THE WEIGHT OF UNSPOKEN WORD'S

 I

The steady, rhythmic beep of the cardiac monitor was the only sound that measured the passage of time in the Intensive Care Unit. For two months, the world had shrunk to the sterile white walls, the smell of antiseptic, and the dim fluorescent lights that never seemed to turn off. Outside the glass door, two police officers in uniform sat on plastic chairs, their low voices buzzing softly against the glass whenever they checked their notebooks. They were waiting. They were asking questions every time the doctor performed rounds, eager to know when we would be lucid enough to give a formal statement about what happened that night. Two months of silence, two months of body tissues healing while minds remained trapped in the wreckage.

How did everything end up in this quiet, sterile hell?

To understand the blood on the floor and the shattered glass, I have to go back. Two years ago.

It was the first morning of college. The monsoon had just passed, leaving the air heavy and damp. While most of my batchmates moved through the gates with wide eyes and bright anticipation, a profound lethargy pulled at my limbs. I didn’t care about new beginnings, degree programs, or campus life. I dragged my feet into the lecture hall, chose a wooden bench in the far back corner near the window, and stared out at the muddy courtyard.

The first eight weeks were an endless stretch of monotony. The class size was small—barely twenty students—and a strange stiffness lingered between everyone. I kept my head down, rarely speaking, taking sparse notes, and leaving the moment the professor dismissed us. I had no friends, and frankly, I had no desire to seek them out. Isolation felt safe and comfortable.

Then came Sujana.

She transferred into our section two months after the term started. I remember the exact second she stepped through the heavy wooden door of the classroom. The professor paused mid-sentence, but no one was listening to him anymore. She carried herself with an easy, unstudied grace. Her long dark hair rested over one shoulder, and when she apologized for interrupting the class, her voice was warm and clear.

She was undeniably, strikingly beautiful. But it wasn't just her physical presence that caught me off guard; it was the warmth she radiated in a room full of strangers. From the very first hour she sat down three rows ahead of me, I felt a sudden, sharp jolt run through my chest. Something shifted inside me. I, who had spent months actively avoiding human contact, found myself standing up during the lunch break, walking over to her desk, and introducing myself.

Looking back, it was love at first sight. A sudden, overwhelming pull that blurred everything else around us.

Sujana was welcoming. She accepted my presence with a bright, open smile that instantly dismantled all my defenses. Her smile was her most captivating quality—it had a way of lighting up her whole face, making anyone around her feel noticed and valued. Within days, our brief classroom exchanges turned into shared lunches on the campus lawn, long conversations after evening lectures, and late walks toward the bus stop.

We became inseparable. For the first time in my life, I surrendered completely to closeness with another person. I opened up to her in ways I never thought possible, sharing my childhood memories, my fears, and my quietest thoughts. She listened to everything with patience, nodding along, offering comfortable silence when I ran out of words.

With every passing week, my feelings deepened from simple admiration into a dense, consuming affection. Whenever I saw her walking toward me down the corridor, my heart would hammer against my ribs. I felt hyper-energized, almost intoxicated, whenever she was near. Every gesture from her—a light touch on my shoulder when she laughed, a lingering look before we parted ways—felt like a clue, a quiet signal that she felt the same unspoken connection.

Month after month, I carried this burden of unexpressed love. I lost count of how many times I rehearsed a confession in front of my bedroom mirror late at night. I would carefully choose the words, trying to find a way to express how much she meant to me, only to freeze whenever we were face-to-face. Hesitation held me back. Fear of ruining the sanctuary of our friendship kept me silent.

Eventually, the weight became too heavy to carry. I decided that I couldn't keep hiding. I spent an entire Sunday planning every detail: I would call her, ask her to meet me at a quiet spot, and lay my heart bare, no matter the consequences.

On Monday afternoon, just as I pulled out my phone to dial her number, the screen lit up with her name. My hand trembled as I answered.

"Hello?" I said, trying to keep my voice steady.

"Hey!" Her voice came through the speaker, bubbling over with a excitement I had never heard before. "I'm so glad you picked up! Are you still on campus? I really need to see you right now. I have something really important to tell you, and I want to give you a surprise!"

