AThe world didn't end when Tara left - it just stopped making sense.
Aarav returned to his apartment and stood in the center of the living room, unsure why it felt smaller. The walls, once warm with her laughter and messy art, now felt like they were closing in. He picked up her mug - still on the table - and stared at the faint lipstick stain on the rim. He dropped it. It didn't shatter. Neither did he. But both felt permanently cracked.
He began deleting things. Her photos. Her messages. Her playlist from his phone. Her saved voice notes, where she used to say, "Come home, I miss your stupid logic." But when he hit delete, it didn't erase the echo.
Every corner of his home screamed her name. The couch where they watched old movies. The bathroom mirror where she scribbled lipstick hearts. The bed where they whispered secrets in the dark.
He stopped replying to friends. Skipped office meetings. He'd sit at his desk, screen on, code untouched. The hum of the fan, the ticking of the clock, the notifications he ignored - it all felt too loud and yet too empty.
Food became tasteless. Music became unbearable. He turned it off mid-song when her favorite track came on. Even silence became a torment. It reminded him too much of the quiet that came after she stopped loving him.
His reflection was foreign. He hadn't shaved in days. The dark circles under his eyes deepened. When he spoke, his voice felt like it belonged to someone else - tired, detached.
He tried to write - something he hadn't done in years. Just a sentence in his journal: "How do you mourn someone who's still alive?"
And then he shut it again.
The days bled into each other. Monday felt like Thursday. Weekends were just more time to overthink. His phone buzzed once - it was a photo from a colleague of a place he and Tara had visited. He stared at it for a long time, then tossed the phone aside.
It wasn't just her he missed. He missed the version of himself who used to believe in her. In love. In promises whispered in the dark.
Now, he trusted nothing - not her, not the world, not even his own heart.
Because the silence she left behind was louder than any goodbye.