Subh's status was limited to pecking grass.
When Suhina rejected him in class, everyone else threw him off the wall like a torn poster. It was only Nami and I who still considered him a human being. The rest of the boys and girls were already lost in their stories of their torn love.
The bell rang, the crowd came out as if a cattle market had ended.
We too moved towards the gate, but my feet seemed tied to the roots.
"He hasn't come yet," I told Nami.
Nami shrugged her shoulders, as if she says to a street dog—'He will find his way on his own.'
But my heart was stubborn. I dragged Nami and turned towards the sports ground.
Subh was there. Hiding behind the bleachers, like a wounded animal. He was neither crying nor screaming.
He was just playing with the blades of grass, as if he was offering flowers at the graveyard of her incomplete love.
"I had said it before — that girl isn't worthy of so much love."Nami hissed.
Subh let out a shabby laugh—which was filled with pain, defeat, and self-hatred.
I went and sat beside him. "Are you okay?"
He didn't say anything. His silence was the slap that the world often gives—without sound, without mercy.
"I knew she would refuse," he finally said. "Still... I had to try."
Just then—
A bitter, direct, naked voice came tearing through the air.
"Are you crying for Suhina? What a cheap act."
Arin.
Yes, the same Arin—whose eyes were not filled with contempt, but just the dirty rot of reality.
Subh's body stiffened. "Mind your own business, Arin."
Arin didn't even blink once. "When people like you shed tears in the middle of the field, it interferes with others business ."
Subh fumed in anger, like a sick dog who keeps barking even after being hurt.
"Shut up."
Arin laughed dryly—it wasn't a laugh, it was a lash.
"She never saw you. Neither then, nor now."
"Keep living the lie that gives you comfort."
And then he walked away—without turning around, without feeling ashamed.
As if he was not a criminal, but a witness to some small, senseless accident.
Subh fell down with a thud right there. Nami mumbled something.
"That 's why Everyone hates Arin"
but I knew, it wasn't hate. It was fear. Fear of Arin's truth.
After coming home, I did what every half-dead lover does—
Opened the phone, opened Insta, opened his profile.
Arin.
His cold, stone-like face. Those eyes that measured everything, yet showed nothing.
And me?
I was defeated in just one look.
I turned the phone over, as if I had caught myself stealing.
Caught doing what?
Of lying to myself.