My heart did a sudden leap. A surprise? My mind immediately raced through the possibilities, convincing itself that perhaps she had sensed my feelings all along. Perhaps she felt it too.

"I'm near the main library," I replied, my breath short. "Where do you want to meet?"

"Let's go to the cafe across the street," she said cheerfully. "I'm already heading there. Don't be late!"

I walked across the road with quick, breathless strides, my stomach turning with nervous excitement. The cafe was a dimly lit, quiet place with wooden tables and soft background music. As I stepped inside, I spotted her sitting at a booth near the back window.

She wasn't alone. Sitting beside her was a young man in a clean jacket, his hands casually folded on the table.

I paused for a fraction of a second, surprised, but quickly composed myself. I walked over and took a seat on the chair opposite them. A heavy, awkward silence fell over the table for a brief moment. Sujana looked at me, her eyes sparkling with an inner light that cut through the dim room.

"Why did you call me so urgently?" I asked, breaking the silence and forcing a polite smile. "You said you had something to tell me."

"No, first you start," she teased, leaning forward on her elbows. "You looked like you were in a hurry when you walked in."

"No, please, you start," I insisted, suddenly feeling a knot form in my throat. "You called first."

She giggled, a soft, nervous sound, and looked down at her hands before turning her head toward the man sitting beside her. She reached out and placed her hand over his.

"Okay," she said softly, her cheeks flushing red. "I'm in love."

The air left my lungs instantly.

Before I could process the words, she looked back at me, her face practically glowing with happiness. "Meet my boyfriend, Amit."

The room seemed to tilt on its axis. The background music faded into a sharp, distant ringing. My pulse hammered violently against my temples.

"We met three years ago during a youth workshop," Sujana continued, oblivious to the sudden paralysis that had taken over my body. "We took a break for a while when he moved for his studies, but we stayed in touch. Since then, we’ve been together. He just moved back to the city permanently yesterday."

Amit offered a warm, friendly smile and extended his hand across the table. "Sujana talks about you all the time," he said politely. "It's really nice to finally meet you."

I stared at his extended hand for a long, agonizing second before slowly reaching out to shake it. My fingers were cold. I couldn't speak. I had no vocabulary for the sensation of an entire world collapsing in a single breath. My mind was completely blank, stripped of every confession and every word I had carefully rehearsed over the past few months.

Sujana’s smile flickered slightly as she observed my expression. "Hey... what happened? Why are you so silent?" She leaned in, searching my eyes with genuine concern. "Aren't you happy for me? Didn't you like my surprise? By the way... what were you supposed to tell me?"

I looked at her face—the same smile that had brightened my days for months—and felt a cold, hollow ache spread through my chest.

"See..." I said, forcing my voice to sound flat and devoid of emotion, "I completely forgot after seeing how happy you are. It slipped my mind. When I remember, I'll tell you."

Without waiting for her to answer, I pushed my chair back, stood up, and walked out of the cafe into the crowded street, leaving my feelings buried beneath the noise of the afternoon traffic.

II

I didn't go back to college the next day. Or the day after that.

For a full month, I withdrew completely from the world. I switched off my mobile phone, tossed it into a drawer, and shut the curtains of my room, drowning in darkness. I stopped responding to knocking at the door, ignored my family's questions, and spent hours staring at the ceiling.

The pain was not just the disappointment of unrequited love; it was the humiliating realization that I had constructed an elaborate fantasy out of normal friendly kindness. I cried until my eyes were dry and sore, angry at my own naivety. How could I have been so blind? How could I have believed that she looked at me the way I looked at her?

Over those long, lonely nights, a dark thought began to settle in my mind: If I tell her the truth, she will leave. She will look at me with disgust. She will stop speaking to me forever. I have to remain silent. I have to swallow this and act normal.

After four weeks of complete isolation, the solitude became unbearable in its own right. I forced myself out of bed, turned on my phone, and put on my uniform. I returned to campus on a overcast Tuesday morning.

I had barely stepped onto the open courtyard when Sujana spotted me from across the lawn. She immediately broke away from a group of classmates and ran over, her eyes wide with frustration and relief.

