Chapter 3 : The Window Left Ajar

“It was never because you didn’t matter to me,” Smita had written. “You did. A lot.”

Kunal stared at the line for a long time before finally typing back: “Why did you never talk to me!”

Her reply came almost immediately: “It’s ok.”

But it wasn’t. Not really. Kunal leaned back in the chair inside the clinic pantry, the half-finished lunch lying forgotten beside him. Outside, he could hear faint sounds of assistants moving around, patients talking, metal instruments clinking somewhere in the distance. Ordinary life continuing uninterrupted while something inside him quietly came undone.

“I mean… we were probably never meant to be together,” he typed slowly. “Because our families, our cultures, our societal status were so different. We would probably never have reached your world, and it would’ve been too difficult for you to step down into ours. And I don’t deny that…”

He paused for a moment before continuing. “But you didn’t have to go through all of it alone. You didn’t have to swallow all that bitterness alone.”

“That’s ok,” she replied. “It’s my karma. For not being able to stand up for you… for our love.”

Kunal stared at the screen. “It’s our karma.”

“Maybe.” She replied.

Something about that word settled strangely inside him. Not as defeat anymore, but acceptance. The kind that only arrives after enough years have passed to exhaust blame itself. He took a deep breath and held it for a few seconds, trying hard not to let anyone around him notice the tears gathering in his eyes. His throat had tightened by then. He blinked repeatedly until the tears retreated back into silence.

“You have no idea how much damage you’ve undone today,” he finally typed. “I’ve carried these questions for years. Eventually I just learned to live without asking them because I never had the courage to. I hope you managed to make peace with the past that belonged to us.”

“Yes,” she replied after a pause. “I did.”

And then another message appeared.

“But for me… you will always hold a special place. You are someone I loved with all my heart and soul. And had to let go. I have no fear in embracing it.”

Kunal took a deep breath in and closed his eyes for a moment.

For years he had imagined himself as the only one mourning them. The only one who had carried scars from what they once were. But now, sitting in the middle of a crowded clinic on an ordinary Saturday afternoon, he was suddenly meeting a grief that had existed parallel to his own all along.

“I was hurt and I healed,” she wrote again. “I am very, very persistent like that.”

“I know,” he replied softly. “I’m just sad that I missed how hurt you were then.”

“I wasn’t just hurt,” she answered. “I was broken. Crushed. Washed away. But I picked myself up.”

And somehow, that line hurt him more than the breakup itself ever had.

“You did,” he replied. “And you did it all alone. You were probably lonelier than me.”

“No,” she wrote after a while. “Maybe you were with me… you just didn’t know a lot.”

“And you had to keep a lot to yourself,” Kunal typed as he read that line twice.

The tragedy of adulthood, he realized, was not always losing people. Sometimes it was discovering years later how much they had hidden while standing right beside you.

“Life was unfair to both of us, I guess. But like you said… we are resilient people. We pulled through.”

“Yeah,” she replied.

Then, almost suddenly, as if the emotional weight had become too much and instinctively needed humour to survive it, she added: “I had a full Bengali bridal attire ready, so you can imagine.”

Kunal laughed despite the tears threatening his composure. “I know,” he replied. “Even my therapist knows.”

There was a pause again before he typed something he had never admitted aloud to anyone before. “You know… you’re still the only person who ever said they wanted to marry me.”

“Really?” she replied instantly. “No one else in all these years?”

“Not really.”

For a few moments neither of them typed anything. Then her message appeared quietly on the screen. “I made peace with everything long back.”

Kunal looked at the words carefully before replying. “I think I’ll finally find peace too now… knowing that just because we were never meant to be together doesn’t mean our love was in vain.”

Her response came immediately. “Never use that word for us. ‘Vain.’”

Another message followed. “Yes, we didn’t make it together. Yes, it hurts. But it was a beautiful part of my life. So never use words like vain.”

Kunal smiled helplessly through wet eyes. “Damn,” he typed. “You’re going to make me cry now. And I’m literally in the middle of clinic hours having lunch.”

“Areh… okay okay sorry.”

“No, no… it’s okay. I’ll probably read this entire conversation again tonight when I’m alone. It would honestly be a shame if I never cried to this!”

“Just know one thing,” she replied. “You will always be special… That’s all.”

And somehow, after years of carrying unfinished grief like a private punishment, those simple words finally felt enough.

A little later, when the storm inside him had quietened just enough to breathe again, he typed: “In some universe, we would have ended up together.”

Then after a pause: “In this one… let’s just remain friends like we always were.”

“Yes,” she replied. “For sure.”

And then after 7 years of his heartbreak, he finally understood something therapy was meant to teach him all along – Closure is not the absence of Love. Sometimes it is simply the ability to look back at that relationship without feeling abandoned… Like closing a window that he hadn’t realized was still slightly ajar.

~ The End ~