#failedlove

(16 Noiembrie 2019)

Time will be

As you will see 

The killer of reality 

Decades, years, weeks and hours 

Are a tomb that’s filled with flowers 

To our love they hold…

none. all the things you didn’t like, you forget. you soon realize the same things coming around and now you’re in a furious swivel of regret. The itch turned into a rash. The bandage turned out to be salted.

It used to—every evening at 5:17—like clockwork. And every evening, she used to be there.

Arman didn’t remember exactly when it became a habit. Maybe it started with a coincidence. A glance. Then another. Then a quiet understanding that neither of them spoke out loud.

Her name was Nira. He learned it not from her, but from the way the old tea seller called out, “Nira, your usual?” as she smiled and nodded.

She always wore soft colors—blue, white, sometimes pale yellow—as if she didn’t want to disturb the world around her. And she always stood near the broken pillar, the one with peeling paint and old posters clinging to it like forgotten promises.

Arman never spoke to her the first week.

Or the second.

But love doesn’t always arrive with noise. Sometimes it grows in silence, in the space between two strangers who look for each other without admitting it.

By the third week, they were standing closer.

By the fourth, they were sharing the same bench.

By the fifth, they were talking.

It wasn’t dramatic. No grand confessions. Just small things.

“Do you always take this train?”

“Yes.”

“Me too.”

That was enough.

Days turned into something softer. Warmer.

They started waiting for each other—not saying it, but knowing it. If one was late, the other would linger just a little longer, pretending to check their phone, pretending not to care.

But they did.

They cared in the quietest, most dangerous way.

—

Nira loved stories. She once told him, “I think people fall in love in pieces, not all at once.”

Arman laughed. “And when do you know you’re fully in love?”

She looked at him then—longer than usual.

“When losing them feels like losing yourself.”

He didn’t understand at the time.

He would.

—

One evening, the train was late.

The sky had turned the color of bruised violet, and the station felt unusually still.

Nira was different that day.

Quieter.

She didn’t smile when he arrived.

“Everything okay?” Arman asked.

She nodded too quickly. “Yeah… just tired.”

But her hands were shaking.

He noticed.

He always noticed.

They sat in silence for a while before she spoke again.

“My family is moving.”

The words fell like something fragile breaking.

Arman blinked. “Moving? Where?”

“Far.”

“How far?”

She smiled faintly. “Far enough that this train won’t matter anymore.”

He wanted to say something—anything—but his chest felt tight, like the words had nowhere to go.

“When?” he finally asked.

“Tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

It was such a small word for something that big.

“You didn’t tell me,” he said softly.

“I didn’t know how.”

He looked at her, really looked this time, as if trying to memorize every detail before it disappeared.

“Will you come back?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately.

Then, quietly—“I don’t think so.”

—

The train arrived with its usual screech, but nothing felt usual anymore.

People moved around them, noise filled the air, but they were trapped in a silence that felt louder than anything else.

Nira stood up.

“This is my train.”

Arman nodded, but didn’t move.

She hesitated.

For a moment, it seemed like she might say something more. Something important. Something that could change everything.

But she didn’t.

Instead, she reached into her bag and handed him a small folded paper.

“Don’t read it now,” she said.

And then she left.

Just like that.

No hug.

No goodbye.

No “stay.”

Just footsteps fading into a life he wasn’t part of anymore.

—

Arman didn’t open the paper until hours later.

He sat on his bed, the city quieter now, the world somehow smaller.

His hands trembled as he unfolded it.

Inside, written in soft, careful handwriting:

“I loved you in all the ways I was too afraid to show.

I waited for you to say something… anything… but you never did.

And I was too scared to be the first.

So I chose silence.

Maybe in another life, we would’ve been braver.

—Nira”

—

The train stopped coming to Platform 3 after that.

Or maybe Arman just stopped noticing.

He still went there sometimes.

Same time.

Same bench.

Same broken pillar.

But she was never there.

And the silence between them—the one that once felt comforting—now felt like a wound that never healed.

—

Years later, he would understand what she meant.

Love doesn’t always fail because it isn’t real.

Sometimes, it fails because it is.

Because two people feel everything…

and say nothing.

And in the end, the cruelest thing wasn’t that they lost each other.

It was that they never even truly had each other to begin with.

The first time Ayan noticed Meher, she was laughing at something no one else seemed to understand.

It was a quiet afternoon at the university library, the kind where dust floats like forgotten thoughts in beams of sunlight. Everyone was buried in books, chasing grades, chasing futures. But Meher sat by the window, her head tilted slightly, smiling at her phone—softly, like she was afraid her happiness might spill over and disturb the silence.

Ayan didn’t know why he kept looking.

Maybe it was the way she tucked her hair behind her ear without noticing. Or how her eyes lingered on words longer than necessary, as if she felt everything she read.

Or maybe it was because, in a place full of noise disguised as silence, she seemed real.

They didn’t speak that day.

Or the next.

Or even the next week.

But somehow, their schedules aligned like fate had quietly edited their lives. Same library table. Same time. Same unspoken awareness.

Until one day, Meher looked up and caught him staring.

Ayan panicked. He looked down so quickly he nearly dropped his pen.

But then he heard it.

A small laugh.

Not mocking.

Not awkward.

Just… warm.

