I don't know how long I've been sitting there.
The marble beneath me is cold—cold like the void inside my chest that no amount of eulogies, military salutes, or national flags can warm. The crowd at the memorial has long dispersed. The chaplain's voice, heavy with borrowed solemnity, has faded. Even the bugle's last note has dissolved into the wind like a soldier's last breath—there, then gone.
And yet I sit. Still. Hollow. Listening.
Because somewhere in the silence, I keep expecting to hear his voice.
Not the gravelled command of Major Shashwat Rajput, gallant hero of the 8th Gurkhas. No. I mean the way he used to say my name when we were alone—Kavya, drawn out like a sigh. Like poetry.
But there's nothing now. Just wind, and the rustle of prayer flags in the distance.
I stare at his name etched in granite: MAJOR SHASHWAT "LION" RAJPUT. Beneath it, his medals gleam beneath a garland wilting under the sun. A frostbitten coin rests at the base—a silent symbol only I understand. The one he never took off. The one I buried with him.
Except he isn't there, is he?
"You should come inside," someone says behind me. The voice is low, tentative.
I don't have to turn to know it's Daiwik. He's always gentle with grief. Always careful around my silences.
"I'm not ready," I murmur.
He sighs. "It's getting cold."
"So was Siachen," I say, and the bitterness surprises even me.
A pause. Then, in the quietest voice, he replies, "You think I don't know that?"
I glance at him finally. His uniform is sharp, his back ramrod straight, but his eyes... they're the same. Haunted. Apologetic.
It strikes me how we all wear grief differently. Daiwik wears his like a penance—silent and steady. Colonel Rajput wears his like armour. And me? I'm not sure. Maybe I wear mine like a wound I refuse to dress.
"I'll just be a few more minutes," I whisper.
He nods, understanding, and walks away.
I wait until his footsteps fade before I let the tears fall.
Not loud. Not dramatic. Just quiet salt tracing old scars. I used to think mourning was a storm—raging, violent, loud. But now I know it's this. The soft crumbling of something sacred inside you. Like the slow collapse of a mountain after an avalanche.
I pull out the journal from my bag—the one I never showed anyone. The one that held everything. The one he wrote.
Only it was never meant to be sent. He never intended for me to read it.
But I did.
And every word carved deeper into the hollow of my ribs.
"Tumhe dekhkar lagta hai... zindagi kabhi thehri bhi thi."
—You make me believe life once stood still.
I clutch the pages to my chest, as if holding them close could bring him back. As if ink and paper could replace warmth and breath.
"You weren't supposed to leave," I say aloud. "Not like this. Not without goodbye."
Somewhere in the distance, a chinar tree sheds its leaves.
And I break.
Later, at the Base Guest Quarters
I sit on the cot in my room, unblinking. The walls are too white. The silence too loud. And the air carries that faint military scent—disinfectant and dust.
Daiwik knocks gently before entering. He has tea in his hand, and something that looks like a reluctant comfort in his eyes.
"You didn't eat," he says simply.
"I'm not hungry."
He doesn't argue. Just places the tea on the side table and sits on the opposite cot. For a while, we just sit in the silence. The kind shared only by those who've lost the same man in two different ways.
"He left you a letter," Daiwik says suddenly.
My breath catches.
"What?"
He pulls something from the inner lining of his jacket—a small envelope, weathered and slightly torn. My hands tremble as I take it. His handwriting is unmistakable.
Kavya.
That's all it says on the front.
"Where—?"
"I found it in his kitbag after... after we brought him back."
My fingers don't move. I can't open it.
"Why didn't you give it to me before?" I whisper.
His throat bobs. "Because I was selfish. I thought maybe... if you never read it, you'd stay angry at him. And not leave."
There it is. The grief-etched confession between us. He doesn't say the words, but they hang in the air like monsoon clouds.
I loved you too.
I close my eyes. "Daiwik..."
"I know. I know you'll never be mine," he says softly. "But maybe I just wanted to feel less alone in all of this."
And the terrible thing is—I understand.
We're both broken in the same storm.
I don't reply. Just stare at the envelope like it might vanish. Eventually, he leaves. No drama. No lingering.
I am alone with the last words of the only man I ever loved.
Midnight
I open it.
My fingers are stiff, reverent. The pages are few. But the weight of them? It's unbearable.
Kavya,
I don't know how to begin this without sounding like a coward. Maybe I am. Maybe writing is easier than speaking because it doesn't ask me to see your face when I say these things.
I've never believed in softness. I was raised to believe that vulnerability is weakness, and love... love is a liability. A soldier doesn't carry both a rifle and a heart.
But then I met you.
And suddenly, I wanted both.
I wanted the sound of your laugh after a night shift. I wanted the way you fixed my uniform without asking. I wanted to wake up knowing someone was waiting.
But I also knew that wanting you meant risking you.
So I did what cowards do. I buried it. I buried us.
And now, if you're reading this, it means I either ran too far... or never returned.
I need you to know—none of it was pretend.
I loved you. Not in the poetic way. Not in the neat, tidy way. But in the war-torn, bloodied, frostbitten way. The only way I knew how.
I hope you find peace someday. And I hope that peace looks nothing like me.
Don't wait.
—Shashwat
I press the letter to my chest, curling around it like it might fill the shape of him I've been carrying like an open wound.
Don't wait, he says.
But how do you stop waiting for someone who never truly left?
Dawn
By the time the sun breaks over the Himalayas, I have made my decision.
I walk back to the memorial. Alone.
There, beneath the frostbitten coin and garlands, I place his letter. Let the winds keep it.
I whisper a promise to the breeze: "I'll live. I'll carry you in everything I do. But I won't stay stuck in goodbye."
The chinar tree rustles in response.
For the first time in days, I smile.
It isn't joy.
But it is something close to survival.