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PART - I C

Finished editing this early and decided to post it anyways.

Content warnings at the bottom.

PART - I C

Parth kept his head down. He did his homework, finished his projects and got good marks. He avoided Hemant and Michelle. He quit his internship. Mr. Goenka came by so many times, but he locked himself in his room. He pushed everyone around him away and only spoke to his mother. His life had gotten so bland, that the days started blurring together.

No-one dared to talk to him after a while. He was a walking reminder of her death, and he walked around like death itself. Some thought it was the most tragic romance there is, some just thought he was a joke, the rest thought he was doing it for attention. All of them stayed away from him though, and that was exactly what Parth wanted. Even Hemant and Michelle stopped after he bit their heads off for the fourteenth time.

Three months had passed, and Parth didn’t even care anymore. He looked back at the nervous, awkward kid he used to be and wondered if he would ever feel like that anymore. He had died with her. There was no coming back for him.

There was a huge framed picture of her at school, on the left corridor, near the entrance. At the start, people kept leaving stuff there for her. Candles, letters, chocolates. But that was months ago. People didn’t talk about her anymore. How incredibly smart and incredibly brave she was. How tragic her loss was. She had recieved a bravery award post-humously. Post-humously. That word made Parth want to throw up. It was all everyone could talk about two months ago, but time washed it away too.

But, as impossible as it felt, time moved on around him. It dragged on, every second, every breath felt like punishment. But time did pass and with it, she slowly drifted away. Time had washed away almost all essence of the girl she used to be.  Now, people went past her picture without looking at it and made jokes about her being lucky, to at least escape from exams. Parth had glared at the girl who made that joke so hard that she had cried.

Parth couldn’t find it in himself to visit. He avoided the entrance and went straight inside, being extremely careful not to look sideways. Because then he would see her face again, and pictures could never compare to the real thing. Her dark eyes wouldn’t be as deep, her laugh wouldn’t be as bright. She would be just a photograph, and he knew she was so much more than that.

If he closed his eyes he could still see her face. She would look as beautiful as before, if a little distorted because as much he strains his memory, he couldn’t remember the exact details anymore. He doesn’t remember the exact shade of the strands of brown in her hair, he couldn’t recall the angle her head tilted when she threw it back in laughter and he knew her voice sounded like wind chimes, but he, for the love of God, couldn’t remember the exact tone.

That hurt more than anything. More than his leg, more than his heart. Because forgetting was human. But he had already lost her, he couldn’t bear to part with her memory. So he tried to stay awake, trying to remember the little details of everything she did and when he remembered something small, he held on to it with despair. He wrote it down to remember. She was already dead, forgetting her would mean killing her twice.

“Parth please return these assignments to the students. I was supposed to give these back months ago, but they were in the bottom pile so I didn’t notice.”

Savita Mam didn’t treat him any differently. Parth didn’t know how to feel about that. On one hand, he hated people walking on eggshells around him. On the other hand, he was different now.

He could feel all eyes on him as he walked up to the front. They still stared even after all this time. ‘Yes, it’s me. The kid who lost his girlfriend because she was trying to save him because he was fucking texting while walking.’ He wanted to scream at them. What did they know really. They didn’t know him, they didn’t know her.