"Where were you for so long?!" she demanded, stopping right in front of me. "I called you dozens of times! Your phone was constantly switched off! Why did you switch off your phone and stop coming to college? Do you have any idea how worried I was?"

I stood there, looking at her familiar face, but the warmth that usually accompanied her presence was gone, replaced by a wall of quiet resentment. I had no words to offer her. I couldn't tell her that her happiness had broken me.

"I was just busy," I muttered quietly, looking down at the gravel.

Without another word, I pushed past her and walked toward the lecture hall.

Over the next few weeks, I tried to resume my routine, but everything had changed. Sujana was constantly with Amit. He would drop her off at the college gate in the morning and wait for her in the afternoons. Whenever I saw them standing together near the stairs, talking softly or holding hands, a wave of bitter jealousy washed over me. I couldn't control it. I hated seeing them together, yet I couldn't tear my eyes away. I was trapped in a cage of my own making, forced to watch the person I loved belong to someone else.

The tension inside me grew until it became impossible to breathe. The silence was destroying me far more than any rejection ever could. I couldn't go on pretending. I needed to lay it all out, to clear the air, even if it meant destroying whatever was left of our connection.

I texted her asking to meet. I chose the Garden of Dreams—a quiet, beautifully landscaped park in the city, hoping the calm surroundings would keep me grounded.

We met near the central pavilion in the late afternoon. The garden was sparsely populated, the sound of trickling fountains filling the silence between us. We walked side by side down a paved pathway, neither of us speaking for the first few minutes. The tension was thick, almost suffocating.

"Sujana," I began finally, my hands trembling inside my coat pockets. "I'm really sorry for how I've been acting recently. I know I've been rude to you. I really didn't want to be... but I couldn't handle it."

She stopped walking and turned to face me, her arms crossed, her eyes cold with impatience. "Say it straightly," she said, her voice sharp. "What do you actually want to tell me? Why are you always talking in circles?"

I swallowed hard, pulling up every shred of courage I had left. I looked her directly in the eyes and stopped hiding.

"I didn't disappear because I was busy, Sujana," I said, my voice shaking with raw emotion. "I disappeared because seeing you with Amit broke my heart. I didn't see you just as a friend. I am a lesbian, and I fell deeply, completely in love with you from the very first month we met. Everything I did, every moment I spent with you—it was because I loved you."

The silence that followed was absolute.

Sujana stared at me, her expression shifting from impatience to confusion, and then to a look of profound shock and discomfort. Her mouth opened slightly, but no words came out. The warmth in her eyes vanished entirely, replaced by a cold, sharp distance.

Before I could explain further or ask her to say something, her hand came up.

CRACK.

The impact of her palm against my cheek echoed through the quiet garden. The sharp sting tore across my face, forcing my head to the side.

When I looked back up, her eyes were filled with anger and betrayal. She didn't say a single word. She simply turned around and walked briskly toward the park exit, her heels clicking sharply against the stone path, leaving me standing alone under the trees with a burning cheek and a shattered heart.

III

After that afternoon in the Garden of Dreams, the last bridges were burned. We stopped talking completely.

In the beginning, I tried to repair the damage. I sent her messages apologizing for making her uncomfortable, asking her to just talk to me, to let us go back to being friends, or at least to give me a chance to explain. But every message went unread, every call went straight to voicemail. She blocked my number. She cut me off entirely.

A deep, toxic mixture of guilt and rage took root in my chest. I spent restless nights pacing my room, staring at the ceiling, haunted by the memory of that slap. Why did I tell her? I asked myself endlessly. Why couldn't I just keep my mouth shut and stay near her? I felt guilty for ruining everything, but as the days turned into weeks, that guilt slowly curdled into bitter resentment.

If she had simply rejected my romantic feelings, I could have accepted it. I could have moved on eventually. But she hadn't just rejected my love—she had rejected me. She had struck me, turned her back on our friendship, and treated me like a stranger, like something unclean.

Every day at college became an exercise in agony. Whenever Sujana saw me coming down the corridor, she would immediately look away, pretending I was invisible. She would laugh louder with her classmates, holding Amit's arm firmly whenever they walked past me in the hallway. I knew she was doing it deliberately. She wanted me to see that I meant nothing to her, that her life was completely intact while mine was falling apart.

