Playlist of questions.

The rain came down in sheets, a relentless roar against the warped shingles of the old house. I sat by the window, forehead pressed to the cool glass, watching the world dissolve into streaks of gray. The sky was gone, swallowed by the storm, and I envied its absence. Out there, nothing had to face itself. In here, I couldn’t escape the churn in my chest, the tight coil in my shoulders, the dull throb behind my eyes from too many nights of bad sleep. The ache wasn’t just hers anymore—it was mine, threaded with guilt and questions I didn’t want to answer. Thunder growled, low and impatient, like it knew I was hiding.

I hadn’t checked my phone in weeks. No feeds, no stories, no glimpses of lives I wasn’t part of. I told myself it was discipline—a clean break from the noise. But the truth was uglier. I was running—not from her smile or the way her laugh used to light me up, but from what might be waiting if I looked too close. Her hand in someone else’s, her days spilling into moments I’d never touch. Ten years I’d carried her in me, every hope and hurt tied to her name. I could still see her handwriting on the sticky notes she used to leave on my mirror—half reminders, half love letters. I still had one folded in a book somewhere, its corners soft from being thumbed through when I couldn’t sleep.

The thought of her moving on wasn’t just pain—it was a blade, sharp enough to cut me open.

But the guilt – it was the real weight. Not just for loving her too long, too fiercely, but for what I didn’t say when it mattered. For the silences I let grow between us like vines until they choked the light. For still not knowing if it ended because she stopped needing me, or because I made it too hard for her to stay. And for what I was doing to myself now—shutting out the present, slamming the door on what could be. Good or bad, I didn’t know. That was the problem. I was too scared to find out. What if I peeked and saw her happy, her life bright without me? It’d break me, I knew it—leave me sifting through shards of who I used to be. But what if I was wrong? What if there was something out there—a chance, a shift—and I was too spineless to face it?

The room felt too small, the air thick with damp and memory. I stood, pacing toward the kitchen, my feet numb from sitting too long. My roommate, Venkateshwar, was sprawled at the table, sketching something jagged on a napkin. He looked up, one eyebrow raised.

“You look like you’re haunting the place,” he said, pencil pausing. “What’s with the ghost routine?”

I shrugged, pouring water into the kettle. My hands shook just slightly, so I gripped the counter. “Just the rain. Makes everything heavy.”

He snorted, leaning back. “Bullshit. You’ve been off-grid forever. What’s eating you? Her again?”

Venky had a way of cutting through my deflections, and I hated it. The kettle hissed like it was judging me. I stirred my tea, the spoon clinking too loud. “Not just her. It’s… I don’t know. The idea of her. What she might be doing.”

He tilted his head, studying me. “So you’re avoiding your phone ‘cause you’re scared she’s shacked up with some dude? That’s your plan? Hide forever?”

“It’s not hiding,” I snapped, too fast. My voice cracked on the edges. “It’s self-preservation. You don’t get it.”

“Maybe I don’t,” he said, tossing the pencil down. “But you’re not preserving anything. You’re just stuck. What if she’s not with anyone? What if she’s waiting for you to stop moping and say something?”

I laughed, bitter. “Waiting? After ten years? Come on, Venky. I poured everything into her. She moved on ages ago.”

“Did she?” he pressed. “Or are you just assuming so you don’t have to deal?”

I froze, the cup halfway to my mouth. His words landed hard, clean and sharp.

“I’m not scared of her being with someone,” I muttered, setting the mug down. “I’m scared I mattered less to her than she did to me.”

He didn’t say anything for a beat. Just looked at me like he saw more than I wanted him to. Then he said, quieter this time, “Yeah. That’s a shitty place to be. But pretending you don’t care won’t fix it. Not looking won’t stop the story from moving on without you.”

I turned away, staring out the kitchen window at the rain pelting the glass. “What if I look and it’s worse than I think? Her with someone, happy, like I never mattered. I don’t know what I’d do with that.”

“Then you’ll hurt,” he said simply. “But at least it’ll be real. Right now? You’re just living in the ache without even knowing if you need to.”

His words hung there, heavy as the storm. I wanted to argue, to tell him it wasn’t that simple. But my throat tightened. He was right about the pausing. I was caught, suspended between what was and what might be, too afraid to step either way. The guilt surged again—not just for dodging her, but for dodging myself. For letting fear call the shots.

What was I so afraid of? The truth? Or what it’d make me feel?

I wandered back to the front room, tea forgotten on the counter. The window called to me again, and I leaned against the frame. The rain hadn’t let up, but it felt different now—less like a shield, more like a dare. I thought of her—her quick grin, the way she used to hum off-key when she thought no one was listening. The time she’d cried on my chest after her dog died, saying she didn’t want to be brave anymore. I held that moment like it was mine alone. Ten years of that, of wanting her, and here I was, too scared to even glance at the world she might be in. Not because I didn’t love her—I did, God help me—but because I didn’t trust myself to survive the answer.

Across the street, a figure moved under an umbrella, blurred by the downpour. For a second, my heart lurched—could it be her? But no, just a stranger, hurrying through the wet. I exhaled, shaky, my body oddly still. The quiet pressed in.

Venky’s voice echoed in my head: You’re not living.

Maybe he was right. Maybe this wasn’t about her at all, not anymore. Maybe it was about me—about why I was still clinging to a purgatory I built myself.

I pulled my phone from the drawer where I’d buried it weeks ago. The screen was dark, lifeless, but it felt like a loaded gun in my hand. I didn’t turn it on—not yet. But I held it, letting the weight of it ground me.

Outside, the rain had started to shift. Softer now. Not quite stopping, but easing—like even the sky was tired of pretending nothing changed.

And maybe that was enough, for now. May be just admitting it makes me less of a coward? However, at the same time resonating myself with every single sad song in my playlist makes me a coward again. It’s true we cant keep everyone happy, but can we keep ourselves happy? My questions were rising, slowly as the rain outside my window made less of a noise.