It’s everywhere. In the white walls. In the too-clean floors. In the way people speak in hushed voices like anything louder might break something fragile that’s barely holding together.
Like him.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
I press them together in my lap, fingers digging into my own skin, trying to anchor myself to something real. It doesn’t help. Nothing does. Every few seconds, my mind replays it—the sound of the gunshot, the way his body jerked, the way he looked at me like he was trying to stay conscious just long enough to make sure I was okay.
That look. God. My chest tightens so hard it feels like something inside me is collapsing in on itself. He’s inside. Behind those doors. And I can’t do anything. I can’t fix this. I can’t design my way out of it, can’t plan it, can’t control it. I hate this feeling. I hate it so much.
Footsteps echo down the hallway, urgent and uneven, and I don’t have to look up to know who it is. I feel it before I see them—the shift in the air, the sudden weight of people who matter.
“Aryan?” His mother’s voice breaks on his name.
I look up.
She’s walking toward me too fast, her saree slightly out of place, her hair not as neat as it always is, panic written all over her face in a way I have never seen before. Behind her—Vedant. Radhika. And then, a few steps back, Rudraksh and Siddhant.
All of them here.
All of them looking at me.
And something inside me cracks.
“I’m sorry.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them.
“I’m so sorry,” I repeat, my voice breaking, my vision blurring as tears spill over again. “This is my fault—I shouldn’t have—if I hadn’t—he wouldn’t—”
I don’t even finish.
I can’t.
Because she reaches me.
And then I’m not standing anymore.
Her arms wrap around me before I can brace myself, and I collapse into her like my body has been waiting for permission to fall apart.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper into her shoulder, the words dissolving into sobs. “I’m so sorry, aunty, I didn’t mean—I didn’t know—”
She holds me tighter. “No,” she says firmly, her hand cradling the back of my head like I’m something precious, something breakable. “No, beta. Don’t you do that to yourself.”
But I can’t stop.
I slide down, my knees hitting the cold floor, and she comes down with me without hesitation, still holding me like she won’t let me shatter completely.
“I should’ve—he came because of me—he got hurt because of me—”
My voice is barely coherent now, each word dragged out through panic and guilt that feels like it’s suffocating me from the inside.
Her hand moves through my hair, steady, grounding.
“He came because he loves you,” she says softly, her eyes watering as her voice breaks, but there’s strength in it. “Not because of your fault.”
That makes it worse. Because I know it’s true. And I know I would do the same. Which means I would’ve been lying there instead. The thought hits me so hard I gasp, my fingers clutching at her saree like I need something to hold onto or I’ll disappear. “I can’t lose him,” I whisper, the truth spilling out raw and unfiltered. “I can’t—”
“You won’t.” This time it’s not her voice. It’s Siddhant. I look up, my vision blurred but I see him clearly enough—steady, composed, but his jaw is tight, his eyes sharp in a way that tells me he’s holding himself together by force.
“He’s not going anywhere,” he says, like it’s a fact, not a hope.
