THE PHANTOM OF MAYA

Part I: The Weight of Page and Ink

Literary success, I have learned, is a quiet thief. It slips into your room in the dead of night, leaves a glittering trophy on your desk, and takes away the very air you need to breathe.

Outside my window, Kathmandu buzzed with its restless energy—the distant drone of motorbikes on the ring road, the muffled shouts of street vendors, the flocking of pigeons over damp tin roofs. On my desk lay a freshly printed hardcover edition of Maya Ko Khura—The Morsels of Love. On the jacket, my name was printed in bold, embossed gold letters: BIVEK. Beneath it, a red sticker boasted: Over 50,000 Copies Sold. National Bestseller.

To the readers who lined up at bookstores in Thamel and Exhibition Road, Maya Ko Khura was a masterpiece of raw emotion. Reviews hailed it as an unprecedented exploration of human vulnerability, praising its deeply authentic portrayal of a woman named Maya—her quiet devotions, her unspoken sacrifices, and the gentle, unyielding manner in which she loved a man who barely deserved her. Critics wrote that no writer could have conjured such intimate pain without having lived it, without having felt every tremor of the heart.

They were right about one thing: the pain was real. But it was not mine. It was stolen.

Maya was not a creature of my imagination. Maya was Anu.

I leaned back in my leather chair, staring at the ceiling as the dust motes danced in the afternoon sunlight. My mind drifted back three years, to the tiny, dimly lit room I used to rent near Bagbazar. I was a struggling writer then—penniless, arrogant, and desperate for recognition. I believed that to write something great, I needed to observe love in its purest, most raw form. But I did not want to risk my own heart to find it.

That was when I met Anu.

She worked as a quiet desk clerk at a small publishing house where I used to submit my rejected manuscripts. She was not loud or striking in the way that demands immediate attention; she was the kind of presence that slowly settles around you like warm sunshine on a cold morning. She had large, expressive dark eyes that seemed to hold a universe of soft understanding, and when she smiled, the faint dimple on her left cheek made the chaotic world outside seem a little less hostile.

I saw in her a goldmine for my draft. I saw a woman who possessed an extraordinary capacity for empathy, someone whose heart was open, unarmored, and trusting.

And so, I began my grand deception.

I courted her. I bought her inexpensive marigold garlands from the temple steps, walked her home through the narrow, twisting alleys of Patan, and listened to her speak about her childhood, her dreams, and her quiet fears. I made her fall in love with me. Every tender look she gave me, every hesitant touch of her hand, every soft confession she murmured into the late-night air—I memorized them all. When I went back to my cold room at night, I did not lie in bed thinking of her warmth; I sat by the dim light of a table lamp and typed her soul into my laptop, sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph.

I pretended to love her. I feigned the sighs, the lingering glances, the promises of a future together. To me, it was all an elaborate study—a masterclass in emotional research. I was an architect building a monument, and Anu was merely the scaffolding.

Because in truth, my heart belonged entirely to someone else.

Her name was Sunita. Sunita was fierce, glamorous, unpredictable, and demanding. She moved through life like a storm, and I was utterly consumed by her. While I gave Anu calculated words and hollow smiles, I gave Sunita my actual devotion. I dreamed of marrying Sunita once my book was finished and the royalty checks began to arrive. I convinced myself that what I was doing to Anu wasn't truly evil—it was just a necessary sacrifice for art. She will move on, I used to tell myself in the dark. People get their hearts broken all the time. She is strong; she will survive it.

I did not know what true love was. I thought love was the agonizing, frantic obsession I felt for Sunita—a feeling that constantly left me anxious, insecure, and begging for scraps of attention. I did not understand that true love was the quiet, steady river that Anu poured into my empty life every single day, asking for nothing in return.

And then, the universe delivered its brutal balance.

Two weeks before the manuscript of Maya Ko Khura was finalized, and just months before the wedding Sunita and I had quietly discussed, Sunita disappeared from my life. There was no grand confrontation, no tearful conversation in the rain. Just a brief, cold text message: I am leaving for Australia. Pradeep and I got married yesterday. Please do not try to contact me.

Pradeep was an older, wealthy contractor whom Sunita had introduced as a family friend months prior.

