Broken Hearts and Strange Girls || Shivika AU FF

𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈

The ride home was oddly silent.

After exchanging numbers with Mallika and high-fives with Kiara, Annika was ready to go. Her observance caught Shivaay's reluctance to stay, and she tried wrapping up the goodbyes quickly, lest Shivaay become more awkward.

Now, Annika was seated in the passenger seat of the car again, fiddling with her camera as Shivaay quietly drove them home.

Annika dusted off some excess sand from the lens, and the coarse little grains fell onto Shivaay's car floor. Clearing his throat, Shivaay pulled out a napkin from the side compartment between them. He offered it to Annika, and she accepted with an awkward laugh.

She went to rub her lens off, causing more sand to fall. Shivaay looked on with a pained expression. "I..." he began, and Annika looked up from her tedious task at him. He looked down at the car floor, which was no longer as pristine as he'd like it to be. Then he looked back at Annika's big brown eyes. And Shivaay did something he would otherwise never do: He shut up.

His silence was the product of his confusion. Meeting Mallika again was aggravating and awkward at the same time. It was a lot for Shivaay, whose only emotions for the past three years had been depressed and introverted.

His mind was racing with thousands of thoughts, and his heart was only repeating one thing over and over again.

"You're over her, Shivaay," his heart said in a bored tone.

"No, he's not!" his brain screamed.

"C'mon, what other explanation can you cook up for that?" his heart questioned.

"Thousands! Maybe she was just different. Maybe Shivaay was in shock. Maybe he was just upset after seeing her—"

"Or maybe," his heart interrupted, "He's immune to her now. She's married, and she has a kid! Still, you felt NOTHING, Shivaay! What does that say, huh? That you're still allegedly, madly, inexplicably in love with her? That's a good joke!

"Or maybe you never loved her in the first place. Do you remember what Madhav's grandmother used to say? You only fall in love once, and that love will last forever. Even before knowing the person, you will love them. Even after living without them, you will love them. You will walk to the ends of Earth for them on the day you meet, and until the day you die.

"It isn't like that with Mallika, Shivaay. It never was. And it doesn't hurt me to admit that. That should be reason enough for you to believe me," his heart explained calmly.

His brain hummed in protest, but Shivaay tuned it out. Three years of his life, gone for the trace of something that wasn't even love? What was he?

He believed his heart, though. It was telling the truth. Madhav's grandmother was a wise old woman who had loved for much longer than he could imagine. She certainly knew that it would not be love. His heart certainly knew it would not be love. Even his brain knew that it would not be love. Who was he to question all these names?

But, if Shivaay didn't love Mallika, who would he love?