Chapter 40

Dad is talking.

His voice drifts through the car like the hum of the engine—constant, low, something that fills the silence but doesn’t quite break it.

He’s talking about the new building going up in town, about how they tore down that old medical shop, about how they’re constructing something bigger, sleeker, better. Something with glass walls and automatic doors.

I stare out the window, watching the world slip past in blurred streaks of gray and brown. I think about how buildings change, how things get torn down, replaced, how nothing stays the same even when you want it to.

Even when you want things to stay the same. Things still change.

Dad clears his throat. “And, uh, you know… our store is happening. It’s finally coming together.”

I know I should react to that.

I know this is big for him. His first actual store after years of selling online.

He’s wanted this forever—something real, something people can walk into, a place where his jewelry isn’t just pictures on a screen but something solid, touchable, his.

And I know what I’m supposed to say.

That’s great, Dad. I’m happy for you.

But the words just sit there, heavy in my chest, like they can’t be bothered to come out.

I nod instead. Barely.

He keeps talking, and I can hear the effort behind it now, the way he’s trying to pull me into the moment. He tells me about the location, how the paperwork’s done, how they’re picking out the interior. “It’s gonna be in Delhi. Near that amusement park you liked when you were a kid.”

I don’t say that I don’t remember the amusement or the last time I had been to Delhi. I don’t know if I ever really liked it, or if he just decided I did and I never corrected him.

He exhales, shifts his grip on the steering wheel. I watch his knuckles go white for half a second before he forces himself to relax.

And suddenly, I remember last night.

Him knocking on my door.

Asking if I wanted to watch something with him.

A movie—one of the old ones, the kind we used to watch when I was a kid.

And I said yes.

Because it’s been years since we’ve done that. Since we’ve sat on the same couch, since he’s looked at me without feeling like he’s trying to figure out where he went wrong.

And I tried. I tried to be there, to feel something, to let it matter.

But I don’t remember a single scene. I don’t even remember what movie it was. I just sat there, staring at the screen, feeling the weight of my own body, feeling the exhaustion in my bones, feeling the silence stretch between us, thick and choking, even with the sound of the film playing.

I wonder if he noticed.

I wonder if he looked over at me, at the way I wasn’t really there, and if it hurt.

Dad taps his fingers against the wheel, like he’s debating whether to keep talking or just let the silence win.

He doesn’t say anything.

For once, he doesn’t try.

And somehow, that hurts more.

The car slows to a stop in front of the school, and I reach for the door handle.

“See you later, Dad,” I say, already halfway out.

But I catch it—the hesitation.

His fingers tighten around the steering wheel, his lips press together for a second too long. He’s looking straight ahead, but I can tell—he wants to say something.

I pause. Just barely.

And then, finally, he exhales. Breathes out the weight of whatever’s sitting in his chest.

“You know you can talk to me about anything, right?” His voice is careful, like he’s stepping over something fragile. “I know we’re not… I know I haven’t always been—” He stops, shakes his head, tries again. “But I just—I just want you to know that.”

I grip the door handle tighter.

Then, softer, almost like he’s forcing himself to finally say it aloud—”I lo— I want you to be happy, son.”

I freeze.

For a second, I don’t even breathe.

I know those aren’t the exact words he meant to say.

But they are close.

And I know they don’t mean anything less.

I’ve wanted to hear that—haven’t I? For years, I’ve waited for him to say something like this. Something real. Something that isn’t just a nod at the dinner table or a forced “How’s school?” before he moves on to something else.

Something like he loves me.

And yet—it doesn’t hit the way it should.

It should feel like warmth spreading through my chest. It should make me feel lighter, like something inside me has finally been acknowledged.

But it doesn’t.

It just feels strange.

Like hearing your name in a voice that’s never said it before.

Like a song played in the wrong key.

I should say something—thank you, maybe. Or even just okay. But the words don’t come.

So I just nod. Once. Barely.

Then I step out of the car, shut the door behind me, and walk toward the school.

I don’t look back.

And now I’m here, standing in the middle of a school that has stopped feeling like school.

The festival is a week away, and no one cares about anything else. Teachers are barely holding on, their voices weak as they go through lessons no one is listening to.

The corridors are loud—a blend of laughter, half-shouted instructions, and the clatter of things being moved around. Students push desks to the side, hanging banners, setting up stalls, arguing about whose idea is better.

It’s loud, bright, alive.

And I feel none of it.

I walk through the mess of people, through the moving bodies and overlapping voices, and it all feels distant. Like I’m watching something behind glass.

I hear him before I see him—his laughter cuts through the noise, effortless, easy.

Raj.

Leaning against a table, laughing at something someone just said, his head thrown back, shoulders shaking. He looks so at home here, in the middle of the chaos, like he belongs to it.

And he’s not looking at me.

Not even for a second.

Not even accidentally.

It’s been days, and he hasn’t looked at me once.

It shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t. But I can feel it settling somewhere in my ribs, heavy and sharp.

I should be used to this by now. The way people move on so easily. The way things shift without warning.

The way someone can be in your life one day, filling up all the space in your head, and then suddenly they’re just a part of the background.

Raj glances over some guy’s shoulder, scanning the crowd, and for a second, I think maybe—maybe this time—

But his gaze slides past me like I’m nothing.

Like I’m not even there.

I don’t know what I was expecting. I exhale and move.

The path to the auditorium feels longer than it should be. My steps drag, slow, like my body is stalling for time, like it knows something I don’t.

It’s ridiculous, really. It’s just a door. Just a building. Just another part of the school I walk through every day.

And yet—

The thought of pushing that door open, stepping inside, seeing people, existing in their space feels unbearable.

I stop at the base of the steps, staring up at the entrance like it’s something heavier, something harder to cross.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

There’s too much of everything today.

Too much noise, too much movement, too many people weaving in and out of conversations I’m not a part of. All of it presses down.

I look away.

The back of the campus is different. Quieter. Here, the trees rise tall, their shadows spilling across the ground, stretching over the pavement like veins. The air is cool, carrying the faint scent of damp leaves and earth.

The sun rests just right—not too harsh, not too dim. I

I let out a slow breath. And instead of walking up the steps, I move to the side.

There’s an open corridor stretching along the side of the auditorium, lined with low concrete fencing that separates the walkway from the grass beyond. It’s not much, but it’s enough.

I sink down against the fence, letting my back rest against the cool surface. The ground beneath me is firm, the sun on my face warm. It’s the kind of warmth that doesn’t suffocate, doesn’t press too hard—it just is.

The trees rustle overhead. Leaves shifting. The sound is soft, distant.

I let my bag fall beside me, pull out my sketchbook.

And then—headphones. A familiar weight over my ears, a quiet barrier between me and everything else.

I close my eyes. The music hums through me, slow and steady, filling the spaces that feel too hollow. The chords sink into my skin, the words curling into my thoughts.

For the first time today, the world stops pressing in.

I exhale. My fingers move, a pen meeting paper, aimless at first—lines without direction, curves without meaning. But it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be anything.

The sun shifts. The breeze runs its fingers through the trees.

And for a while, nothing else exists.

The lines start without meaning. Just loose strokes, the pen gliding over the page, movements led by instinct rather than thought. Soft curves, sharp edges, a shape that doesn’t know what it wants to be yet.

And then—

A jawline.

I pause. The tip of my pen lingers against the page, hesitation curling in my fingers.

But my hand moves before my mind can stop it.

The slope of a nose. The curve of a mouth. Full. Familiar.

My fingertips press a little harder, shading in the places I know by memory.

The arch of eyebrows— The eyes.

I stop.

I know these eyes.

They’ve looked at me a thousand different ways—bright with amusement, dark with frustration, soft with something I was never brave enough to name.

They’ve burned through me, questioned me, seen me.

My fingers tremble as I fill in the shadows.

I can almost feel it—his face beneath my fingertips. The memory is sharp, immediate, like he’s sitting right in front of me.

The warmth of his cheek when I touched it once, laughing at something neither of us remembered afterward.

The way his jaw tensed when he was trying not to smile.

The rough patch of skin near his temple from an old scar he never talked about.

I remember all of it. Too well.

The shape of his lips. How they used to press together in thought.

The soft dip beneath his bottom lip. How easy it was to trace it with my eyes.

My throat is tight now. Too tight.

I pull back.

The face on the page stares at me. Unfinished, but whole enough to be undeniable.

Amit.

I press my fingers against my temple, squeezing my eyes shut. The music in my ears hums on, but it feels distant now.

The breeze shifts, cool against my skin.

He looks at me from the page.

He feels real. Too real.

Like if I just reached forward, my fingertips would find warmth instead of paper.

God I miss him. I miss him in my bones and I hate it.

Because I know what this is. This isn’t longing. It’s mourning.

And I have no right to mourn him.

He’s not dead.

I just ruined him.

If it weren’t for me—

God, if it weren’t for me, maybe he’d still be here.

Still walking the same streets.

Still playing in the same team.

Still looking at me with something other than hurt in his eyes.

I let my head drop back, staring up at the sky.

The clouds don’t care. The wind doesn’t care. The world keeps moving forward.

The campus hums in the distance, voices too far to touch me. The wind moves through the trees, but it doesn’t reach my skin. Everything feels separate. Distant. Like the world has shifted slightly out of my reach, and I’m just here, watching it from the outside.

Too alone. Too lonely.

Everyone keeps moving. Raj, Arya, Aman, Priya, Sid. They all have something to pull them forward, something to anchor them to the present. And me?

I feel untethered. Like I’m floating, fading, slipping into the spaces between things.

There was a time when I couldn’t go a day without seeing him, hearing his voice, feeling the weight of his presence beside me.

