Page 142 of Glass Jawed

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One of the older uncles—I’m guessing Vikram and Advik’s father—was sipping a drink in the corridor. He looked at the bag in my hand and pointed me in the direction of Vikram’s room.

“You can drop the bag there,” he said casually.

One floor up and I reach his door. I’m maybe five steps away when it opens.

And that’s when my heartbeat stops.

Not slows.

Not skips.

Stops.

BecauseAarohisteps out.

Hair tangled. Skin flushed. Lips bare, stained wine-red and slightly puffy like someone had kissed the breath out of her. Her choli is fastened slightly off-center, the strap resting crookedly on her shoulder like it had been tied in a rush. She’s still limping—has been for hours from the heels and dancing. Butthis limp? This one is different.

This one iskillingme. Cauterizing the useless remains of my now-dead, non-beating organ.

Because now it’s not just a theory. Not a fear. It’s not awhat-if.

It’s real.

I’ve lost her.

And not in the dramatic,“oh she’s slipping away from me”kind of way. No. I mean in the brutal, final kind of way. In the“she let someone else touch the parts of her I only have the right to dream about”kind of way. The kind of loss that doesn’t leave behind pain—it leaves void.

Advik walks out behind her.

Hair ruffled. His smile lazy. His hand almost grazes her waist like it belongs there.

They haven’t seen me yet.

But they will. Any second now.

And I—

God, I can’t breathe.I can’t fucking breathe.

Because my eyes are telling me the truth. But my soul—my soulis still bargaining. Denying. Screaming in a thousand silent ways that this didn’t happen, that I’m misreading this.

But I’mnot.

I see it in every exhausted frizz of her hair that’s been tugged andfisted. In every kiss-shaped smudge on her shoulder. In the way she bites her lip like it still holds the echo of someone else’s mouth.

It’s too much. Too fast.

Too...final.

And the second she lifts her eyes and sees me standing there—

Holding two paper bags like an idiot.

I shatter.

Right there in that hallway. In silence. Without theatrics. Without sound.

Just...gone.

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