The house had forgotten how to laugh.
It stood still, like it was holding its breath, afraid that even a sound might shatter whatever fragile memory remained inside its walls. The curtains no longer danced when the wind brushed past them. They hung heavy, stiff, like mourners who had waited too long for a funeral that never truly ended. Paint peeled away from the corners—not because of age, not because of neglect, but because time itself had stalled here. This house did not age. It mourned.
And at its center sat Vastra.
Twenty-eight years old. Hands trembling. Eyes tired in a way sleep could never fix. He stared at a blank canvas resting on an easel, unmoving, as though the ghost of a memory might finally emerge if he waited long enough. His fingers still knew how to hold the brush. His mind still remembered every stroke. But his heart—his heart had forgotten how to begin.
I used to paint life, he thought once, distantly.
Now I paint absence.
He wasn't handsome. He had never been. His features were ordinary, his frame unremarkable. But to her, it had never mattered. Vaasu had once cupped his face between her palms, eyes steady, voice certain, and called him beautiful like it was a fact the world had simply overlooked. She had said it so confidently that the word had slowly started to belong to him.
Vaasu.
Fair-skinned, glowing like the first light on snow. A doctor. Sharp, selfless, fearless in ways that terrified him. People trusted her instinctively. Patients clung to her presence. She healed strangers every day—and yet she had chosen him. Loved him with a softness that felt undeserved, with a devotion that still lingered in the rooms they once shared. It clung to kitchen tiles. Lived in the creases of abandoned bedsheets. Slept quietly in the folds of clothes he could not bring himself to wash.
But love had not saved her.
His mistake had taken her away.
And now, every breath he drew felt stolen—like he was living on borrowed air that should have ended with her.
He didn't cry the way people cried in films. There were no breakdowns, no dramatic sobs, no moments of release. His grief didn't scream. It sighed. It sat beside him while he ate. Pressed down on his chest at midnight. Wrapped around his wrists when he tried to sleep, reminding him that rest was a privilege he no longer deserved.
He felt her everywhere.
In the smell of wet earth after rain.
In the faint jingle of anklets that never sounded.
In the silence that settled after dusk like an accusation.
Her laughter still echoed in the kitchen. Her humming haunted the bedroom corners. And Vastra—broken, hollowed by guilt—didn't try to escape it. Forgetting felt like betrayal. Remembering hurt less than accepting she was truly gone.
People whispered.
"He's lost it."
"Such a shame."
"She was too good for him anyway."
Maybe they were right.
He painted endlessly—faces, eyes, fragments of smiles that almost resembled hers. He painted her in saris, in white coats, standing beneath street lamps, walking through monsoon storms. Sometimes he painted her alive, warm, real. Sometimes he painted her leaving again. Every canvas bled more than color. It bled apologies he had never spoken. Words he had assumed he would have time to say.
Varun refused to abandon him.
Patient. Gentle. Steady in a way Vastra no longer understood. He brought groceries. Cooked when Vastra forgot to eat. Forced him into showers. Pulled him out for short walks where Vastra stared at the ground as if it might open and swallow him whole. It was Varun who, after a year, pressed an office ID card into his palm and said quietly, "It's not about moving on. It's about not letting her death take you with her."
Vastra didn't want to leave the house. Every brick remembered her touch. But guilt had a way of making obedience feel inevitable.
He became a data analyst. Hid behind spreadsheets. Let numbers replace conversations. His hair grew longer. His beard stayed uneven. He spoke rarely. Smiled never. During breaks, he sat by the window—not to admire the world outside, but to imagine how Vaasu would have loved the tea stall across the street. What snacks she would have ordered. Whether she'd still tie her hair the same way. Whether she would have grown tired of him by now… or loved him even harder.
Nights were the worst.
He didn't sleep. He lay. On the bed. On the floor. Wherever exhaustion dropped him. Some nights he held one of her old dupattas and breathed into it, desperate for a scent that faded a little more each time. Some nights he painted until his hands cramped. His dreams weren't dreams—they were replays. The last argument. Her last smile. The screech of brakes. The silence that followed.
Seasons passed like static.
Summer didn't burn.
Monsoon didn't soothe.
Winter didn't bite.
Only memory did.
His phone remained quiet. Social media forgotten. The only message that mattered was the one he read every day without fail—her last text:
Dinner's ready. Come soon. Love you.
He never deleted it. It was the closest thing he had left to her voice.
On his worst days, he painted himself holding her ghost. On better days, he painted her alone—peaceful, untouched by his mistakes. Maybe he wanted the world to see how divine she was. Or maybe he was trying to create a version of her that might forgive him silently.
The world moved on.
Friends married. Festivals returned. Streets glowed with lights.
Vastra stayed frozen.
A man who had loved and lost.
A man who did not want saving.
A man whose life had ended—but breath stubbornly remained.
And then April came again.
Quiet. Pink. Cruel.
A train ticket rested in his hand. Forced there by Varun. A hill station. "For air," he'd said. "For change." Vastra didn't argue. Not because he wanted to go—but because he had run out of reasons to stay.
Maybe, among mist and pine trees, he would breathe again.
Or maybe—
The past would find him there.