When the news hit me, my world collapsed into ash. The earth beneath my feet gave way, and I spiraled into a dark, suffocating abyss. For days, I lay on the floor of my room, staring at the empty walls, throwing up from sheer emotional agony, unable to write, unable to eat, unable to function. The pain of betrayal was a physical blade twisting inside my chest, severing every nerve ending, stripping away my pride, my arrogance, and my sanity.

It was during those excruciating nights of heartbreak that the scales finally fell from my eyes.

As I lay in the dark, weeping for a woman who had discarded me like trash, the image of Anu floated into my mind. I remembered the way her eyes lit up whenever I entered the room. I remembered how she had once stayed up all night making hot soup for me when I had a fever, sitting quietly by my bedside, gently wiping my forehead with a damp cloth while I slept. I remembered how she looked at me—not with demand, not with evaluation, but with a total, terrifying acceptance.

For the first time in my life, I understood what betrayal felt like. And in that same crushing moment, I realized what I had been doing to Anu every single day for two years.

I was a monster.

The realization hit me with the force of a avalanche. Every kind word I had ever faked, every empty promise I had murmured, every time I had looked into her trusting eyes while mentally drafting a chapter about her naivety—it was all a grotesque violation. She had offered me a temple, and I had used it as a workshop to build a lie.

Slowly, agonizingly, the phantom illusion of my love for Sunita evaporated, replaced by a profound, desperate realization: I had been holding pure gold in my hands and throwing it away for painted glass. I loved Anu. It wasn't the frantic, toxic obsession I had felt for Sunita; it was a deep, aching reverence that grew stronger with every passing hour. I wanted to hold her hands not to observe how her pulse fluttered for my book, but to keep them warm. I wanted to listen to her voice not to steal her dialogue, but because her voice was the only thing that could quiet the storm inside my soul.

When Maya Ko Khura was published, it became an instant sensation. Readers wept over the tragedy of Maya. The literary world celebrated me as a visionary writer of profound emotional depth.

But every royalty check felt like blood money. Every compliment from a critic felt like a whip against my back. Every time a reader asked me, "Where did you find the inspiration for Maya?", my throat tightened, and I felt as though I were choking on my own shame.

I couldn't live with the silence any longer. I didn't care about the fame, the money, or the second book contract my publisher was hounding me to sign. I needed to find Anu. I needed to fall on my knees before her, lay my heart at her feet, confess every wretched thing I had done, and beg for her forgiveness—even if it meant she would slap me, curse me, and walk away forever. I just needed her to know that the lie had become the truth, that the monster had finally learned how to love.

Part II: The Empty Footsteps

It was a cold, overcast morning in late October when I finally set out to find her. A thick layer of smog hung over Kathmandu, filtering the sun into a pale, sickly yellow orb.

My first destination was the small, top-floor flat in Anamnagar where Anu had lived for three years. I remembered the path by heart—the narrow alley flanked by tall brick houses, the overgrown bougainvillea hanging over the iron wall, the squeaking gate that always needed oiling.

When I reached the building, my heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. My palms were slick with sweat despite the chilly air. I walked up the dark, concrete staircase, my footsteps echoing in the stairwell. Third floor. Door number 402.

I stood in front of the worn wooden door. The little brass nameplate that used to read Anu Shrestha was gone. In its place was a blank white space where the metal had been unscrewed.

I knocked. Once. Twice.

A few moments later, the lock clicked, and the door creaked open. An elderly man with thin grey hair and thick reading glasses peered out at me, adjusting his cardigan.

"Yes? Who are you looking for?" he asked, his voice raspy.

"Namaste, Uncle," I said, my voice trembling slightly. "I... I am looking for Anu. Anu Shrestha. She used to live here."

The old man looked at me through his thick lenses, shaking his head slowly. "Anu? Ah, the quiet girl who lived here before. No, brother, she is not here. She left this flat months ago. Back in May, I think."

"Left?" A cold pit formed in my stomach. "Do you know where she went? Did she leave a forwarding address? A phone number?"

"No," the man said, leaning against the doorframe. "She paid her remaining rent, packed her bags into a single taxi, and handed the keys back to the landlord. She didn't say much. Very quiet girl. Looked... pale, though. Like she hadn't slept in weeks. That's all I know."

