Healing Hearts and Broken Promises

When I added Krivika back to the group chat, it wasn't supposed to mean anything.

Khwaish had just left me—without closure, without answers. I was floating in a space that felt too quiet. Krivika, in contrast, had vanished months before while trying to patch things up with her ex. Her exit back then had been subtle, quiet. No drama. Just silence.

Now, she was back.

At the same time, my friend Akshat started acting… different. We were close once—shared memes, late-night calls, even heartbreak stories. But around Krivika, he became someone else. Softer. Sharper. More attentive. He laughed a little louder when she spoke, typed faster when she was active, and started dropping compliments that didn't quite sound like jokes.

I noticed and I stayed silent because I was watching something I wasn't sure how to define yet—was it jealousy? Competition? Was I even allowed to feel anything?

Krivika didn't seem to notice Akshat's interest—or maybe she just didn't care.

Her attention was shifting.

Toward me.

It started with subtle things. A message just for me. A reply too fast. A voice note with my name in the middle of it, like it meant something.

Then, one night, I was joking around with a few girls in the group chat. Harmless banter. A break from the usual emotional weight.

But she noticed.

And she didn't like it.

Later that night, she messaged me directly.

Krivika: "DM me."Me: "Why? What's up?"Krivika: "Stop pretending like you don't know what this is. What do you want from me?"

I froze.

I didn't know what to say. I wasn't even sure what she meant—until she said it directly:

Krivika: "Let's just start. Let's try."

No confession. No build-up. Just a decision.

And I agreed.

The Silence Between Friends

What Krivika didn't know was that Akshat had feelings for her too.

And I knew.

I didn't say a word. Not when he messaged me about her. Not when he told me he was trying to figure her out. Not even when he confessed to liking her.

I nodded. I pretended to be neutral.

But deep down, I already knew how the story would end.

And it did.

Akshat found out.

Maybe from the chat. Maybe from her replies. Or maybe from that change in my tone when we talked about her.

He never confronted me.He didn't have to.

We both knew and after that, something between us cracked—quietly, like glass under a rug. No noise. Just damage.

The Two-Hour Relationship

That same night, she called me.

Her voice was softer than I expected. Nervous. Like someone carrying something heavy in both hands and afraid to drop it.

We talked for nearly two hours. Not about us, but about her past. Her ex. The mess she was still sorting through in her head.

"I've been trying to move on," she said. "I thought I had. But there are still pieces of him everywhere. In my music. In my habits. In my sleep."

I listened. Patiently. Quietly.

But the more she spoke, the more I realized…

She hadn't started something with me.

She was trying to finish something with someone else.

And I?

I was just a temporary landing zone. A warm voice in a storm she hadn't left behind yet.

When the call ended, I stared at the screen for a long time. The two-hour trial had ended.

I already knew the result.

Aftershocks

Akshat and I stopped talking like we used to. He wasn't angry. Just… quieter.

We both carried something unspoken.

And Krivika?

She faded too.

The silence wasn't sudden this time. It came like fog — slowly, softly, until I couldn't see what we were anymore.

What I Learned

You can lose two people at once — and never even fight about it.

Sometimes, you're not someone's beginning. You're their intermission.

Being the safe space is noble — but it hurts when you're never the first choice.

A two-hour call can make you feel like a lifetime passed.

The people who leave don't always walk out. Sometimes, they just… stop showing up.

Author's Note:

This wasn't love.It was a quiet collapse.It was a girl trying to close her past,and a boy trying to find something real in the middle of it. It lasted for two hours but the silence after that?

It lasted for weeks.

— Ayan