(Ethan's POV)
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I wasn't always this quiet.
There was a time I used to laugh without measuring it. Talk without wondering if I was too much. Love without fearing if I was enough.
That was before Naina.
Before silence became a language I had to learn just to survive.
We were high school sweethearts — the kind people used as examples of what "real love" looked like. We had history. Shared notebooks, old playlists, letters that smelled like ink and longing. We weren't perfect, but we were us.
We got married when we were twenty-five. Still stupid enough to believe that love alone could hold a roof together.
It held, for a while.
We had our little apartment in Mumbai. Beige walls, secondhand furniture, a kitchen too small for two people in a hurry. But it was ours. I remember Sunday mornings — making chai, teasing her for never knowing where she put her glasses.
"Ethan," she'd groan from the bedroom, "did you move my lenses again?"
"Maybe," I'd call back. "Maybe I just want to see the world through your eyes."
She'd appear at the doorway, rolling her eyes but smiling anyway. "You're a cheeseball."
And I was.
God, I loved her.
But somewhere along the way… something shifted. The smiles didn't reach her eyes. The warmth went missing. We started existing like colleagues in a shared apartment. Touches became rare. Conversations became updates. Eye contact turned into glances we carefully avoided.
I thought it was stress. Work. Fatigue. So I planned a trip. Three days in Goa. Beaches, books, silence. I booked it, packed, left the itinerary on the table.
She never brought it up.
A week later, I found her standing by the balcony, staring into nothing. She looked… gone. Like a version of her had already walked out and left a shell behind.
"Naina?" I asked gently.
She blinked, slowly, and turned to me.
"I don't know if I can do this anymore," she said, her voice low but steady.
I didn't know what to say.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
She looked at me, not angry, not crying — just… done.
"I feel like I'm disappearing in a life that doesn't feel like mine. And I think you stopped seeing me a long time ago."
"I see you every day," I said. "I see you."
"No," she whispered. "You see the version of me you want. But I left her behind months ago."
Then came the silence.
And then came the email.
A week later, I walked into our apartment and found a note on the kitchen counter — scrawled in blue pen, like a grocery list.
> "I'm sorry. I need more than this. More than us."
Attached was an email from her lawyer.
I sat on the floor for an hour without moving. Just… staring.
No fight. No yelling. Not even a slammed door.
That's what people don't tell you — sometimes, heartbreak doesn't come crashing in.
Sometimes it walks out quietly, wearing the same shoes it wore on your first date.
I stopped showing up to work. Slept on the couch. Stopped responding to friends. Even my boss texted, saying, "Take the time you need. But come back when you can stand."
I didn't reply.
I couldn't stand. Not then.
I packed up a week later. Left the city. Told myself I just needed air. But the truth was — Mumbai had her fingerprints everywhere.
And I couldn't keep breathing where everything reminded me of the girl who decided I was safe… but not enough.
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I returned to Bengaluru not to restart my life, but