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  There are some evenings that carry memories in the wind. Asha sat on the same old iron bench in the park, the one that still had faded green paint peeling from its arms. The sun was setting, staining the sky in orange and purple, but she wasn’t looking at the sky. She was looking at her phone. Photographs. Her thumb moved slowly across the screen — a birthday selfie, a blurry café picture, a candid moment where he was laughing at something she had said. She zoomed in on his smile like she was trying to memorize it all over again. Maybe she didn’t understand what  ex  meant yet. Maybe she didn’t understand what  moving on  meant either. To her, the word felt like betrayal. Like erasing someone who once held your entire universe inside their hands. She didn’t notice when someone sat beside her. “Are you not able to move on?” a calm voice asked. She looked up. A young man with soft eyes and a guitar case resting against his leg. His voice carried a strange gentle...

There hasn’t been a single day when she hasn’t crossed my mind. Not one morning without a memory. Not one night without a replay. And still… I never reached out. Not because I was confused about what I felt. Not because I doubted my worth. And definitely not because I stopped caring. I stayed silent because I knew. I knew what was unfolding behind my back. I didn’t have proof wrapped in evidence, but I had patterns. I have always overthought — excessively, obsessively, to the point where it exhausts me. But the strange curse of my mind is this: every time I dismiss my instincts as paranoia, time proves them right. It’s not a gift. It’s not intelligence. It’s just pain arriving early. Today I saw her. I was riding, lost in my own rhythm, when a familiar silhouette caught my eye. For a second, time thinned. My hands tightened on the handle. I don’t think she noticed me. Or maybe she did. Maybe I just prefer believing she didn’t — because if she did, and still chose to look through me, th...

They say I didn’t try. That I didn’t fight hard enough. That I didn’t understand her. That I didn’t put in the kind of effort other people did. I’ve heard it enough times that sometimes I almost start believing it. But here is the truth no one saw. I did try. Not in the loud, dramatic, movie-like way. Not with constant messages, not with chasing, not with showing up everywhere she went just to prove a point. I didn’t flood her phone. I didn’t compete with other men trying to impress her. I didn’t turn love into a marketing campaign. Maybe that’s where I failed in their eyes. Because the world mistakes noise for effort. They said others tried harder. That others flirted more. That others were more charming, more persistent, more visible. They told me my effort must have been one-tenth of theirs, so small that she probably didn’t even notice. But since when did love become a competition? Since when did it turn into a scoreboard? I wasn’t trying to win her like a trophy. I wasn’t trying t...