Chapter 28

Subhi

I hadn’t expected to hear anything significant when I met Raghav. I thought it would be some casual conversation, maybe an attempt to tease me about Abhimanyu. But what he said instead shattered my entire perception of him.

"He never told you, did he?" Raghav’s voice was laced with something unusual—hesitation, maybe even guilt.

I frowned. "Told me what?"

Raghav sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as if debating whether to continue. "You don’t know anything about his past, do you?"

The way he said it sent a chill down my spine.

I didn’t respond, and that silence was enough for him to continue.

"That girl… the one in the photo on his phone…" Raghav’s voice dropped. "She was his sister."

Everything inside me stilled.

I felt the air around me thicken, my heartbeat slowing yet pounding in my ears. I blinked, trying to process what I had just heard. His sister?

I had convinced myself that she was his girlfriend—that she was the reason he had been distant, the reason I felt like an outsider. But this… this changed everything.

Raghav must have seen the confusion on my face because he continued, "She died in a road accident. Right in front of him."

My breath hitched.

I didn’t want to hear more, yet I couldn’t stop listening.

"He was just a kid when it happened," Raghav continued, his voice quieter now. "He saw everything—couldn’t do anything. It messed him up in ways none of us could understand. And after that, his father…" He hesitated. "Let’s just say things weren’t the same at home either."

I could barely move. My mind was racing through all the moments I had judged him, misunderstood him.

His silence. His anger. His distance.

It wasn’t because he was ignoring me. It wasn’t because I didn’t matter to him.

It was because he was carrying something much heavier than I had ever imagined.

A lump formed in my throat. I wanted to cry, to go back to the moment when I had accused him in my mind, when I had chosen to walk away.

I had been so blind.

And now, I didn’t know how to face him.

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