Chapter 19

The afternoon feels too still. Like the whole house is holding its breath.

Like the walls themselves are waiting, listening, pressing in closer and closer until there’s barely any space left to breathe.

I lie on my bed, unmoving. My limbs feel wrong. Heavy and weightless at the same time, like I exist but not fully. Like I’m stuck somewhere between exhaustion and awareness, between wanting to move and not seeing the point.

I could close my eyes. Stay here. Let the day pass like all the others.

But then-

“Dev!”

Mom’s voice, calling from downstairs.

I inhale sharply, forcing myself to sit up, to swing my legs over the side of the bed. The movement feels wrong-too slow, too empty, too much effort for something so stupidly simple.

I don’t want to go.

But I do.

Because saying no would take more energy than just getting up.

The kitchen is warm. Sunlight seeps through the windows, stretching across the floor in long, golden streaks. It looks calm. Normal.

Like everything isn’t rotting beneath the surface.

Mom is by the counter, setting a plate on the table. Dad is already sitting, flipping through his phone, not looking at either of us.

Like always.

Mom glances at me, and for a second, her expression softens. “Eat something,” she says, voice careful, like she’s testing the weight of each word before speaking.

I nod absently, sinking into the chair. I don’t reach for the food.

Mom hesitates, then offers me a small smile. “Were you playing last night?”

I blink at her. “What?”

“Your guitar.” She tilts her head, smiling. “I heard something late at night. It was beautiful.”

Something inside me freezes.

Not because of what she said, but because she’s wrong.

It wasn’t my guitar.

It wasn’t mine.

It was Amit’s.

And I didn’t play it for myself. I played it because I missed him. Because for one second, I let myself believe that if I played, maybe the past wouldn’t feel so far away.

I don’t say anything.

Mom’s smile lingers. “You should play more often.”

I don’t respond. Because what is there to say?

That I won’t? That I can’t?

That the last time I touched that guitar, it wasn’t because I wanted to play-it was because I was desperate for something to hold onto?

That it wasn’t mine?

That nothing about it-nothing about me-feels like mine anymore?

The silence stretches for half a second too long, thick and pressing.

Then—

“Isn’t that your friend’s guitar?”

Dad’s voice. Flat. Thoughtless.

Like the words don’t matter. Like this is just a casual observation. Like he’s not pressing his fingers against an open wound and twisting, twisting, twisting-

I don’t move.

My stomach tightens.

“The one who got rusticated?”

The air in the kitchen shifts.

It’s subtle, almost imperceptible, but I feel it immediately.

Like a current pulling me under. Like a hook catching in my ribs.

I don’t react.

I just nod.

Because what else am I supposed to do?

Dad flips another page of his newspaper, unbothered. “Wonder what he’s up to now.”

I exhale through my nose, gripping my fork too tightly. “I don’t know.”

It’s the truth.

And yet—

The weight of it sits in my chest like something rotten.

I don’t know what Amit is doing.

I don’t know if he ever picked up another guitar again.

I don’t know if he still drinks Sprite with his samosas.

I don’t know if he still hums offbeat to songs just to piss me off.

I don’t know if he even remembers me.

Dad hums again. “Well, I suppose that’s what happens when you make bad choices.”

And just like that—

Something inside me cracks.

Not all at once. Not violently.

But slowly.

Like an old fracture finally giving in to pressure. Like something that has been strained for too long, stretched too far, finally reaching its breaking point.

I set my fork down. Carefully. Then, with a voice that doesn’t sound like mine, I say, “Bad choices?”

Dad looks up, eyebrows raised.

Mom freezes.

I let out a breathless, humorless laugh. “Yeah. You’d know all about that, wouldn’t you?”

Tension snaps through the air like a live wire.

Dad’s expression hardens. “Watch your tone.”

I don’t.

Because I’m so goddamn tired.

Because I have spent years swallowing things I wanted to say.

Because if I don’t let it out now, it will eat me alive.

“You think he got rusticated because he made a bad choice?” My voice is rising now, gaining momentum, unstoppable. “You think he just woke up one day and decided to throw his life away?”

“Dev-” Mom starts, but I don’t stop.

I can’t.

“He got thrown out because of me!”

The words explode out of me, sharp and jagged and too much.

The silence that follows is thick. Suffocating.

Mom’s face goes pale. She sucks in a breath.

Dad just stares. “What?”

