Echoes Of Destiny | Multicouple ✓

46. FRAGEMENTS OF TRUTH

Pain changes people

Avya's POV
(Three months ago)

Life had become meaningless lately.

You know the feeling when everything fades into the background, losing its charm and joy.

There wasn't even a solid reason to feel this sad. It was just... being present, breathing.

It wasn't all dark either; more grey. Grey skies, stormy rains, and the cold, dreadful air that surrounds it.

It was like all the sunshine was sucked out of my life, like a solar eclipse that lasted longer than mere minutes.

With a sigh, I drank the shot of alcohol, my only companion in these grey times. After a tiring hospital shift, all I craved was my own company and this intoxicating substance.

In the past two years, I've seen myself change. If I had to retrospect, which I tend to avoid, the truth was I had become louder, getting annoyed at the slightest discomfort. My colleagues feared my anger.

I wasn't like that before.

I once loved interacting with people, hearing their experiences and their stories. Now, I hardly have a friend circle. The last time I trusted someone with my friendship, they both betrayed me.

Knocking back another shot, I breathe deeply. The background music in this club is just noise to me. I inhale sharply. With my hands in my head, I think back to how I ended up here?

Dr. Avya Rawal, the bright child, favorite daughter, and a prodigy, I mutter to myself, the words felt hollow now.

I was supposed to live a normal life, with a normal family, a supportive friend group, and possibly a happy family of my own in the future; a loving husband. A happy, simple, normal family. Was it too much to ask?

Was it?

But everything has been so abnormal lately, and the worst part is I can't even pinpoint what.

My father is his normal self. My stepmother, distant yet fulfilling all her duties, normal. My hospital schedule is normal, hectic but a habit now. My love life is non-existent, normal. My friends? None, again a normal. Everything was so fucking normal, so why do I feel this suffocating emptiness, this void; that was eating me alive, biting small pieces of my soul, making me feel like I'm losing touch with reality?

I downed another shot, more than my usual.

A sad smile etches on my face. Funny how times change.

What did I even expect from people around me? They were practically strangers. I clutched my locket, the only reminder of my mother.

I sometimes wonder if she had been alive, would she be distant with me too? Would she care about me enough to remember-

My birthday?

Enough to wish me a happy birthday? Maybe then I wouldn't be so alone on my birthday.