[POV: Divya]
The door clicked shut. The lock turned. A tiny, final sound.
Silence.
Not real silence. The house was full of sounds. Aunt Meera's muffled sobbing downstairs. The old pipes groaning. The distant hum of the night. But in here, inside the four walls of my room, it was a vacuum. A museum of a life that ended at 7:23 PM.
I didn't turn on the lights. The moonlight through my window was enough. It painted everything in shades of grey and blue, turning my familiar chaos into a ghost world. The mannequin with the half-finished blouse. The sketchbooks piled like tombstones. The sequins spilled on the floor from last week's frantic dress-making, glittering like frozen tears.
My body moved on autopilot. I walked to my bed, but the thought of lying down, of closing my eyes, was a special kind of horror. So I slid down the side of it instead, my back against the mattress, my knees pulled to my chest on the floor. The cold hardwood bit through my silk dress.
I was still wearing it. The champagne silk. The dress I'd made for him. It was smudged with dirt from the shortcut, stained with… I didn't even know what. Life. Death. It smelled like night air and police tape and despair.
My phone buzzed in the clutch purse I was still clutching. A violent, angry vibration against the floor. I didn't look. It had been buzzing for hours. A symphony of condolences from people who didn't know yet, from Priya asking where I'd vanished to, from random college group chats about assignments I would never finish.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
I reached over, my movements slow and thick, like I was moving underwater. I didn't open it. I just held the power button down until the screen went black.
Silence.
Real silence now.
And in the silence, the ghosts came.
---
FLASHBACK - 8 Months Ago
"Just breathe, Divya. Match me. In… and out. See? We're just two dumb bags of meat and air, inflating and deflating. Nothing scary about that."
Amit's voice was a warm blanket in the dark of my closet. I'd fled here during Aunt Meera's dinner party, the noise and the people and the questions about my "future" tightening a vice around my ribs until I couldn't breathe.
He'd found me. He always found me.
He sat cross-legged in front of me, our knees touching. He wasn't trying to hug me or fix me. He just sat there, a solid, calm presence in the chaos of my panic.
"Name five things you can see," he said, his voice steady.
"I—I can't—"
"Yes, you can. Just the first five. Don't think."
"Your… your stupid yellow socks."
"Good! See? Stupid socks. What else?"
"My… my black skirt. A pink thread on the floor. Your knee. The closet door."
"Four things you can feel."
"The carpet. It's scratchy. My heart. It's trying to escape. Your knee. It's warm. My own breath. It's hot."
"Three things you can hear."
"Your voice. The AC. Laughter from downstairs."
"Two things you can smell."
"Your cologne. It's too strong. Dust."
"One thing you can taste."
"Salt. From my tears."
He reached out then, his thumb gently wiping a tear from my cheek. "Okay," he whispered. "Okay. You're here. You're with me. You're safe."
He didn't say "it's okay." He said "you're safe." He knew the difference.
"They were asking about my parents," I choked out. "About why they're not here."
His face hardened, just for a second. A flash of protective fury. Then it softened. "Your parents are irrelevant. You have Meera Aunty. You have me. You have Rajesh, even if he's an emotionally constipated robot."
A weak laugh hiccuped out of me. "He hates me."
"He doesn't hate you. He just… doesn't know what to do with you. You're all color and sound, Divya. He runs on binary code. You short-circuit him."
"I short-circuit everyone."
"You short-circuit me," he said, his smile so tender it made my chest ache in a different way. "Every single day. In the best way possible."
He pulled something from his pocket. The stupid silver bracelet I'd made him. He held it between us. "See this? This is my grounding wire. Paintbrush for your art. Sun for the light you bring. Star because you're my constant. Whenever I feel lost, I touch it. And I remember."
"Remember what?"
"That I'm the luckiest sack of meat and air on the planet."
---
PRESENT
My hand flew to my own wrist, where his bracelet now sat, cold and foreign. I'd put it on in the car, my fingers fumbling with the clasp. It was too big. It slid down my arm.
Grounding wire.
It felt like a lie. A cruel joke.
The guilt hit then, a tsunami wave. It smashed through the numbness, violent and accusing.
Why did I make him dance with Rajesh?
Why did I care about a stupid party?
Why wasn't I with him?
Why did I survive the closet panic attacks but he didn't survive… whatever that was?
What did I miss? What did I do wrong?
The questions were spiders, crawling inside my skull, spinning webs of blame.
A soft knock at the door. "Divya? Jaanu?" Aunt Meera's voice, raw and thick. "I have some tea. And toast. You need to eat something."
My throat closed. The idea of food, of swallowing anything, made my stomach revolt. "Not hungry," I croaked, my voice unused and broken.
"Just open the door, baby. Let me see you."
"Go away!" The words ripped out, sharper than I meant. I heard her sharp intake of breath on the other side of the wood.
Silence. Then, a soft sigh. "I'll leave it here. Outside. Please, Divya. For me."
I heard the gentle clink of a tray on the floor, then her retreating footsteps.
I hated myself for it. For hurting her. But letting her in meant letting the world in. And the world was a place where Amit didn't exist anymore. I couldn't face that.
---
FLASHBACK - 3 Weeks Ago
We were in his city flat, the one with the good light. Canvases were everywhere, splashed with his wild, joyful chaos of color. He was painting me, but not from life. From memory. It was an abstract thing—all swirling gold and deep blue and a single, bold stroke of champagne.
