A few months passed after that day.
Not peacefully.
Just... quietly.
Nimesh explained everything to me.
Slowly.
Carefully.
Like he was scared I would break again if he spoke too fast.
He made me feel loved.
Safe.
Chosen.
And that was the problem.
Because I couldn't love him the way he deserved.
He never said it.
Never complained.
Never blamed me.
But I could feel it.
The way he laughed a second late.
The way he smiled only after I did.
The way he stopped being himself and started being only mine.
He wasn't living anymore.
He was surviving, for me.
And I hated that.
I didn't want him to fix me.
I wanted him to be comfortable with me.
I wanted him to live peacefully, not carefully.
That day,
the day I hugged him and he told me everything.
I finally told him my side too.
When the teacher called me during break,
he told me my mother had called the school.
She asked about a boy.
My heart stopped that moment.
I told the teacher the truth.
"We're friends," I said.
"We haven't done anything wrong."
"He helped me when I needed it."
"He understands me more than anyone."
The teacher smiled gently.
"It's okay," he said.
"I'll tell your mother I've handled the matter here."
"But you need to be careful now."
I nodded.
I didn't feel relieved.
I felt watched.
After that, we created distance.
Not silence.
Just... safer spaces.
We stopped talking personally.
Instead, we talked in a group.
The group was Nimesh's idea.
He added our closest friends and named it "Safe Home."
I smiled when I saw the name.
It was sweet.
It was him.
But even in that group, he barely spoke.
He was present only when I was.
Like the rest of the world didn't exist for him anymore.
Days started feeling heavier.
I didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone.
Not even him.
He shared his problems.
He cried with me.
And instead of feeling closer,
I felt pressured.
Not by him.
By the weight of being someone's only reason to breathe.
I didn't want that kind of love.
One day, he told me he wanted to go on a trek.
"Just to clear my head," he said.
"To be in nature for a while."
He asked me to come.
I couldn't.
My mother would never allow it.
So I smiled and said,
"You go, Nimesh."
"Have a nice time."
"Come back safe."
"And come back as yourself."
"That would be the best gift for me."
He went with his cousins.
Five days.
His phone was switched off.
The place had network.
But he was unreachable.
I missed him the first day.
By the second day, I was anxious.
By the third day, I was scared.
I called again and again.
No answer.
That evening, my phone rang.
Unknown number.
I picked it up.
"Hello?"
Silence.
Then a voice.
"Are you Prakirti?"
And everything inside me went still.