CHAPTER XXXVIII
"The Presence I Once Ignored"
Mon was asleep beside me, her head resting gently on my shoulder.
I didn't dare move — not because I couldn't, but because I didn't want to.
There was something about her weight against me that felt grounding… peaceful… almost like a prayer answered in silence.
As I sat there, I whispered softly under my breath — words not meant for her, but for the fate that had entangled us in this cruel game of survival:
> "Ever since destiny tied me to you…
Love has felt like poison,
And passion… a slow death.
Don't ask me…
Don't question me…
Just know — I am a soul who has been tormented…
Again and again…"
The words floated in the air, silent enough not to wake her, but loud enough to echo inside my heart.
And in that quiet moment, something stirred in me.
A memory.
A time when death had almost claimed me — not on a battlefield, not during an ambush… but in a place that once promised life: the swimming pool.
It was a day like any other… until it wasn't.
I had been drowning — not just in water, but in fear.
My strength gave out. My lungs screamed. My vision blurred.
Death had come so close, I could almost feel its cold fingers brushing against my skin.
But just before I surrendered…
She came.
Mon.
I didn't see her that day.
Not clearly.
But I felt her.
In the way the water suddenly split beside me.
In the way a hand found mine.
In the way my body was pulled — urgently, desperately — from the arms of death itself.
She wasn't alone — Mahi and Aarvi were there too.
Their voices, their hands, their panic — it all came rushing back.
But even through all the chaos, it was Mon's presence that I remember most.
Like a heartbeat in the dark.
Like warmth in the freezing blue.
Like home… when I had lost all sense of direction.
I didn't look her in the eyes that day.
I didn't say thank you.
I didn't even realize what she had truly done for me — because my mind had been too clouded by something else.
By Aswin's words.
Words that still haunted me.
Words that had poisoned my trust.
Words that made me question Mon… even when she was the only one saving me.
And I ignored it.
I ignored her light in the middle of my darkness.
I dismissed the pull in my chest — the voice that whispered, "It was her… she came for you."
Because sometimes, we believe the lies we're told louder than the truth we feel.
And now, sitting here… with Mon sleeping peacefully beside me, trusting me with her whole being…
All I could think about was how I failed her that day.
I let the world convince me she wasn't mine.
But she was.
She always was.
And maybe now… I would finally be brave enough to show her.
To hold her hand — not just in danger, not just in battle — but in love.
> In all the ways I should've…
Back when she pulled me from the deep.
"The Voice That Pulled Me Back"
I still remember the moment he said it —
> "I'm Mon's boyfriend."
I don't know why, but something inside me… just believed it.
Maybe it was the way he said it — steady, confident, unshaken.
Or maybe it was because deep down, I was already drowning in doubt, already questioning where I stood in Mon's life.
Whatever it was, in that moment, I let his words become my truth.
I didn't fight back.
I didn't ask questions.
I simply… accepted it.
And once I did, something inside me broke — quietly, almost gracefully.
Like a final thread snapping without a sound.
What followed after that is a blur.
Days, maybe weeks — I don't even know how long it was.
Time stopped meaning anything.
I wasn't asleep, but I wasn't awake either.
I was suspended in some cold, dark in-between —
Too weak to rise, too tired to fight, too broken to even feel the pain anymore.
But even in that numbness, even in the black stillness of unconsciousness…
I remember one thing.
A voice.
Her voice.
Mon.
It rang in my ears like the last piece of light holding me together.
> "Sam… nothing will happen to you."
"You'll be okay, I promise."
"Don't worry, I've got you… just hold on, okay?"
Those words didn't just echo.
They wrapped around me.
They stitched up wounds no one could see.
They breathed life back into a soul that had stopped trying to breathe.
And I realized…
Even though my body was numb, my heart was still listening.
To her.
To Mon.
I don't know how many days passed before I opened my eyes again —
before the world stopped spinning and the ceiling stopped bleeding shadows.
But when I did… the first name that escaped my dry, cracked lips wasn't my own.
It was hers.
> "Mon…"
Because even through all the lies…
Even through the pain of believing someone else had taken her from me…
Even through the haze of near-death…
Her voice had been the only truth that reached me.
And maybe that's what love really is —
Not grand confessions or perfect moments.
But a voice that finds you…
Even when you're lost.
A voice that says, "Come back."
And makes you want to.
"The Storm of My Thoughts"
I was trapped.
Not by walls, not by chains —
but by the endless storm of my own words…
my own thoughts.
Each breath I took carried a question.
Each heartbeat echoed a doubt.
It felt like my own soul had turned against me, whispering things I didn't want to hear —
but couldn't stop listening to.
> "How long will you keep holding on to her?"
"Don't you see? She belongs to someone else now."
Every inhale, every exhale, was a battle.
A war between my hope… and the harsh, cold voice of reason inside me.
> "Let go of the one who never truly held you."
"Stop fighting for a place in a heart that beats for someone else."
It wasn't just painful.
It was humiliating —
this feeling of clinging to something that may have never been mine at all.
And yet, my fingers wouldn't let go.
My heart wouldn't surrender.
Because once… just once… she had looked at me like I was her world.
Once, her silence had felt louder than a confession.
Once, her presence had filled me like light —
and now, her absence echoed like darkness.
But the thoughts kept coming.
> "She chose someone else."
"You're holding onto a hand that might already be slipping away."
"How long can you pretend you don't feel it?"
They were right, weren't they?
I was bleeding for a love that might've already healed in someone else's arms.
I was chasing the ghost of a moment that had long passed.
Still… I stayed.
Not because I didn't see the truth.
But because my heart… refused to stop hoping.
And that's the worst kind of pain —
not the kind that shatters you,
but the kind that whispers:
> "Maybe… just maybe…"
Maybe she still thinks of me.
Maybe the love I gave still lingers in her chest like an old song she can't quite forget.
Maybe…
But as my thoughts tore through me like a storm,
I knew one thing for certain:
I couldn't keep standing in the middle of this hurricane forever.
One day…
I would have to choose:
Hold on to the echo of what we were…
or
walk away, and learn to breathe again without her.
To be continued…