Aarav couldn't breathe in the city anymore. Every street, every corner felt like it remembered her - ghosts of laughter, shadows of kisses, remnants of what used to be. So one morning, without texting anyone, he packed a small bag and took the early train to his hometown.

The journey was quiet. No music, no distractions - just the blur of trees and fields and his own reflection staring back at him in the train window, tired and thinner, eyes dulled by too many sleepless nights.

His mother opened the door with a softness only a mother could carry. She didn't ask questions. Just hugged him, longer than she had in years, and said, "Welcome home."

The house smelled of turmeric and old memories. The garden was still wild. The lake still calm. Everything here was untouched by Tara. And for the first time in weeks, his lungs filled fully.

He spent the next few days in silence. Tea in the morning. Walks by the lake in the evening. His phone stayed on airplane mode. His laptop, unopened. He journaled again - not about her, but about himself.

"Who am I without her?" he wrote.

Then, in smaller handwriting beneath it:

"Who was I before her?"

He remembered the boy who used to sketch superheroes in his notebooks. The teenager who believed in soulmates. The man who once smiled at simple things - sunsets, roadside tea, the first winter rain.

Where had that version of Aarav gone?

He flipped through his old journals, buried in his childhood cupboard. Pages of dreams, doodles, half-written poems. He found a page where he had written, years ago: "Never lose yourself in someone else's story."

He smiled bitterly.

Maybe heartbreak wasn't about forgetting someone. Maybe it was about remembering yourself.

Each day, he walked longer. Sat by the lake with a notebook. Scribbled thoughts, not to post or to share, but to understand. To reconnect. To grieve. To grow.

He wasn't healed - not yet. But for the first time, the silence didn't scare him. It soothed him.

He looked at his reflection in the lake - still worn, still broken - but something was shifting. A glimmer.

Aarav was no longer trying to erase the pain. He was learning to carry it.

Not as a burden - but as a part of becoming whole again.