"It's your energy," he'd said, grinning, wiping a smudge of cobalt blue on his jeans. "On the day of the ball. When you're finally the center of your own universe, just for one night."
"I don't want to be the center," I'd mumbled, sewing a sequin onto his tuxedo lapel. "I just want to be with you. And for Rajesh not to make any snide comments about the canapés."
Amit laughed. "He will. It's his love language. He's already sent me seventy-two texts about the optimal timing for our first dance to 'maximize social impact without appearing eager.'"
I rolled my eyes. "He's impossible."
"He's scared."
I looked up, surprised. "Rajesh? Scared? Of what? A dip in the NASDAQ?"
Amit's smile faded a little. He put his brush down. "Of losing people. Of things changing. His parents… you know how they are. Distant. I'm the only constant he's ever had. And now you're here, and you're my constant. It shifts things for him. He doesn't know where he fits anymore."
"He fits right where he always has. As your annoying shadow."
"He's not a shadow, Divs. He's the stage. Solid, reliable, holding everything up so the actors can shine." He came over, crouching in front of me. His paint-stained fingers tilted my chin up. "And you, my love, are the spotlight. Blinding. Beautiful. Impossible to look away from."
He kissed me then, soft and deep, tasting of turpentine and dreams. "Promise me something," he whispered against my lips.
"Anything."
"No matter what happens. After the party, after college, after life gets stupid and complicated… we stay together. We find each other. Always."
"Always," I breathed, sealing it.
---
PRESENT
"No matter what happens… we stay together."
A dry, hacking sob tore from my throat. I clawed at the bracelet, wanting to rip it off, to throw it across the room. But my fingers wouldn't obey. They just clutched it tighter, the charms biting into my palm.
Heart. Sun. Star.
Liar. Liar. LIAR.
You don't leave. You don't jump. You don't break a promise sealed with a turpentine kiss.
The agony wasn't a wave anymore. It was the ocean. I was drowning in it. I couldn't breathe. I wrapped my arms around my knees, rocking back and forth, a silent scream locked in my chest.
Hours bled together. The moon moved across the window. The tea outside my door went cold.
My phone, now dead, was a black mirror on the floor. I stared at it, and another memory, unbidden, surfaced.
---
FLASHBACK - Yesterday, 4:37 PM
My phone had buzzed with a text. From Amit.
Amit: On the metro! The AC is glorious. I feel like a frozen pea. A very handsome, tuxedoed frozen pea. See you in 90. Don't start the party without me. PS: Tell Rajesh to unclench his jaw. It's bad for his brand.
I'd smiled, typing back.
Me: He's currently arguing with the florist about the "suboptimal spatial distribution of hydrangeas." You have time.
Amit: Save me a dance. No, all the dances. Actually, just save me. Period.
Me: Always.
That was the last text. The last word. Always.*
---
I'd failed. I hadn't saved him. I'd been too busy with hydrangeas and holograms of a perfect night.
The guilt mutated, turned inwards, became a corrosive self-loathing. My skin felt filthy. The dress was a shroud. I stumbled to my feet, my legs screaming from being folded for so long. I went to my closet, my hands shaking as I tore at the zipper of the champagne silk. I couldn't get it off fast enough. The fabric ripped. I didn't care.
I let it pool on the floor, a sad, glittering puddle of a dream. I stood there in my underwear, shivering in the moonlight, feeling exposed and hollow.
I pulled on the first things my hands found—an old, soft band t-shirt of Amit's that smelled faintly of him (paint and sandalwood) and a pair of ripped sweatpants. The fabric was a ghost hug.
I didn't look in the mirror. I already knew what I'd see: the girl who survived. The girl who was left behind.
I went back to my spot on the floor. The world had narrowed to this patch of wood, the feel of his shirt against my skin, and the cold, accusing weight of the silver on my wrist.
Aunt Meera knocked again, hours later. "Divya? Rajesh is here. He's… handling things. He needs to talk to you about… about the arrangements."
Rajesh.
The name sparked something. A flicker of the old anger. The convenient target.
He's the stage. Solid, reliable, holding everything up.
Well, the main actor had just quit the show. What good was the stage now?
"Go away," I said again, my voice a rusty gate. "Tell him to handle it. That's what he's good at. Handling things. Tell him to handle this."
I heard a low murmur outside—Rajesh's voice, a quiet rumble I couldn't make out. Then footsteps walking away.
Alone again.
The ghosts were quieter now, retreating into the corners of the room. They'd left behind not memories, but artifacts. The sketch he'd made of me on a napkin, pinned to my bulletin board. The playlist he'd made called "Divya's Epic Sewing Jams." The extra-strong coffee he'd always bring me during finals, because he knew I hated the taste but needed the caffeine.
Every object was a landmine. Every thought led back to the crater.
The sun began to rise. A sliver of brutal, cheerful pink-orange light cut through the window. It painted a line across the torn dress on the floor, making the sequins blaze for one last, mocking moment.
Amit once said, 'no matter how sad we are, no matter how broken… the sun will still rise tomorrow.'
The sun had risen.
And he wasn't here to see it.
I slid down flat on the floor, curling onto my side, staring at the blinding line of light creeping across the floorboards. The bracelet was a cold circle against my cheek.
I didn't eat. I didn't drink. I didn't sleep.
I just existed in the vacuum, a museum piece labeled: The Girl Who Was Left Behind.