Page 15 of Protect my Heart
There’s a stunned silence on the other end.
And before she can say anything—before she can read too much into it, twist it into something sentimental—I add, “Just one. Don’t get carried away.”
Then I hang up before she can say something. Because knowing Anika, she’d have some smartass comeback, and I wouldn’t know how to respond. I never do when she gets all sassy. She leaves me speechless, and then I just look dumb.
I’ve spent twelve years wishing I could forget her. Wishing I could erase the memories of us. And now that she’s back, all I can think about is how much I still care—how much it hurts that I care. But I don’t say any of that out loud.
I drop the phone on the desk and let out a frustrated sigh. I have to find Vikram. I need to end this. He has to pay—for what he did to me and for the mess we’re all in now.
I lean back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling like it has answers.
God. I’ve loved her since I was fourteen. Not in that crush way. Not in the dramatic movie way. But in the quiet, soul-deep way. She was... everything.My person.My best friend. The one who understood me without words. The one I thought would always be around.
And then she wasn’t. Her family moved away when I was sixteen, and just like that—she was gone. I didn’t even get a proper goodbye. Just a promise. A simple, stupid promise.
‘I’ll call every day.’
I clung to those words like they were oxygen. I sat by that landline after school, every single day, hoping. Just hoping. One ring. One second of her voice.
Nothing. Twelve years. 4383 days of silence.
I didn’t have her new landline number. Didn’t know where they moved. She disappeared, and it felt like I lost more than just a friend. I lost the only part of my life that made sense. It wrecked me. Properly wrecked me.
And when I finally grew up—when I had the resources, the contacts, the means to find her—I still didn’t. Not because I didn’t want to. God knows I did. But every time I even thought about looking her up, this fear would choke me. What if she had moved on? What if I wasn’t a blip on her radar anymore? What if I found her and she didn’t even remember what we had—what she was to me? I wasn’t ready to face that kind of truth. It was easier to hold on to the version of her I had in my head than to risk finding a reality where I didn’t matter.
And now? She’s back.
Married to me.
Just like that. Like it’s nothing. Like the last twelve years didn’t happen. Like I didn’t have to stitch myself together alone after losing her.
How the hell am I supposed to act like that kid—so open, so eager—never existed?
I’m not him anymore. I don’t even know how to be him anymore. That boy died the day the phone didn’t ring. And what grew in his place? He’s colder. Sharper around the edges. Guarded.
And yet, one look from her and all those walls I built start to crack.
It pisses me off—how easily she still gets to me. How she’s still inside my bones like she never left.
But I can’t just let it go. I won’t.
Because here's the thing—she doesn’t get it. She doesn’t know how badly she broke me. Or maybe she does and just never cared enough to come back.
I don’t know which would hurt more.
So I keep pushing her away. Not because I hate her. Not because I’ve stopped loving her.
But what if she knew—really knew—what she meant to me and still chose silence?
Then maybe I never meant that much to her at all.
CHAPTER 9
ANIKA
Monsoon has always been my favorite season. I don’t know why, but the pitter-patter of rain has always calmed my nerves. It’s like my own kind of therapy—the sky crying with me when I couldn’t do it out loud. Rain has always been my solace, a reminder of simpler, happier times. When everything felt too heavy, the rain would wash it all away, even if just for a while. And thanks to global warming, it rains in any season nowadays. It’s November, and it was raining.
I cuddle into the warmth of the blanket, drowning in beautiful memories. With Aarav too. My favorite? The time I scored terribly in my exams. I was a mess, so upset and ashamed. It had rained that day, just like it did today. And just like now, I had danced in the rain back then too. But there’s one major difference.
