The ride home was quiet.
No one spoke.
No music.
Just the sound of tires on pavement and the steady throb in my shoulder where the crash had left its mark.
My mother sat beside me in the backseat, her hand never once reaching for mine.
My father drove, eyes fixed on the road ahead like it owed him something.
No one asked if I was okay.
No one mentioned the accident.
No one said a word about Mehul.
It was like we'd entered a new version of reality where nothing had happened.
And somehow, that silence hurt more than the crash.
When we got home, my mother helped me inside.
There was soup on the table. Fresh sheets on my bed.
Pillows propped. Curtains drawn. Painkillers ready.
They did everything right.
Except acknowledge what had actually broken.
"Just rest, beta," my mother said as she fluffed the pillows behind me.
I wanted to ask if she was angry.
If she hated me now.
If I'd just undone the person she thought I was.
But I didn't ask.
Because I wasn't ready for the answer.
The first night back, I stared at my ceiling for hours.
The bruises ached.
The stitches pulled when I shifted.
But that wasn't what kept me awake.
It was Mehul.
The way he looked at me in the hospital room — like he wanted to hold me and shake me at the same time.
The way his voice cracked when he said "I love you."
The way he stepped back when my parents stepped forward.
I should've said something.
Should've stood up for him.
But instead, I'd let him slip away.
Watched them push his place in my life back into a shadow.
And I had let them.
Now, back in the room I grew up in — surrounded by childhood posters and framed certificates and old photos of a version of me that never existed —
I felt like a stranger.
This room didn't fit me anymore.
Not after Mehul.
Not after the bookstore.
Not after knowing what it felt like to fall asleep next to someone who loved me enough to stay in a hospital chair all night.
I reached for my phone, finally.
Not to scroll.
Not to check messages.
Just to call him.
But I hesitated.
What if they heard?
What if this made it worse for him?
What if my silence had already told him everything he needed to know?
My thumb hovered over his name.
Saved as: Meh 🍂
Nothing could soften what I was feeling now.
I wanted to tell him I was sorry.
That I missed him.
That I felt like I was drowning in my own house.
That the only time I felt like myself — was with him.
But I didn't press the call button.
Not yet.
I just stared at his name.
And let my screen dim.
It had been thirty-one days.
Thirty-one mornings of waking up in a bed that no longer felt like mine, in a house where every corner was familiar but nothing felt safe anymore.
Thirty-one nights of falling asleep to the sound of muffled voices outside my door, the soft scrape of a chair, the occasional glance exchanged between my parents — not angry, not cruel, but heavy with something unspoken, something that made it clear they were waiting for this phase of mine to pass.
And through all of it, there was silence.
Not a day went by that I didn't think of him.
Not a moment passed that I didn't want to reach out, to explain, to say something — anything — just to remind him that I was still here, still breathing, still trying to figure out how to make it all right again.
But my phone remained untouched.
Not because I had nothing to say.
But because I had no space to say it.
Every time I picked it up, every time I hovered over his name — Mehul 🍂 — the door would creak open behind me.
A tray of food.
Another round of painkillers.
A soft, measured voice asking if I'd eaten, if I needed anything, if I was feeling better.
And I hated how kind they were.
Because it made me feel worse.
Because it made me question whether it was easier for them to care for me as their son…
if they didn't have to see all of me.
I tried locking the door once.
Just once.
I wanted two minutes to breathe, to type out a message I'd rewritten in my head a hundred times.
But the knock came too soon.
Gentle, persistent.
"Vihaan? Why is the door locked, beta?"
And just like that—the moment was gone.
I told myself I'd try again the next day.
Then the day after that.
And then suddenly… a whole month had passed.
Mehul hadn't texted.
He hadn't called.
He hadn't tried.
But I didn't blame him.
He had stayed by my side when I couldn't move, when my hands were too weak to hold his back.
He had said he loved me — in front of everyone — and I had let that moment die in silence.
If I were him, I wouldn't have waited either.
Some nights, I stared at the ceiling until morning.
I thought of the bookstore.
Of the chai we never got to finish.
Of the way he had kissed me in that hospital room — like I was something worth holding onto.
And every time I remembered that, my chest ached.
Because I knew — if he was forgetting me…
I wasn't sure I'd survive being forgotten.