“You always look like you’re solving the world’s biggest problem,” she said.

He blinked, unsure how to respond.

“I—uh—I’m just trying to pass statistics.”

She smiled. “Same thing, honestly.”

And just like that, something began.

They started small.

Shared notes.

Then jokes.

Then long conversations that stretched past closing hours, where the guard would cough loudly to remind them it was time to leave.

Meher loved stories.

Ayan loved listening.

She talked about how she wanted to travel the world—not for pictures, but for feelings. She wanted to stand in places where history had happened and just… breathe it in.

Ayan talked about his family, his responsibilities, the quiet weight he carried as the eldest son.

They were different.

But they fit.

Like two incomplete sentences that somehow formed a perfect meaning together.

It was raining the day Ayan realized he loved her.

They were stuck under the narrow shade outside the library, watching the sky pour its heart out.

Meher stepped forward suddenly, letting the rain soak her.

“Come on!” she called.

“You’ll get sick,” Ayan protested.

She laughed. “You’ll miss life.”

And before he could think, she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the rain.

Cold droplets. Loud laughter. The world fading into a blur.

And her hand in his.

That was the moment.

Not dramatic.

Not loud.

Just… undeniable.

But love, Ayan would later learn, doesn’t always mean staying.

Months passed.

Their bond deepened in quiet ways.

She knew when he was stressed without him saying a word.

He knew when her smile wasn’t real.

They became each other’s safe place.

Yet, there was always something Meher never talked about.

A shadow behind her eyes.

A pause before certain questions.

Ayan noticed—but he never pushed.

He thought love meant patience.

He didn’t realize that sometimes, love also needs courage.

The truth came on a winter evening.

The air was cold, but Meher’s hands were colder.

“Ayan,” she said softly, “if you had to choose between love and responsibility… what would you pick?”

He didn’t hesitate.

“Love.”

She smiled.

But it wasn’t the kind that reached her eyes.

“I thought so,” she whispered.

A week later, she stopped coming to the library.

At first, Ayan thought she was sick.

Then busy.

Then… something else.

He texted her.

Hey, where are you?

No reply.

Everything okay?

Nothing.

Days turned into weeks.

Her absence grew louder than her presence had ever been.

When she finally responded, it wasn’t a message.

It was a letter.

Handwritten.

Folded neatly.

Given to him by a mutual friend who refused to meet his eyes.

Ayan,

I’m sorry.

I know you deserve more than silence, more than confusion. But I didn’t know how to say goodbye without breaking both of us.

You once told me that love is choosing someone every day. I believed you.

But you never asked what happens when life doesn’t give you that choice.

My family has decided my future for me. I said no. I fought. I cried. I begged.

But some battles are lost before they even begin.

I didn’t tell you because I was selfish. I wanted to keep you for as long as I could. I wanted to live in a world where you and I were enough.

But we’re not.

And that’s the hardest truth I’ve ever had to accept.

You deserve a love that stays.

I am not that love.

Please don’t wait for me.

—Meher

Ayan read the letter once.

Then again.

Then a third time, hoping the words would rearrange themselves into something less painful.

They didn’t.

He went to the library the next day.

Sat at their table.

Waited.

Not because he believed she would come.

But because some part of him refused to let go of the version of life where she still could.

Weeks turned into months.

Her number stopped working.

Her social media disappeared.

It was as if she had erased herself from his world.

Except she hadn’t.

She was everywhere.

In the books she loved.

In the songs she shared.

In the rain.

God, especially in the rain.

Years passed.

Life moved forward, as it always does—indifferent to broken hearts.

Ayan graduated.

Got a job.

Became the man his family needed him to be.

Responsible.

Dependable.

Strong.

But somewhere along the way, he stopped laughing the way he used to.

Stopped looking at the world like it was something to feel.

Instead, it became something to endure.

One evening, while cleaning his old belongings, he found it.

The letter.

Still folded.

Still carrying the weight of everything he never said.

He sat down and read it again.

This time, something felt different.

Not less painful.

But clearer.

For the first time, he noticed the spaces between her words.

The things she didn’t say.

The love hidden in her goodbye.

Ayan never replied to that letter.

Not because he didn’t want to.

But because he didn’t know where to send it.

So he wrote anyway.

Meher,

You asked me once what I would choose between love and responsibility.

I said love.

I think I was wrong.

Because real love… is responsibility.

And you carried yours, even when it broke you.

I was angry for a long time. Not at you—but at the world that took you away.

But now I understand.

You didn’t leave because you didn’t love me.

You left because you did.

And maybe… that’s the cruelest kind of love there is.

I hope wherever you are, you still laugh at things no one else understands.

I hope you still run into the rain.

And I hope… in some quiet corner of your heart… you remember me.

—Ayan

He folded the letter.

Placed it inside the old one.

And for the first time in years, he let himself cry.

Not loudly.

Not dramatically.

Just… quietly.

Like the kind of grief that doesn’t need witnesses.

It rained that night.

And for a brief moment, Ayan stepped outside.

Closed his eyes.

And let the rain fall.

Somewhere, in another life, in another version of the world—

She was there with him.

Laughing.

Pulling him into the storm.

But not in this one.

And that was the story of their love.

Not a love that failed.

But a love that existed… and still wasn’t enough.

The end.