He gave me a sympathetic nod and slowly closed the door. The sound of the latch clicking shut echoed like a gunshot in the silent corridor.

I stood there on the cold landing for a long time, staring at the blank spot where her name used to be. The city outside felt vast, indifferent, and suddenly terrifyingly large.

My next stop was her workplace—the small publishing house in Putalisadak.

I hurried through the crowded, dusty streets, weaving between honking minibuses and pedestrians wrapped in shawls. By the time I reached the three-story commercial building, my breath was coming in short, jagged gasps. I practically ran up the stairs to the second floor and pushed through the glass door of the office.

The familiar smell of paper, printer toner, and stale tea hit my senses. The office was quiet; a few young editors were typing away at their desks, and the faint hum of a photocopy machine filled the background.

At the front desk sat a young woman I didn't recognize, flipping through a stack of proofs.

"Excuse me," I said, leaning over the counter. "Is... is Anu here today?"

The receptionist looked up, surprised by my frantic appearance. "Anu Shrestha? No, sir. She resigned almost five or six months ago."

"Resigned? Did she take another job? Did she tell anyone where she was going?"

A senior editor, a middle-aged man named Ramesh whom I had spoken to a few times in the past, heard my raised voice and stepped out of his inner office. He recognized me immediately.

"Bivek-ji?" Ramesh said, his eyebrows raising in surprise. "The famous author himself! What brings you here? Are you bringing us your next bestseller?"

"Ramesh-ji," I said, ignoring the compliment entirely. "Anu. Where is Anu? The receptionist says she left."

Ramesh’s smile faded slightly, replaced by a look of mild confusion and regret. "Ah, Anu. Yes, she resigned months back. It was quite sudden, actually. One day she came in, handed in her letter, and said she needed to leave immediately. We asked her if everything was alright, if she was moving to another publication, but she hardly said a word. Just packed her small desk plant and her notebooks and walked out."

"She didn't give a reason? No phone number?"

"She changed her number right after," Ramesh said, crossing his arms. "A few of her work friends tried calling her later, but the line was completely out of service. We assumed she moved back to her family home or left the city altogether. Is everything alright, Bivek-ji? You look... unwell."

"I'm fine," I lied through dry lips. "Thank you, Ramesh-ji."

I walked out of the office in a daze. The sky above Kathmandu had turned a heavy, bruised purple, threatening rain.

There was only one place left to go. Her parents' house.

I knew from the hours of conversations I had recorded in my memory—and on my manuscript pages—that her family lived in Kalanki. She had spoken of her home often: a two-story peach-colored house situated down a quiet residential lane near the Kalanki temple, with an old guava tree standing guard in the front courtyard.

I caught a crowded microbus heading west. As the vehicle bumped along the dusty ring road, grinding through heavy traffic, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the window. My mind was a chaotic storm of memories. I remembered Anu showing me a wrinkled, sun-faded photograph she kept in her wallet—her mother and father standing proudly in front of that very guava tree during a Dashain festival years ago.

I will find her, I told myself, gripping my knees until my knuckles turned white. I will find her, I will look into her eyes, and I will fix what I broke.

When the bus finally lurched to a stop at Kalanki, the rain had begun to fall—a soft, persistent drizzle that turned the road dust into reddish mud. I pulled my jacket tight around my shoulders and began walking into the maze of residential lanes behind the main bazaar.

The area was a dense grid of brick houses, narrow alleys, and overhead power lines tangled like dark spiderwebs. I walked for nearly an hour, my shoes soaked through, stopping every shopkeeper, local passerby, and elder sitting on a porch.

"Namaste, Uncle. Do you know where the Shrestha family lives? The house with a large guava tree in the front courtyard?"

For a long time, I received only shaken heads and blank stares. "There are many Shresthas here, brother." "Guava trees are everywhere."

Despair was beginning to wrap its cold fingers around my throat when I met an elderly milkman pushing his bicycle up a gentle slope.

"Ah, the guava tree house?" the milkman said, pausing to wipe his brow with a cotton towel. "You mean Old Man Shrestha's place? The retired schoolteacher?"

"Yes! Yes, that must be them!" I exclaimed, a surge of desperate hope flooding my chest.

"Take the second right down that lane," the milkman pointed with a calloused finger. "Go past the green gate, and it's the peach-colored house at the end of the cul-de-sac. You can't miss the tree."

