15 The Silence They Chose
The glow of my laptop screen spilled softly across the room, casting faint shadows against the walls.
Everything else had fallen into silence hours ago.
Mom and Dad had gone to bed after what felt like an unusually long, happy day, and the house had finally settled into a calm, resting quiet. But sleep refused to come to me.
Not tonight.
Not when my mind kept circling back to the same thing, over and over again.
My result.
I stared at the screen yet again, even though I had already checked it countless times since afternoon. The numbers still didn’t feel real, as if they might shift the moment I blinked or reached out to touch them.
My fingers hovered uncertainly over the keyboard, a strange urge inside me wanting to confirm it once more—just to be sure. But nothing changed.
It was still there.
Still mine.
And still far better than anything I had dared to expect.
A soft smile slowly formed on my lips, my chest filling with that familiar rush of happiness that had stayed with me since earlier. I could almost hear Mom's voice again, the way it had cracked with emotion when she saw the result.
The memory played vividly in my mind—her hand flying to her mouth, eyes widening before she pulled me into a tight embrace. Dad's laughter had followed, warm and proud, his hand resting on my head in a way that made me feel like I was still his little girl.
The house had been alive then—filled with sweets, phone calls, congratulations, and a kind of joy that wrapped itself around everything.
For a few beautiful hours, everything had felt perfect.
My smile softened as another memory slipped gently into place.
Diya.
I had called her almost immediately after. The moment she picked up, neither of us had waited for the other to speak—we had both started talking at once, our excitement spilling over, voices overlapping in pure chaos.
When she told me her result, I had let out a scream so loud that Mom had shouted at me from the kitchen to lower my voice. We had laughed endlessly after that.
We had done it.
Both of us.
Exactly the way we had always promised each other we would.
Best friends. Same dreams. Same victories.
Together.
The thought lingered warmly for a moment… before something inside me shifted.
The smile on my lips didn’t disappear all at once—it faded slowly, almost reluctantly, like it was holding on for as long as it could.
Because there was someone else.
Someone I had wanted to call just as badly.
Someone who should have known before everyone else.
My fingers moved almost unconsciously, gliding over the touchpad as if guided by instinct rather than thought. The screen changed, and within seconds, I found myself staring at something I hadn’t opened in a long time.
Our chat.
His name.
Ansh.
My breath caught slightly, my chest tightening in a way that felt all too familiar.
For one brief moment—just one—I forgot everything.
Forgot the distance that had grown between us.
Forgot the silence that had replaced what we once had.
Forgot the reality of what we had become.
My fingers began to move before my mind could stop them.
I did it…
The words appeared on the screen.
Simple.
Honest.
Exactly what I had wanted to say.
But my hands froze.
My vision blurred slightly as the weight of reality came crashing back, quiet but unforgiving.
We don’t talk anymore.
The thought didn’t hit me like a sudden storm. It wasn’t loud or chaotic. It settled instead—slow, heavy, sinking deep into my chest like something that had always been waiting to remind me of its presence.
My fingers hovered above the keyboard, unmoving now, as if even the smallest movement would make everything worse.
What was I doing?
What right did I have to text him?
And worse…
What right did I have to expect anything in return?
A soft, humorless laugh escaped my lips as I leaned back in the chair, my head falling slightly against it.
“Stupid…” I whispered under my breath, the word barely audible in the silence.
And just like that—
The past, which I had been trying so hard to keep at a distance, came rushing back.
Uninvited.
Unstoppable.
~~~~~~
It hadn’t happened all at once, and maybe that was what made it hurt the most. There was no single moment where everything shattered, no clear line that marked the end. Instead, it slipped away slowly, almost quietly, until one day I looked around and realized there was nothing left to hold on to.
At first, the changes were small—so small that I convinced myself they didn’t mean anything. His messages became shorter, stripped of the warmth they once carried.
Calls that used to stretch for hours turned into hurried minutes, then into missed attempts, and eventually into nothing at all. There was always a reason, always an excuse waiting on the other end. He was busy. He would call later. Not now, Niyati.
And I believed him.
I wanted to believe him.
Because accepting anything else felt far worse.
But there comes a point when understanding begins to feel like denial, and patience starts to hurt. I reached that point quietly, without even realizing it, until one day I couldn’t ignore it anymore. The distance had grown too wide, the silence too loud.
So I went to him.
I remember that evening with a clarity that refuses to fade, as if my mind chose to preserve every detail just to remind me of how it all ended. He stood there, just a few steps away from me, yet somehow farther than he had ever been.
There was something in the way he carried himself—tense, distracted, distant—that made my chest tighten even before a single word was spoken.
“What’s going on, Ansh?” I had asked, forcing my voice to stay steady despite everything building inside me. “Why are you avoiding me?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead, he ran a hand through his hair, his gaze shifting everywhere except toward me, as though looking at me directly would make things harder. That hesitation alone told me more than any words could.
