actually thought—

I stepped closer, my voice lower but urgent. "Shubhi, you don’t understand—"

"I don’t need to understand, Abhimanyu," she snapped, her voice shaking now. "I should’ve known better. I should’ve never—" She cut herself off, shaking her head as if trying to erase whatever thought had just crossed her mind.

And before I could say another word, she turned on her heels and walked away.

I stood there, frozen, my pulse hammering.

She thought the girl on my wallpaper was my girlfriend. She thought I had been avoiding her because of that.

She had no idea.

She had no idea that the girl on my phone was someone I could never have back.

She had no idea that the person she assumed to be my ‘girlfriend’ was the one person I had lost forever.

My sister.

And just like that, the fragile thread between us snapped.

She was gone. And I was left standing there, drowning in words I couldn’t say.

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