Page 102 of Glass Jawed
She smiles. They keep talking. But I can’t hear the rest.
Because her words have detonated something inside me.
She’s leaving?
She’sleaving.
Delhi. Home.
She’s going back to India.
I feel the panic clawing up from the pit of my stomach, cold and sharp. Like metal scraping bone. My ears ring. I think I might just pass out.
She’s leaving this city.
Not just this city—thiscountry.
This continent.
And I... I didn’t even know.
There’s no reason she would tell me. Of course not. But still—I feel like the floor just opened beneath me and I’m spiraling through air I can’t breathe. The silence in my head is deafening. No thoughts. No solutions. Just gone. She’ll begone.
Out of my reach.
Out of myorbit.
Forever.
I try to step back, to disappear into the crowd, to shove the panic down somewhere deep where it won’t hum so loud in my ears.
But I’m too slow.
Because her eyes catch mine.
Shit.
Her gaze flicks over lazily at first—just scanning—and then lands on me. Pauses. Registers.
And that’s when I realize—sheseesme.
No flash of recognition. No warmth. No flare of shock or curiosity. Just... awareness.
She straightens a little and tilts her chin up, poised in that way only Aarohi can manage when she’s shoving every ounce of emotion behind a wall of polite detachment. Then she offers a small smile. Professional. Cold. Surgical.
“Mr. Vale,” she says lightly, like she’s addressing a coworker in a meeting.
Not Lucian.
Not even Lucian Vale.
Just... apatheticMr. Vale. What she called me when we reconnected that first time.
Andfuck, it guts me raw.
Akshat glances at her, then me, then back at his family, still smiling, oblivious. They seem to expect something. Maybe a friendly exchange. A polite conversation. I don’t know.
But I can’t give them anything. I can’t even breathe.