And then he spoke.
Slowly, reluctantly, like each word weighed more than it should.
He told me about his father—about the truth that had come out, about the betrayal that had cracked his family open from the inside.
He spoke about his mother, about the way she had broken down, about the pain that lingered in every corner of his home now. He mentioned Diya too, how she tried to act strong, how she pretended she was okay when she clearly wasn’t.
Each word landed heavily, sinking deep before I could even process it properly.
And just like that, everything inside me shifted.
The frustration, the confusion, the hurt I had been holding onto—it all softened, melting away in the face of what he was going through. None of it felt important anymore. Not compared to this.
Without thinking, I stepped closer to him, instinct taking over where logic had failed.
“Then let me be there for you…” I had said softly.
Because that’s what love meant to me.
It meant staying.
It meant holding on, even when things became difficult, even when the world felt like it was falling apart. It meant choosing each other, not just in the good moments, but especially in the bad ones.
But instead of moving closer—
He stepped back.
It was just one step.
A small, almost insignificant movement.
And yet, it felt like the ground had shifted beneath me.
“I can’t handle this, Niyati,” he said, his voice low, controlled, but firm in a way that left no room for misunderstanding. “I don’t have space for anything else right now.”
He didn’t say the words.
He didn’t have to.
I heard them anyway.
Not even us.
My throat tightened as I tried to hold myself together, tried to make him see what I felt so strongly.
“I’m not ‘something else’, Ansh…” I whispered, my voice barely steady. “I’m with you.”
For a moment—just one fleeting moment—I allowed myself to hope.
Hope that he would look at me.
That he would step forward instead of back.
That he would choose me.
Choose us.
But he didn’t.
“I don’t need a relationship right now,” he said instead, the words falling between us with a finality that silenced everything else.
And that was it.
No raised voices. No anger. No dramatic ending.
Just a quiet, suffocating silence that stretched between us, breaking something deep inside me without making a sound.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure what I was agreeing to. Maybe it was acceptance. Maybe it was defeat. Maybe it was just the realization that I couldn’t fight for something he had already let go of.
I turned to leave, because staying there any longer felt unbearable.
But I stopped.
Because there was one question left.
One that I shouldn’t have asked—but did anyway.
“Was I ever important to you?”
My voice came out softer than I intended, fragile in a way I couldn’t hide.
He didn’t answer.
He didn’t even try.
He just stood there, silent, his gaze still refusing to meet mine.
And in that silence—
I got my answer.
Or at least, it felt like one.
Because somehow, the absence of words hurt more than anything he could have said.
So I left.
And this time—
I didn’t look back.
My eyes burned as I slowly pulled myself back into the present, the weight of the past still clinging to me like something that refused to let go.
The laptop screen continued to glow in front of me, unchanged, almost indifferent to everything that had just unraveled inside my mind. The result was still there—perfect, untouched, a quiet reminder of everything I had worked so hard for over the past months.
It was supposed to feel like a victory.
It did feel like one.
And yet, beneath that pride, beneath the happiness that had filled the house just hours ago, there was something else now—something heavier, something that settled deep within my chest and refused to lift.
Because the one person I had wanted to share this with the most…
Wasn’t here.
My thoughts drifted back to him again, uninvited but impossible to stop. The memory of his voice echoed faintly in my mind, so clear it almost felt real.
“I don’t want you to lose your studies.”
He had meant it.
I knew he had.
And maybe that was what made it worse.
Because somewhere along the way, I had done exactly what he wanted—I had focused, worked harder, pushed myself further than I thought I could go. I had reached this point, this moment, this result.
But he wasn’t here to see it.
Wasn’t here to smile that quiet, proud smile.
Wasn’t here to say anything at all.
My throat tightened as my gaze dropped back to the screen, landing on the message that still sat there, unfinished yet painfully complete in its own way.
I did it…
Such simple words.
And yet, they carried everything I couldn’t say anymore.
My fingers moved slowly over the keyboard, hesitant, uncertain, as if they were waiting for me to change my mind. They hovered there for a moment, trembling just slightly, caught between what I wanted and what I knew I shouldn’t do.
Because sending it would mean reopening something that had already been closed.
And I didn’t even know if there was anything left on the other side.
Taking a slow breath, I pressed the keys.
Not to send—
But to erase.
The words disappeared one by one, vanishing as quietly as they had come.
Gone.
Just like that.
My vision blurred as a tear slipped free, tracing a slow path down my cheek before I could stop it. I didn’t wipe it away. I didn’t move at all.
I just sat there for a moment, staring at the empty space where his name still existed, but nothing else did.
Then, with a quiet motion, I closed the laptop.
The room fell into darkness instantly, the soft glow disappearing and leaving me alone with the silence that followed. It wrapped around me, heavy yet familiar, like something I had learned to live with over time.
And in that stillness, when there was no one around to hear me, no one to interrupt or respond, the words slipped out before I could hold them back.