And now it’s been months since I’ve last seen those eyes, felt his touch and heard his voice.

I curl my fingers around the edge of the sketchbook, press my thumb against the paper.

I close my eyes, lean my head back against the fence.

The music plays on. The sun drifts lower.

And I sit there, with him and without him, in a world that doesn’t know how to let me belong.

And I’m not even sure I want to belong in a world without him anymore.

***

A voice cuts through the low hum of my headphones. Two breaths, right against my ear.

“Who is he?”

I jolt. The sketchbook nearly slips from my hands as I snap my head up.

Arya is there. Sitting right beside me.

I don’t know how long she’s been here.

I yank my headphones off, snapping the sketchbook shut like it’s evidence of something incriminating. “What the hell,” I mutter, heartbeat still stuttering in my chest. “How long—”

She just shrugs. “You should be in there.”

I blink. “You should too.”

Arya exhales, rolling her shoulders like she can shake something off. She looks… not like Arya. Not like the force of nature that steamrolls through conversations, through people, through life itself. Her eyes are distant, and there’s something too still about her.

She leans back, crossing her legs at the ankle, fingers drumming against the stone bench like she needs movement, even if it’s barely anything.

“They’re still figuring out the lighting cues,” she says. “Takes three of them to decide where the angel should stand. Like it’s some religious dilemma.”

I huff a quiet laugh. “Your angel. Your play.”

Arya glances at me. A flicker of something crosses her face—quick, unreadable.

She looks away. “Yeah.”

There’s a beat of silence. A breeze cuts through the courtyard, shifting the leaves, scattering dry petals across the pavement. She exhales again, pressing the heel of her palm against her forehead like she’s trying to keep herself from unraveling.

And then, softer, like she’s just talking to the wind—

“But maybe I was never the right person for it.”

I turn to her. “What?”

She shakes her head, a smile tugging at her lips, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Nothing.”

It’s a lie. A lousy one.

I don’t call her out on it. Instead, I lean back too, mirroring her posture, letting the silence stretch until she breaks it.

“You ever feel like… no matter what you do, people have already decided what you are?” Arya says, still not looking at me.

I keep my gaze ahead. “Yeah.”

She exhales a quiet laugh. “Of course, you do.”

The breeze picks up again, rustling her hair, carrying voices from the auditorium—the place where she’s supposed to be. The place where Priya is probably standing, graceful and composed, commanding attention without even trying.

“She fits, you know?” Arya murmurs.

I don’t ask who. I already know.

“She just—she stands there, and people listen. She moves, and they follow. And me?” Her fingers curl into a loose fist. “I have to be loud. I have to fight for it.” She swallows. “And still, they don’t really see me.”

I glance at her. “I see you.”

Arya scoffs, shaking her head. “Yeah. You and like, three other people. Great odds.”

She says it like it’s a joke, but her voice is too raw. Too tired.

“Not like that.”

“Then how?”

“Like someone who fights to be heard even when she’s breaking.”

I stay quiet for a second, watching the way her shoulders tense, the way she’s gripping the edge of the bench like she needs to hold onto something.

Then, I say, “You’re right.”

Arya blinks, turning to me.

“You’ll never be Priya,” I say, shrugging. “Because you’re Arya.”

She stares at me. Like she doesn’t know whether to be annoyed or to let the words settle.

I lean forward, resting my forearms on my knees. “Priya is polished. Poised. The kind of person who gets attention without asking for it.” I tilt my head toward her. “You? You demand it.”

Arya snorts. “Nice way of saying I’m obnoxious.”

I shake my head. “I’m saying Priya is the kind of person people admire from a distance. You? You’re the kind of person people remember.”

She stills.

I lean forward, resting my arms on my knees. “Priya’s… perfect. She doesn’t have to fight for attention because people just give it to her. But you? You make them listen. You don’t just stand there and wait to be noticed—you grab the damn mic and start yelling. And yeah, maybe that means people don’t always take you seriously. Maybe it means they think you’re too loud, too much. But it also means no one forgets you.”

Arya exhales, staring down at her hands. “Doesn’t mean they see me, though.”

“They do,” I say. “Maybe not the way you want them to. But they see you, Arya. And one day, they won’t just see you. They’ll wish they could be you. I wish I could be you.”

She looks at me then. Really looks at me.

For a long time.

Then, she exhales, rubbing her temples like she’s trying to press the exhaustion away. “That’s a nice speech, Sharma. You should write a play.”

I smirk. “Only if you direct it.”

She laughs, short and tired, but real.

For a while, neither of us say anything. The sky is getting darker, streaked with the last traces of daylight. The voices from inside fade into a distant hum, like a world neither of us are ready to go back to yet.

She leans her head back against the concrete, eyes slipping shut. I watch her breathe, slow and steady, like she’s letting herself exist for just a second.

“Five more minutes,” she murmurs.

I nod. “Five more minutes.”

And we sit there.

Just existing.

For a little while longer.

***

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