Half-Light

I’ve stopped counting the number of times I’ve walked past her street.

Not intentionally. Not to stalk, or to hope. Just out of habit. Like my body knows the left turn before my mind can argue with it. It’s a longer route to the metro, but I take it anyway. Every time. Rain, sun, exams, heartbreaks.

Today was no different. The sky had the pale, indecisive colour of 5:40 p.m., Light enough to keep the streetlamps asleep, dark enough to cast long shadows on the pavement. The kind of light that reveals more than it hides.

Her balcony still had the same plants. Bougainvillaea vines trailing down in lazy loops, brushing against the old iron railing. But the fairy lights were gone. Or maybe just never switched on anymore. That alone told me enough.

I didn’t stop. Just slowed down the way people do when crossing a place with too many echoes.

She and I... we were never fireworks. Never the kind of love that shouted from rooftops. We were the hallway kind. Whispered. Folded notes in the pages of borrowed books. Chai sipped in silence. Her feet on my lap while the fan made the same broken sound in rotation.

It was real. That much I know.

I wasn’t a chapter in her story. I was a part of the narrative, stitched into daily grammar, appearing on every page in small, unnoticed ways.

But time, as it does, didn’t ask for our permission before turning the page.

She drifted. I didn’t stop her. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I thought she’d return. People always come back to what’s real, don’t they?

Except sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes they forget the number of your flat but remember your laugh in the middle of a movie.

Sometimes they delete your chats but hold onto your Netflix password.

Sometimes they fall in love again, while still carrying the shape of your shoulder in the corner of their memory.

And you, you're stuck somewhere in between.

Not entirely gone. Not completely remembered.

I once told her, “Main haqq se teri zindagi ka hissa hoon.” She had smiled and replied, “Magar kabhi kabhi, kuch hisson ko guzre kal mein hi rehna padta hai.”

She didn’t say it with cruelty. Just... clarity.

That’s the thing about her. She never promised forever. Just showed up with such honesty that you forgot to ask for it.

Even now, her memories are relentless. Not loud. Not cruel. Just persistent. They don’t let me forget her, but they don’t let me reach for her either. Like a song you know by heart but can’t bear to sing anymore.

A few nights ago, I saw her at the station. Briefly. She didn’t notice me.

She looked the same. Maybe a little more tired. Or maybe I’m just projecting. She was laughing with someone. A boy, maybe. Or just a friend. I didn’t try to figure it out.

I just watched.

That’s all I do now.

Watch from a distance. Walk past old routes. Pretend it doesn’t sting. Pretend I’m not still here.

But I am.

Not in her life.

Just in the background, the hum of it.

A name she might remember at midnight.
A scent she can’t place while walking past an old bookstore.
A voice in a dream that doesn’t return after she wakes.

I’ve accepted it now.

I was never the end.

But I was a real part of the story.

And no one can erase that.

Not even her.