LOVE143

Max never planned on falling apart during her first week of college. She just wanted a fresh start—new friends, new memories, and a clean slate far away from the past that quietly haunted her. But fate has other plans when a single glance across the canteen pulls her back into the memories she buried deep.

A ghost from her past—her almost-love—reappears without warning, stirring up feelings she thought she'd left behind. As she tries to hold her composure, her new benchmate and unexpected friend, Kitty, slowly becomes her anchor in the storm of emotions. But Max isn't ready to talk. Not yet. Because how do you explain the pain of a love that never fully bloomed but still managed to break you?

Told from Max’s point of view, this is a story of silent heartbreak, healing friendships, and the raw, unfiltered truth of remembering someone you tried to forget. Will Max find closure—or something more—when the past comes knocking again ?

finally it's over between us

The heavy, thick, breath-catching kind.

I sat in the backseat of her car, fingers clenched into my lap, eyes fixed on the streetlights outside—each one blinking like they knew what was coming.

She didn't speak until we reached home.

Not until the door shut behind us.9

Then came the silence before the storm.

"You still talk to him?" Her voice was sharp, cracking through the air like lightning.

"Max," she said, stepping forward, "I asked you something. You're still in touch with Ramakrishna?"

I swallowed the lump in my throat. "It's not like that—"

"Then what is it like?" she snapped. "You think I don't remember how broken you were back then? How you stopped talking to even me? How you cried yourself to sleep for weeks without telling anyone why?"

Her words stabbed—each one deeper than the last.

"I thought you healed," she whispered, softer now. "I thought we left all that behind. Why would you bring him back into your life?"

"I didn't plan to," I murmured. "He just... showed up."

"I didn't ask him to be in the same college, or cross paths with me. I didn't expect to feel anything again. But when someone has lived inside your memories for so long, even silence feels loud."

She just looked at me like she was seeing a stranger.

"I don't want you near him, Max," she said, cold and final. "Not again. Not this time."

"No," she cut me off. "You may not see it, but I do. You're slipping back into something you barely survived once. I won't watch it happen again."

Her voice trembled now—not in anger, but in fear.

Because even in her protection… she didn't realize—

She was becoming the very wall that hurt me more than he ever did.

chapter -11 Things left unsaid