His Dusk, Her Dawn

Ayush's POV (iii)

My life was going as usual. Home, college, therapy sessions, soccer matches, assignments, and repeat. It was a boring routine, and it looked like Sandhya had finally decided to stay away from me.

I didn't know if I was completely happy about it or not. I was the one who yelled at her, but a little part of me wanted to talk to her. I was annoyed on having doubts on my own decisions.

It had been a lots of weeks, and I reminded myself that it was for my own good if I didn't contact Sandhya, but that traitorous inner voice kept making me feel guilty for treating her badly. Even my therapist pointed out that my mental health had improved significantly after I joined the college. She adviced me to keep attending my classes physically as it would prove beneficial for my health.

My therapist asked me if I could pinpoint the exact reason for the improvement, but I kept mum. I acted like I was confused, so she didn't pressurise me, but I knew who the reason was. After finishing my session, I went home and plopped down on my gaming chair.

I was going to start one of my favourite online games, but I opened my D drive in the computer and my mouse hovered over the folder named 'Old memories - Do Not Open'. Fighting my urge to follow the advice given by me to myself, I opened the folder and sighed when I noticed one more folder inside it.

It was titled 'I said Do Not Open It'. I knew I had invited myself into a rabbit hole when I opened the aforementioned folder. Finally after going through a dozen more folders - which were made from preventing myself from opening the files - I reached the soft copies of the old pics I had scanned for safety purposes.

I had shoved the original pictures into a box and kept them in the storage room.

I opened the first picture and gulped nervously as I saw my ten year old self smiling at the camera as my mother adjusted the party cap on my head. Then the next picture was of me and Ved when we had our first day of our preschool. Slowly, I moved ahead and nostalgia hit me as I remembered the carefree days.

I didn't forget the pics which had Sandhya in them. My mind was divided into two extremes. Logic and reasoning seemed to shut off whenever I wanted to bring a conclusion to my problems. It was as if I didn't want to be happy myself and wanted to live in misery.

It took only one moment to shatter my life, and now it was taking me every single second to keep my sanity alive. The trauma was still lingering around even when I was doing well outside. The thought of making very little to no progress frustrated me. I felt like I was running in circles. No matter how much far I ran, I always came back to the same point.

Trrrinnnnggg! Trrrinnnnggg!

I blinked rapidly when I heard my alarm go off. As expected, I had traveled into the memoryland for four hours. It wasn't the first time it had happened, so I had set up an alarm beforehand. I shut off my computer and went downstairs to see if there was anything there for me to eat.

Grabbing some snacks, I came back to my room and took out my notebooks to do assignments. Along with them came out some torn old papers.

I picked up the papers and checked them. Shaking my head, I retrieved the remaining torn pieces and took the scissors, tape and glue from my study table. I had already managed to tidy up most of the notes earlier, but I guess some were still hiding in my backpack to come out at the right time.

"Sandhya, Sandhya, Sandhya. What's the use of being so nice when no one else cares? Look at this hard work of yours being ripped off like nothing. When will you learn to respect boundaries?" I mumbled as I taped the first page and set it aside.

"Wasn't Nikhil your best friend too? How did you manage to ruin the friendship yourself? Even if you both were friends, there is a limit to how much you can do for each other. You are not a God to be omnipresent, Sandhya. Let others handle their own shit."