I grip the edge of the table, knuckles white. “He fought for me.”

“Why?”

I laugh, and it’s the worst sound I’ve ever made. “Because he actually cared about the people close to him.” My hands are shaking now. My breath is coming too fast, too uneven. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

The words hit like a hammer.

Dad stiffens.

Mom exhales sharply, pressing a hand to her temple, like she can physically hold the tension in place before it shatters.

But it’s too late. It’s already shattered.

“Dev!”

“No,” I snap, voice cracking. “You don’t get to do this. You don’t get to sit here and act like you care when you don’t even know me.”

Dad’s jaw clenches. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” My breath is coming too fast. “You never ask. You never listen. You never even look at me unless you have something to criticize. You sit there and judge a boy you don’t even know, and for what? To make yourself feel better?”

Dad sets his newspaper down, fingers tightening around the pages. “Dev, that’s enough—”

“No, it’s not.”

I stand up.

My chair scrapes against the floor. My pulse is pounding. My hands won’t stop shaking.

“Amit made a bad choice?” I shake my head. “He made a choice because he actually gave a damn. Because when someone he cared about was in trouble, he did something. And what do you do, Dad?” I gesture vaguely. “Flip through your goddamn newspaper and make comments about things you’ll never understand?”

Dad stares. Mom is silent.

And I—

I feel like I’m burning.

Like something inside me is collapsing under its own weight, like I have been holding this in for so long that I don’t even recognize the shape of it anymore.

I take a step back, shaking my head. “You don’t know me. You’ve never known me. You never tried to.”

I turn.

Grab my phone off the counter.

Storm toward the door.

“Dev, wait—”

But I don’t. I push through the hallway. Step outside.

The door slams shut behind me. And I keep walking.

I keep walking.

Past my house. Past Amit’s house.

Past the rows of homes where people sit inside, safe in their small, quiet lives, unaware that something inside me is cracking open.

I keep walking.

Past the rusting street signs, past the uneven pavement, past the trees that line the road like silent witnesses. The sky shifts overhead, stretching into something wide and endless, but I don’t look up.

I don’t stop.

I don’t think.

I just keep moving.

Because if I stop,

If I let myself pause for even a second,

I’ll fall apart.

So I walk.

And when my body demands more-when the burn in my chest reaches my ribs, when my feet ache against the pavement, when the weight inside me becomes too much to carry-

I run. I don’t know how far I go.

I don’t know how long I push myself forward, my breath sharp, ragged, barely enough.

All I know is the feeling-

The release.

The way the world blurs, the way the tension breaks, the way every moment, every suppressed breath, every swallowed word, every unspoken scream-

It finally explodes.

The first tear falls hot against my skin, and then-

It’s all of them.

And I can’t stop. I run like I can outrun the past.

Like I can escape the weight of every moment I have buried inside me.

But I can’t.

I can’t.

And then—

My body gives up before I do.

I stumble. My foot catches on something, my legs shaking, and suddenly I’m on my knees, the world tilting, spinning-

And I break.

Not in the way things snap-quick, sharp, over in a second.

No.

I break like something unraveling, like a rope worn thin finally giving way, like a dam cracking open slowly, painfully, irreversibly.

My knees hit the dirt, hands catching against the ground, fingers curling into the cold, damp earth like I need something-anything-to hold onto. But there’s nothing.

There’s nothing.

Just the air ripping through my lungs, uneven and violent. Just the way my chest hurts, my ribs caving under the weight of too much-too much time, too much silence, too much pain swallowed down and packed tight into a space that was never meant to hold it all.

And now-

Now, it’s coming out of me.

Pouring.

Flooding.

It’s been waiting for this moment, hasn’t it?

Waiting for me to be too exhausted to fight it anymore.

And I am. I am so, so tired.

The tears don’t stop. They come in waves, relentless, unstoppable, choking me.

I dig my fingers deeper into the ground, gripping onto nothing, gasping for breath that won’t come right.

Because how do you breathe when you’ve spent years pretending you didn’t need to?

How do you stop drowning when the water has been inside you all along?

I sob.

Loud. Messy. The kind of crying that wrecks. That tears through the body like a storm, leaving nothing but wreckage in its wake.

And I hate it. I hate that I’m here. I hate that I’m alone.

I hate that no matter how far I run, no matter how much distance I put between myself and the house, the school, the past-

It’s all still inside me.

