Maybe in next life

chapter 36

Mihir

The house was suffocatingly quiet, the kind of quiet that felt wrong. The usual hum of life—the sounds of footsteps, laughter, arguments—was gone, replaced by an eerie silence. It felt like the walls themselves were holding their breath, waiting for something to change. But I knew it wouldn’t.

I had spent years burying myself in bitterness, letting the anger and regret fester inside me until it became my armor. I had convinced myself that I didn’t need anyone. I pushed people away—my father, my stepmother, Ishaan—because I thought I could do it alone. I thought I was strong enough to carry the weight of my own pain. But the truth was, I wasn’t. I was exhausted. And today, I could no longer hide from the things I had been running from for so long.

I had to fix what I could before it was too late... before I am gone...

The first stop was her. My stepmother. I found her in the kitchen, moving around without a care, her back to me. I had never been able to reach her, never been able to let go of the resentment I had carried for so long. But today, none of that seemed to matter.

"Mom," I said softly, the word foreign on my tongue. I call her mom for the first time.

She froze, her body tensing, and slowly, she turned to face me. Her eyes were hard, unreadable. But there was something else there, something that wasn’t anger.
A kind of quiet pain that mirrored my own.

"Mihir, what’s this about?" she asked, her voice cool, but there was a crack in it, just a hint of vulnerability.

I stepped forward, my throat tight with emotions I had never allowed myself to feel. "I’m sorry, mom i...." I whispered, the words raw and broken. "I’ve been angry. I’ve pushed you away, and I’ve hurt you.... But I never meant to."

She looked at me, her gaze softening, but just barely. "You’ve always kept your distance," she said quietly. "You’ve never let anyone in."

I swallowed, fighting back the lump in my throat. "I know," I murmured, my voice barely above a whisper. "But I want to change that. I don’t want to be that person anymore...please...don't hate me when I am gone...
I just... I just want to be loved."

Her eyes flickered, and for the first time, I saw something other than indifference in her. Maybe it was regret. Maybe it was empathy. I couldn’t tell. But when I stepped forward and hugged her, she didn’t pull away. She didn’t embrace me the way I had always wanted, but she didn’t push me out either.

I pulled back after a moment, and without a word, I turned to leave.

The next stop was Ishaan. I had never been the brother he deserved. I had always been too lost in my own pain to be there for him. And I regretted it. I knocked on his door, and when he looked up, I saw the surprise in his eyes.

"Mihir?" he asked, taking off his headphones. "What’s going on?"

I stood there, my heart heavy with everything I had left unsaid. "I’m sorry, Ishaan," I said, my voice thick with emotion. "For everything. I never hated you. I just didn’t know how to deal with my own shit. I took it out on you, and that wasn’t fair."

He didn’t say anything at first. He just looked at me, and I could see the weight he had carried in silence. He stood up and walked over to me.

"You don’t have to apologize, Mihir," he said softly. "We’ve both been through a lot. But we’re brothers. We’re supposed to look out for each other."

And in that moment, something cracked open inside me. I pulled him into a hug. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t the fix we both needed. But it was something. And that something, for the first time in so long, felt like it might actually heal us.