My anger grew without limits. It consumed my thoughts during lectures, kept me awake at night, and twisted my perception of everything around me. I spent hours sitting in the back of the lecture hall, staring at the back of her head, watching her hair move when she turned to speak to someone else. My mind began to loop through dark, chaotic thoughts. The affection I had felt for her shifted, warp-speed, into a dark, suffocating obsession.

She knew how angry and hurt I was, yet she never offered a single word of reconciliation. She ignored my existence, leaving me to rot in my own frustration. That silence was a slow, agonizing poison.

IV

The final semester came to an end. Graduation passed in a blur of speeches and forced celebrations that I barely paid attention to. The distance between Sujana and me had become a permanent wall, but the story wasn't over.

A few weeks after classes ended, our class organized a farewell get-together at a popular restaurant in the city center. I had no intention of going, but the dark compulsion that had governed my life for months drove me to show up. I needed to see her one last time.

The private dining room was filled with laughter, loud music, and the chatter of twenty young people preparing to step into the adult world. Everyone was dressed up. I sat at a small corner table, a glass of cheap whiskey in my hand, watching the room from the shadows.

Sujana arrived half an hour late, looking stunning in an elegant dress, with Amit right beside her.

As soon as they walked in, our former classmates gathered around them, cheering and teasing them. The atmosphere in the room was bright and joyous, a sharp contrast to the cold hatred lingering in my corner. Sujana moved through the crowd with easy confidence, laughing at jokes, sharing stories, and completely ignoring my presence in the room. My eyes never left her.

As the evening wore on and people began discussing their plans after graduation—further studies, careers, moving abroad—one of the group leaders stood up and tapped his glass with a spoon to get everyone's attention.

"Listen up, everyone!" he shouted over the noise. "Before we call it a night, we have a big announcement to share! Sujana and Amit have some news!"

The room grew quiet. Sujana blushed, leaning into Amit's side as he smiled broadly at the crowd.

"We're getting married," Amit announced, his voice full of pride. "The formal engagement is next weekend, and the wedding will be early next month!"

The room erupted into loud cheers, applause, and congratulations. Friends rushed forward to hug Sujana, pat Amit on the back, and toast to their future.

In my corner, the world stopped moving.

Tears sprang to my eyes—not tears of sadness, but tears of pure, blinding fury and shock. Even though I knew she loved him, hearing the word married felt like a physical blow to my chest. It was the finality of it. It meant she was officially closing the door forever, moving on into a world where I had no place, leaving me behind with the scars of her rejection.

I knocked back the rest of my glass, shoved my chair back, and stumbled out of the venue into the cool night air.

I walked down the dark alleyway behind the restaurant, tears streaming down my face. I bought a full bottle of liquor from a nearby shop, sat down on a concrete steps in the dark, and drank until the world blurred into a haze of noise and shadows. It was the first time in my life I had cried so openly, and the first time I let alcohol completely erase my self-control.

That night, amidst the slurred curses and quiet sobs, a resolve hardened inside me. I was not going to let her leave me behind so easily.

V

The day of the engagement arrived.

I was not invited, of course. No one in their right mind would have invited me. But I didn't care about invitations anymore. By late afternoon, I was already thoroughly drunk, the alcohol dulling my sense of caution and amplifying the dark, volatile impulses that had taken over my mind.

I knew where the ceremony was being held—a large private banquet hall on the outskirts of the city. I arrived as the sun was setting, keeping my head down as I slipped past the catering staff and guests mingling in the main garden.

I moved through the corridors until I reached the private holding room near the back of the venue, where the bride and groom were preparing before entering the main hall. The door was slightly open.

Inside, Sujana and Amit were sitting on a plush velvet sofa, chatting softly. Sujana was wearing a rich red engagement outfit, her hair intricately styled. She looked breathtaking.

I pushed the door open completely and stepped into the room, locking it behind me with a quiet click.

Both of them turned around immediately. Sujana’s face drained of color the moment her eyes met mine.