Because you can run all you want-

But you can’t escape the things that live in you.

And I-

I don’t know how to keep carrying this.

***

I don’t know how long I sat there, knees pressed into the dirt, my body wrung out, hollowed.

But at some point, the storm inside me settles. Not completely. Not into peace. But into something less heavy.

The tears have dried, leaving my skin sticky, my throat raw. My limbs feel too heavy to move, my chest too empty to fill. So I don’t move. I just-sit.

Legs stretched out. Back slumped. Eyes half-open, staring at nothing.

The road stretches ahead of me, silent and indifferent. A few cars pass by, but I don’t care enough to look.

The sun hangs high in the sky, warm against my skin. The afternoon breeze moves through the trees, and their shadows flicker over me like they’re reaching out, brushing against my arms, my shoulders, my face-like they’re offering something.

Maybe comfort.

Maybe just the reminder that the world still moves, even when I feel like I’ve stopped.

I tilt my head back, exhale a slow, tired breath, and let my eyes fix on a point in the distance.

I’m not thinking about anything-

Until I am. Until my mind drifts to him. My dad.

Since the moment I was born, I have only ever known him as one thing-a man who works.

That’s my first memory of him. Not his voice. Not his face. Not his laughter.

Just-

Work.

Hunched over his desk, late into the night. A presence always near but never within reach.

I was too young to understand then.

Too young to question why his hands always felt so tired when they ruffled my hair.

Why his smiles never lasted long before his phone rang and pulled him back into something more important.

But I remember.

I remember the first place we lived.

The kind of apartment where the walls were thin-so thin you could hear the neighbor’s TV through the night.

It was too small. Too cramped. Too loud.

But for little me, it was enough.

Because home wasn’t the space. It wasn’t the walls or the ceiling or the leaking pipes.

It was the moments.

The small ones. The warm ones.

Like the Sundays when Mom made chai and we all sat together in the living room, even though there was barely enough space to stretch our legs.

Like the nights I would fall asleep to the sound of my parents talking softly in the next room, their voices blending into something familiar, something safe.

Like the rare days Dad would take me to the market, let me pick out something small-an ice cream, a book, a stupid toy that I’d forget about in a week.

Those were the moments I remember.

But then-

Fifth grade.

The day Dad brought us here.

To this house.

Big. Expansive. Too much space for just the three of us.

I still remember standing in the doorway, staring at the high ceilings, the polished floors, the rooms I didn’t know what to do with.

I should have been excited. I was supposed to be grateful.

And I was.

But something in me knew. Knew that the bigger the house, the emptier it would feel.

Knew that more space meant more distance.

Knew that I was losing something, but I didn’t have the words for it yet.

Still, I tried.

I tried so hard to make him see me.

To matter. I would stand at his office door, hesitating before knocking.

“Papa, can we go to the park?”

“Not now, Dev, I’m busy.”

“Maybe later?”

“Later.”

Later never came.

Or maybe it did, but not in the way I wanted.

Later came when I was already in bed, pretending to be asleep.

Later came when he was still on his laptop, saying, “You should have reminded me earlier.”

Later came in a hundred different forms, but never in the way that mattered.

I learned to stop asking.

Learned to stop waiting.

Learned that I would always come second to something I couldn’t compete with.

“Dad is doing all of this for us.”

That’s what Mom used to say.

Every time I felt his absence like a shadow in the house.

Every time I waited for him, only to watch him walk past me, already on a phone call, already somewhere else.

“He works this hard because he wants a better life for us.”

And I believed her.

Because what else was I supposed to believe?

I wanted to believe it.

I wanted to believe that all the missed dinners, all the half-finished conversations, all the times I reached out and found nothing but empty air-

That it all meant something.

That it wasn’t for nothing.

But then—

One day, Mom stopped saying it.

Stopped reminding me.

Stopped reminding herself.

Because even she realized-

Somewhere along the way, that excuse had stopped making sense.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped being enough.

I close my eyes, my breath slow, uneven.

The wind shifts, rustling the trees, sweeping through my hair, cool against my heated skin.

I should go back.

I should get up.

But I don’t.

I just sit there, legs stretched out in the dirt, arms limp at my sides, my body too exhausted to move.

Because running didn’t fix anything.

Crying didn’t fix anything.

And now I wonder-

Maybe nothing ever will.