"It hurts most when no one notices
that you're still stuck in a yesterday
they've already forgotten."
It was a Tuesday when I noticed it.
Not the pain - that had been there for a while.
But the change.
Sia wasn't sad anymore.
She smiled now - not the polite kind she used around me. But wide, open-lunged laughs. The kind that made the room warmer. The kind she used to have when we were kids, before I complicated it all with my feelings.
She had started hanging out with people more - late-night coffee runs with Meera, weekend study marathons with her roommates, and a boy from her project group whose name I refused to remember.
I told myself I was happy for her.
But something inside me said, "She healed from what you're still bleeding from."
Meanwhile, Reyan was changing too.
He was around less. Studying more. Talking less.
"I'm just tired, bro," he told me one evening, flipping through his notes. "Exams are close. This is it. Make or break."
I nodded. "Yeah. You're right."
But it wasn't just exams. I knew that.
He'd met someone - a girl from his sociology class. Soft laugh, big glasses. She made him smile the way I hadn't seen in weeks. And though he never said it, I knew he was slipping into a new chapter of his life.
And I?
I was still on the same page.
One evening, I passed by the café.
Sia was sitting at the window seat - the one she used to call her "comfort corner." She was laughing with her roommates. Her hair was tied up. She looked effortless.
Alive.
I stood outside for a second longer than I should've. Just... looking.
That's when Meera noticed me.
Our eyes met. No wave. No nod.
Just this sharp, knowing glance - the kind that says "Stop haunting what's already gone."
I turned away.
That night, I walked back to my room and opened my sketchbook. I hadn't touched it in weeks.
I drew a clock - hands twisted, hours missing, numbers fading.
Below it, I wrote:
"Everyone moved on.
I stayed to clean the memories."
The next day, Sia texted me.
A single message after weeks of silence.
Sia: "Hey, can I borrow your notes for tomorrow's class? Mine got water on them."
I stared at the message for a while.
No "hi." No "how are you?"
Just function.
I replied:
Aarin: "Sure. I'll drop them off in the evening."
She didn't say thank you.
She didn't need to.
Some part of me still liked being needed - even if it wasn't for love.
That night, I saw her again briefly as I handed the notes over.
We didn't talk.
Just exchanged a look - polite, cold, distant.
And as she turned to walk back, I almost said her name.
Almost.
But I let it die in the air between us. Like every other thing I once felt brave enough to say.