"What are you doing here?!" she gasped, standing up instantly, her eyes wide with shock and fear. "I didn't invite you to my engagement! Are you drunk?"

I stumbled slightly, catching myself against the wall, a twisted smile spreading across my face. "Sit down and relax," I said, my voice slurred but sharp with venom. "I didn't come here to hurt you. I just came to talk. Till now you haven't forgiven me... Did I really do something so wrong?"

Amit stepped forward, placing himself between Sujana and me, his brow furrowed in confusion. "What are you talking about?" he demanded, looking from me to Sujana. "What is going on here?"

I laughed—a dry, bitter sound that filled the small room. "Oh! It means Sujana hasn't told you anything till now? She hid the whole truth from you? WOW." I shook my head, taking a slow step toward them. "I heard true lovers never hide anything from each other. They share everything, right? But I guess that rule doesn't apply here. How could a big secret like this exist between two people who are about to get married?"

"Stop it!" Sujana yelled, her voice trembling. "Just leave right now before I call security!"

"Sujana," I said, ignoring her completely, "should I tell him the truth, or will you?"

"What kind of truth?!" Amit asked loudly, turning to look at Sujana, his voice laced with rising suspicion.

Sujana opened her mouth to speak, her face pale, but I cut her off immediately, my voice rising over hers.

"You know, Amit," I said, leaning forward, "Sujana and I were very good friends once. We used to share everything. Every little detail of our lives. But she never mentioned you. Not once. So I thought she was single. Slowly, day by day, I gave my heart to her. I fell deeply, completely in love with her."

Amit stood frozen, his eyes wide with disbelief as he processed my words. He opened his mouth to say something, but I raised my hand sharply.

"Please, Amit, don't interrupt!" I shouted, my temper flaring. "I am speaking! Let me finish first, then it's your turn!"

I stared directly at Sujana, who was now trembling where she stood. "Before I could express my feelings to her, she gave me that lovely surprise package—you, Amit. I couldn't handle it. That's why I stopped coming to college. I was so broken, so furious, that I wanted to kill you. The only reason I didn't was because every time I thought about hurting you, I saw Sujana's face."

"Are you insane?!" Amit spat, taking a protective step closer to Sujana.

"Let me finish!" I yelled, taking another step forward. "Finally, I decided to be honest with her. I brought her to the Garden of Dreams. I told her the truth—that I am a lesbian, and that I loved her with everything I had. And do you know what your sweet fiancée did? She didn't just reject me. She slapped me across the face and walked away like I was garbage! If she had just rejected my love, I wouldn't have cared! But she rejected our friendship! She slapped me, and that killed something inside me!"

My voice was shaking now, tears of rage brimming in my eyes. "Every time I saw you two together after that, my anger crossed every limit! I hated you, Amit, because she hit me to protect her clean little life with you! And at the graduation party, I wanted revenge. I followed her outside when she was alone, but you showed up and ruined it. That made me even crazier!"

Silence descended on the room like a heavy weight. The air was thick with tension.

Sujana slowly sank back onto the sofa, covering her face with her hands as tears began to pour through her fingers. "The situation was so complicated back then..." she sobbed softly, her voice barely audible. "Neither I understood you... nor did you try to understand me. But it's my fault... I should have just talked to you... I shouldn't have hit you..."

Amit stood between us, looking shaken. He looked at Sujana’s tears, then turned back to me, his stance softening slightly as he tried to de-escalate the situation. "Look," he said quietly, raising his hands peacefully, "you're clearly not in your right mind right now. Let's just talk about this calmly—"

"Don't come near me!" I screamed, lunging forward and shoving Amit away with all the strength I had left. "Nobody understands me! Nobody loves me! Everyone hates me! Even you, Sujana—you hate me more than anyone, and I loved you more than anything else in this world!"

Sujana stood up, tears streaming down her red cheeks, her eyes snapping with sudden anger. "But I don't love you!" she screamed back. "I love Amit! You have to accept it! Why can't you just accept reality?!"

Amit moved toward me again to grab my arms and push me toward the door. In my drunken, paranoid state, I snapped. As he reached for me, I shoved him backward with full force.

