Hamza wasn’t the type to obsess over things. At least, he hadn’t been before. Normally, he could shake off a bad day with a few jokes or distract himself with the usual banter in the hallways. But ever since Divangshi had started pulling away from him, something had shifted. It gnawed at him, an uncomfortable weight in his chest that no amount of laughing or joking could shake off.
At first, he told himself it was just concern. She was his friend—of course, he cared about her. But friends didn’t lose sleep over someone avoiding their texts, did they? Friends didn’t feel a stabbing pain every time they caught someone looking through them, as if they didn’t exist. Hamza wasn’t the type to overthink things, yet here he was, running every interaction with Divangshi over and over in his head, trying to figure out what he had done wrong.
He paced the school courtyard during lunch, eyes scanning the crowd in the hopes of catching a glimpse of her. But as usual, she was nowhere to be found. Not in class, not in the library, not even near the benches where they’d sometimes sit, talking about nothing and everything.
*What did I do?* he kept asking himself. What had changed between them? And why did it bother him so damn much?
It wasn’t like they were anything more than friends. Or at least, that’s what he’d always assumed. But why, then, did it feel like something vital had been ripped away from him? Why was there a constant ache in his chest every time he thought about her walking away from him, shutting him out like she had?
As the days stretched on, the tension inside him only grew worse. He couldn’t focus in class, his thoughts always drifting back to Divangshi. He caught himself staring at his phone more often than not, willing it to buzz with a message from her. But it never did.
That was when he heard it—standing just outside the corridor, two girls from their grade whispering about something. He hadn’t been paying attention at first, but when he heard Divangshi’s name, his focus snapped to them.
“Yeah, Jiya told Diva to back off,” one of the girls was saying, her voice low but filled with gossip-fueled excitement. “She said Hamza and her are, like, super close now. I think Diva got the hint.”
Hamza’s blood ran cold. He froze, the words hitting him like a punch to the gut. “Jiya and me? Close?” He hadn’t spoken to Jiya outside of the usual casual conversations, certainly nothing that could be twisted into this narrative. But now, suddenly, everything began to click into place—Divangshi’s avoidance, her strange behavior, the cold distance between them.
“This is why she’s been avoiding me. She thinks there’s something between me and Jiya.”
The realization hit him hard. Divangshi must have believed Jiya’s words. She thought he had feelings for Jiya, or worse—that he had chosen Jiya over her.
God, no wonder she’s been acting like this. She must’ve thought...
His heart twisted painfully in his chest. The weight of it all—the misunderstandings, the hurt Divangshi must have felt—came crashing down on him. And in that moment, a truth that had been lingering on the edges of his consciousness broke through, overwhelming him.
He was in love with her. Divangshi.
Not Jiya. Not anyone else.
It had always been *her*.
How could he have been so blind? The way his heart skipped when she smiled, the way her laugh brightened even his darkest days, the way he’d catch himself waiting for her texts with more anticipation than anyone else’s. All the pieces were suddenly slotting into place, and Hamza felt like a fool for not realizing it sooner.
She’s been hurting because of me, he thought, guilt gnawing at him. The idea that Divangshi had been suffering in silence, thinking he was involved with someone else, shattered him. And it killed him to think of how much pain she must’ve gone through, how long she had bottled it up, withdrawing from him without a word.
He couldn’t let this continue.
Without thinking, Hamza pushed through the crowd, his mind racing. He had to find her. He had to tell her the truth, to fix whatever this had turned into before it was too late. Every second he wasted felt like a dagger in his chest. The idea of her sitting somewhere alone, believing these lies, broke him more than he could have imagined.
He searched the halls, his heart pounding so loudly in his ears he could barely hear anything else. He checked the library, the corridors, even the quiet stop under the palm tree where she sometimes went to clear her head.
Nothing.
Finally, just when desperation was about to take over, he spotted her. In an empty classroom, hunched over her notes, looking as though the weight of the world was resting on her shoulders.
Hamza stood frozen in the doorway for a moment, his breath catching in his throat. She looked exhausted, her eyes rimmed with shadows, her usual spark dulled by whatever storm she had been battling alone.
*God what have I done*
His heart raced as he took a step closer. He had to fix this—he had to explain everything. But for the first time in a long time, Hamza felt vulnerable. The wall he always kept up, that guarded nature he was so good at maintaining, began to crack. He wasn’t sure what he’d say or how he’d say it, but he couldn’t leave things like this.
Taking a deep breath, he called her name softly, “Div...”
She looked up, her eyes widening slightly when she saw him. For a second, neither of them spoke, the air between them thick with unsaid words and emotions too tangled to unravel. Divangshi’s face was a mix of surprise and... something else. Longing? Pain? He couldn’t tell. But what killed him most was how tired she looked, like she had been carrying the weight of all their misunderstandings for far too long.
Hamza’s heart pounded in his chest, louder and faster with every passing second. He wanted to say so much—to apologize, to explain, to tell her everything he had just realized about how he felt. But the words lodged in his throat, refusing to come out.
For the first time in his life, Hamza felt completely, utterly terrified.
They stared at each other in silence, the world outside the classroom fading away, leaving only the two of them in that moment. His pulse raced, his mind spinning with a thousand different thoughts, but all he could focus on was her.
Divangshi. The girl he had been blind to, and now... the girl he couldn’t lose.
The words would come. They had to. But for now, all he could do was stand there, heart in his throat, and wait for the right moment.
