The ache in my chest was sharp and unfamiliar. Not heartbreak –no, not yet. But something raw, something close. The quiet beginning of a feeling that maybe, just maybe, what hadn't meant much to her at all.
I kept my head down for the rest of the class. Pretend to take notes. Pretend I couldn't feel the heat in my face or the tightness in my throat. The clock moved slowly, every minute dragging like sand through a bottle.
When the professor finally called time,the scrape of chairs and murmur of voices filled the air. I waited. Waited for her to look back. Say something. Anything.
But she didn't
Soshan stood, slung her bag over her shoulder, and walked out with Nomi like the kiss had never happened.
And I sat there, still staring at my empty page, wondering how one look—one silence—could hurt more than any goodbye.
I didn't remember the walk home. I only remembered the way the air felt too thin, like the world itself had pulled away from me, leaving behind this hollow shell of noise and motion. Every step was heavy with something I couldn't name—grief, maybe. Confusion. shame.
By the time I closed the door to my room, the weight finally caught up with me. I sank to the floor, not even bothering me with the bed, and the tears came fast—hot angry, and endless. Cried like someone who'd been cut open, like the only way to survive the ache was to let it pour out of me.
I wanted to scream at myself for being so naive. For letting a single kiss—just one—build such a world in my head. A world where she had felt it too. Where it had meant something. Where it had started something.
Instead, she left me with silence.
No text. No explanation. Not even a casual hey. Nothing.
The worst part wasn't the hurt—it was the hope. The stupid, stubborn hope that maybe she was just busy. That maybe her phone had died, that maybe she was shy. That maybe—
I hated that word, maybe.
But I held unto it, even as it tore me up.
That night, I barely slept. I kept staring at my phone, the screen lighting up for everything except what I wanted. No new message. No soshan. Just the quiet echo of everything she didn't say.
When morning came, I didn't move.
I skipped class—something I'd never done before, not without a good reason. I didn't care. I couldn't face her again. I couldn't walk into the room and pretend like I didn't see her forget me in real time.
Around noon the message started coming in. First Nova: "Hey? You good? You weren't in class. Everything okay ?
Then maya: "we are kind of freaking out. You're never absent. What's going on?"
Then both of them, in the group chat full of concern and questions I wasn't ready to answer.
I stared at their names on my screen, thumbs hovering, trying to find the words. Trying to decide how much of my heart I was willing to bleed into a message. But I couldn't even begin. Not yet.
So I put my phone down. Rolled over. Let the cover swallow me whole.
All I wanted was for her to text first. To tell me this wasn't what it looked like.
But the silence stayed. And so did the storm inside me.