He lost his footing on the polished wooden floor, stumbled backward, and crashed violently into the large decorative glass window at the side of the room. The glass shattered with a deafening roar, sharp shards raining down around him as he fell onto the broken frame, gasping in pain as deep cuts opened along his arms and back.

Sujana screamed in horror. "What did you do?! Are you mad?!"

"YES! I AM MAD!" I shrieked, advancing toward her.

In a state of pure panic, seeing Amit bleeding on the floor, Sujana’s hand searched the fruit display on the side table. Her fingers closed around a sharp pairing knife used for the display.

As I stepped toward her, she swung her arm in blind desperation.

The cold blade entered my upper abdomen with a sickening, heavy impact.

Pain—sharp, white-hot, and absolute—flashed through my entire body. I stumbled back, gasping for air, looking down in disbelief as blood began to soak through my shirt.

Sujana gasped, dropping the knife onto the carpet, her eyes wide with terror at what she had just done. She didn't look at me; she turned and ran frantically toward the shattered window to help Amit.

Driven by a final, desperate surge of adrenaline and madness, I refused to let her reach him. I reached down with blood-slicked hands, grabbed the edge of the heavy decorative rug beneath her feet, and yanked it toward me with everything I had left.

Sujana lost her balance instantly. She tumbled backward, her body flying off-course, and fell heavily directly onto the pile of sharp, broken glass left in the window frame. A sharp scream tore from her throat before everything went dead quiet.

I fell to my knees on the stained carpet, my hands clutching my bleeding stomach, as darkness closed in from the edges of my vision.

VI

Three months passed in a haze of medical procedures, surgeries, and police interrogations.

We both survived that night, though barely. I woke up in an isolation unit with a heavy police guard outside my door. The blade had missed my vital organs by millimeters, but the internal damage took weeks to repair. Sujana had suffered extensive lacerations from the shattered glass, requiring dozens of stitches and prolonged physical rehabilitation.

During those two months in the ICU, the police came every few days, slowly piecing together the events of that night from my statements and the evidence at the scene. I hid nothing. I confessed to everything—the stalker-like obsession, the intrusion, the physical assault. The truth was out, stripped of all romance and fantasy, exposing the ugly, destructive nature of what I had allowed my feelings to become.

Eventually, the day came when the medical team cleared me for discharge into police custody. Two officers stood inside my room, waiting with handcuffs as I pulled on my jacket.

As they led me down the long, sterile hallway toward the exit, we passed room 204. The door was slightly open.

Through the narrow gap, I saw Sujana sitting in a wheelchair near the window, a light blanket over her legs, bandages still visible along her arms and neck. Amit was standing beside her, holding her hand softly as they looked out at the hospital courtyard.

I stopped for a fraction of a second. My chest tightened with a heavy, unbearable weight of shame. I didn't call her name. I didn't try to get her attention. I simply closed my eyes, turned my head away, and allowed the officers to walk me past the door. For what had happened between us, for the blood spilled and the lives ruined, neither she could forgive me, nor could I ever forgive myself.

Before they brought me down to the police van, I stopped at the nurses' station and handed a folded piece of paper to the head nurse, asking her to deliver it to Room 204 once I was gone.

Dear Sujana,

I am deeply, truly sorry. I should have never done what I did to you and Amit. I was consumed by something terrible inside me at that time.

Your silence after the Garden of Dreams killed me slowly, day after day, and turned everything inside me into anger. But what truly drove me out of my mind was that slap. I kept thinking that you shouldn't have hit me, that you should have tried to understand my pain. But the truth is, I was the one who couldn't handle reality. If I had just accepted things as they were and managed my own heart, none of this nightmare would have happened. You were right all along: I should have lived in reality and moved forward. You have your life to live, and I have mine.

I am not asking for your forgiveness, because I know I don't deserve it. I can't even bring myself to look you in the eye anymore—the embarrassment and shame are too heavy to carry. I just hope that wherever life takes you from here, you find peace and happiness. Forget that night. Try to think of it as a terrible nightmare that came and went, a bad dream that has no power over your future.

I will serve whatever sentence the law gives me. I will pay for what I've done. But when all of this is finally over... I will be back. Don't forget me.

Bye, until we meet again.