Just A Friend?

Chapter Twenty-Nine

"Prabhas... what are you saying?" she stammered, her voice barely above a whisper as she shook her head in disbelief. "No, no... this can't be... you can't mean that." Her voice quivered, the shock still evident as she backed away further, her mind racing to make sense of what just happened.

Prabhas took a hesitant step forward, his hand reaching out as if to calm her, but he stopped himself, unsure of how to bridge the growing chasm between them. "Sweety, I meant every word," he said quietly, his voice cracking slightly as he fought to keep his emotions in check. "I've felt this way for a long time, and I just... I couldn't keep it inside anymore."

She stared at him, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath, her thoughts a chaotic whirlwind. "No... this can't be happening," she murmured, her voice trembling with emotion.

Her words trailed off, leaving a heavy silence between them, the once comforting quiet of the beach now filled with tension. The warmth and laughter from just moments ago had evaporated, replaced by a cold, stark reality that neither of them had been prepared for.

Prabhas could see the fear in her eyes, the uncertainty, and it broke his heart. He wanted to reach out, to pull her into his arms and make everything right again, but he knew that nothing would ever be the same. The confession that had been his heart's deepest desire had now become the source of her distress.

The air felt thick with tension, the kind that weighed heavily on the chest and made breathing difficult. Sweety stood there, frozen, as if her legs had turned to stone. Her heart was a battlefield, where rage and despair fought a brutal war. She could hear Prabhas's voice, the words she had once longed to hear spilling from his lips like a long-awaited confession, but now, they only felt like jagged shards slicing through her already fragile heart.

All she wanted was for the world to end at that moment. For everything to simply stop. The words she had once prayed to hear from him—I love you—had come too late, and they only served to rip open old wounds she thought had scarred over long ago.

Her mind raced back to four years ago, to the time when she had desperately wanted him to love her, when she would have given anything for him to see her the way she saw him. But that moment never came, and the pain she had buried deep inside her chest resurfaced with a vengeance. It was as if the red-hot coal of her agony had never cooled; it had only waited, throbbing in the background, until now, when it could torment her anew.

She felt an overwhelming disgust—not just for him, but for herself as well. The realization that her heart still bled for him, still ached in a way she had convinced herself it never would again, filled her with a loathing so intense it was as though her soul was being consumed by an insatiable fire. A fire that burned up all the oxygen in her body, leaving her empty and gasping for breath.

Tears, unbidden and unrelenting, spilled down her cheeks. Why was she crying? She didn't know. All she knew was that the cruelty of life lay in the fact that a heart could keep beating even when it was broken in two. It could still feel the icy grip of pain, still ache as though it was about to implode within her chest.

Prabhas continued speaking, unaware of the storm raging within her. His words, intended to be soothing, only made the disgust grow deeper. "Sweety," he began, his voice laced with a raw honesty, "I never thought this would happen. I never expected to fall in love with you, but it happened. When you left, I was devastated. Teju... she was just an infatuation. It wasn't real. I realized it at the time, because you were always the one. You're the one, Sweety."

But his words were like poison to her. Each syllable felt like a fresh wound, tearing her apart from the inside out. Disgust churned in her stomach, boiling over into a rage that she had no control over. She could barely stand to listen to him, yet she couldn't tear herself away. When he finally asked her to accept his confession, she couldn't hold it in any longer.