“You should’ve been here…”
They were barely more than a whisper, fragile and breaking even as I said them.
But in that moment—
They carried everything I had lost.
The house no longer echoed with raised voices, yet it had never felt louder. The arguments had burned out weeks ago, leaving behind a strange, suffocating quiet that settled into the walls and refused to leave.
It lingered in the spaces between rooms, in the pauses between breaths, in the way no one really looked at each other anymore. I had grown used to it—this heavy stillness, this constant reminder that things had changed in ways that couldn’t be undone.
I sat on the edge of my bed, the dim light from the corridor slipping in through the half-open door. My phone rested in my hand, untouched for a while now, as my thoughts drifted aimlessly. From somewhere down the hall, I could hear the faint clatter of utensils.
Mom was in the kitchen again, trying to keep herself occupied, trying to stitch together some sense of normalcy from what was left. She moved through the house like a shadow these days—quieter, slower, as though even existing took effort.
Diya had locked herself in her room earlier. She tried to act like she was fine, like everything hadn’t shaken her, but I knew better.
I had seen the way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes anymore, the way she avoided conversations that came too close to the truth. So I stayed around more, even when she didn’t ask me to. Even when none of us really knew what to say to each other.
And somewhere in the middle of all of that, I had made a choice.
A choice I kept reminding myself was necessary.
A choice that had cost me more than I was willing to admit.
My grip on the phone tightened slightly as my thoughts shifted, uninvited but persistent, to the one place I had been trying to avoid for months.
To her.
I hadn’t said her name out loud in a long time. Hadn’t allowed myself to linger on it. But that didn’t mean it had disappeared. It stayed there, somewhere in the back of my mind, waiting for moments like this—quiet moments, when there was nothing left to distract me.
Niyati.
The name surfaced anyway, soft and familiar, carrying with it memories I hadn’t been able to erase.
I leaned back slightly, resting my head against the wall, closing my eyes for a brief second as if that would help push it all away. It didn’t. It never did.
Before I could stop myself from going further down that path, my phone buzzed in my hand, breaking through the silence.
A message.
From Diya.
I opened it without thinking.
Her excitement practically spilled through the screen—she had passed, and not just that, she had done well.
A small, genuine smile formed on my lips, the kind that had become rare these days.
I typed back, telling her I was proud of her, and for a moment, that was enough.
Just being there for her. Just being her brother.
But then another message came.
And everything inside me stilled.
She mentioned Niyati.
Said she had scored incredibly well.
That she had outdone even expectations.
I stared at the screen, reading the words more than once, as if they might change.
They didn’t.
Of course she had done well.
That was who she was—determined, focused when it mattered, even when she pretended otherwise. A quiet breath escaped me, something soft and unfamiliar rising in my chest.
Pride.
And something deeper than that.
Something I didn’t want to name.
Without realizing it, my thumb moved across the screen, opening a chat I hadn’t touched in months. It was still there, unchanged, frozen at the point where everything between us had stopped. The silence in that chat felt heavier than anything else in the room.
I stared at it for a long time.
Too long.
A part of me urged me to say something—anything. Just a few words. I’m proud of you. It wouldn’t mean much. It wouldn’t change anything. It would just be… acknowledgment.
But even as the thought formed, I knew it wasn’t that simple.
Nothing about her had ever been simple.
If I opened that door, even a little, I wouldn’t be able to close it again. I knew myself well enough to understand that much. And I didn’t have the right to step back into her life when I had been the one to walk out of it.
So I didn’t type anything.
I just stared.
And then, slowly, I locked the phone and set it aside, as though putting physical distance between me and it would quiet the storm in my chest.
“This is better,” I told myself, the words barely more than a breath.
It had to be.
Keeping my distance.
Letting her move forward without me.
Letting her build a future untouched by the mess I was still trying to hold together.
That had been the whole point, hadn’t it?
That had been the reason I let her go.
Because she deserved more than this—more than broken families and heavy silences and a life that felt like it was constantly on the verge of falling apart.
She deserved something steady.
Something certain.
Something I couldn’t give her.
But as I sat there in the quiet, staring at nothing, I couldn’t ignore the hollow feeling that settled deeper within me.
Because even if it was the right decision—
It didn’t feel like one.
Her voice lingered in my memory, clear and unshaken despite everything.
“I’m with you.”
I had wanted to believe her.
God, I had wanted to.
But wanting something and allowing yourself to have it were two very different things. And I had chosen the safer path—the one that hurt less in the long run.
At least, that’s what I had convinced myself.
A faint, almost bitter smile tugged at my lips as I exhaled slowly, the weight of everything pressing down on me once again.
“Proud of you, Niyati…” I murmured into the silence, the words finally escaping—quiet, unseen, unheard.
And just like everything else between us—
They stayed there.
Unsaid where it mattered.
Lost in the space I had created.
And this time, I didn’t try to fix it.
Because some silences…
Were chosen.