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I met someone today. Not someone I knew. Not someone I was looking for. Just a random stranger—an old man I happened to talk to for a while. Sometimes, life puts people in front of us without giving us a reason. We started talking, and somehow the conversation moved beyond the usual questions. He spoke about his life, the moments he cherished, the people he had loved, the things he had lost, and the things he had learned along the way. There was something strangely peaceful about listening to him. At some point, he asked me, “Do you have feelings for someone?” Then, almost casually, “Are you planning to get married?” I smiled. There are some stories you don’t tell—not because they don’t matter, but because they matter too much. So I left that story untold. I thought that would be the end of it. But then he looked at me and said something I still can’t quite explain. “He knew what you were willing to sacrifice for her.” I looked at him. He continued, “Your living. Your ...

I saw her today. Maybe it was an accident. Or maybe my eyes had been looking for her long before I even realized it. She looked good. Great, actually. And strangely enough, I felt nothing. No sudden heartbeat. No nervousness. No thousand thoughts crashing into each other. Just… nothing. For a moment, my mind went quiet. And somehow, that silence was more confusing than all the noise I had carried for months. Because how could I remember someone almost every day, miss her in places she wasn’t, replay conversations that happened months ago, and still feel like she was a stranger when she stood right in front of me? “Maybe I didn’t stop missing her. Maybe I just stopped recognizing her.” I looked at her and remembered the talks. The stupid laughs. The little things. The version of her that once felt so familiar that I could almost predict what she would say next. The girl who could make an ordinary conversation feel like something worth remembering. But she wasn’t that g...

There’s a strange kind of heartbreak that doesn’t come from betrayal, or distance, or even an argument. It comes from silence… from ambiguity… from something that never quite became real, yet never really stayed unreal either. Aarav didn’t know when it started. Maybe it was the late-night conversations that stretched into early mornings. Or the way she remembered small things about him—his favorite coffee, the song he played on loop, the way he overthought everything but pretended not to. Maybe it was in the comfort. The ease. The unspoken understanding that felt a little too real to be casual. Her name was Meera. And if someone asked her, she’d probably say,  “We were just talking.” But if you asked Aarav, he would pause. Not because he didn’t have an answer—but because none of them felt safe to say out loud. They were never official. No labels. No commitments. No promises. Just a consistent presence in each other’s lives. At least, that’s what Aarav believed. For Meera, it was so...