"Thank you! Thank you so much!"

I practically ran down the lane, my wet shoes slapping against the asphalt. I rounded the corner, past the green gate, and there it was.

The peach-colored two-story house. The paint was peeling in patches near the roof, and the iron grill of the balcony showed spots of rust. Standing tall in the tiny front yard, its rain-slicked leaves dripping onto the muddy ground, was the old guava tree.

My feet felt heavy as lead as I opened the small front gate. It squeaked—the exact sound Anu had once described to me with a fond laugh during one of our late-night tea dates.

I stepped onto the porch. My heart was pounding so hard I felt dizzy. I reached out a trembling hand, pressed the small white button of the doorbell, and waited.

Part III: The Confession in the Quiet Room

The house was deathly quiet. For a moment, I feared no one was home, that the universe was going to deny me even this final door.

Then, I heard slow, heavy footsteps approaching from inside. The brass latch turned, the door swung inward, and an elderly woman stepped into the entryway.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was her mother. Though her hair was now streaked with far more silver than in the photograph, and deep, weary lines were etched around her eyes and mouth, I recognized her instantly. She wore a simple cotton sari and a faded wool cardigan wrapped around her frail shoulders.

She stood at the doorway, looking at me with polite, tired curiosity.

"Namaste," she said softly, placing her palms together in a gentle greeting. "Yes? Who is it?"

"Namaste, Auntie," I whispered, my voice thick with emotion. I bowed my head respectfully.

She looked at my face for a long moment, squinting slightly against the dim light of the porch. "Sorry... I didn't recognize you. Have we met before, son?"

The truth screamed inside my head: I am the man who destroyed your daughter's peace. I am the writer who turned her heart into a commodity.

But fear—a cowardly, suffocating fear of her immediate hatred—choked the words in my throat. My cowardly tongue chose the easy escape.

"I am Anu's friend," I lied, looking down at the wet concrete floor. "My name is Bivek."

The moment the name left my lips, a subtle, agonizing transformation came over her.

Her face didn't just fall; it shattered. The polite, tired mask melted away, replaced by a look of profound, crushing sorrow. Her lips trembled, and her eyes filled so rapidly with tears that they spilled over her wrinkled cheeks before she could even blink.

She didn't speak for a long time. She just stood there, clutching her cardigan against her chest, looking at me with a gaze that seemed to see right through my lie, through my skin, into the decaying dark corners of my soul.

"Bivek..." she whispered, her voice cracking on the syllables.

"Auntie?" I panicked slightly, stepping forward. "Auntie, are you alright?"

She wiped her cheeks with the corner of her shawl, taking a deep, shuddering breath. Without another word, she stepped aside and opened the door wider.

"Come in, son," she said quietly. "Please. Come inside."

I wiped my wet shoes on the mat and followed her into the living room.

The house was cold and smelled faintly of burning incense and old paper. The living room was modestly furnished—a worn floral sofa, a low wooden coffee table, and a small wooden shrine in the corner where a single oil lamp flickered weakly before photos of deities. On the wall hung a family portrait taken years ago: Anu as a teenager, standing between her mother and father, smiling brightly at the camera with her signature dimpled cheek. Seeing her face—so young, so untainted by the agony I had inflicted on her—felt like a hot iron pressed against my chest.

"Please sit," her mother said, gesturing to the sofa.

I sat down on the edge of the cushions, unable to relax. She sat opposite me in a small wooden armchair, her hands clasped tightly in her lap.

Silence descended upon the room—a heavy, suffocating silence that seemed to fill every corner of the house. Outside, the rain tapped steadily against the windowpanes.

I couldn't bear the quiet. It felt like a jury waiting to deliver a verdict. I leaned forward, gripping my knees, and broke the silence.

"Actually, Auntie... I have been trying to reach Anu for months, but I failed," I began, my voice trembling. "It has been a very long time since we last met. I met almost every mutual friend recently, but none of them could tell me anything about where she was. They didn't know anything. So I finally came here... Auntie, where is Anu? Is she home?"

When I asked the question, Auntie closed her eyes. A low, wounded sound escaped her throat, and she buried her face in her hands. Her thin shoulders shook uncontrollably as she began to weep—not with gentle tears, but with the hollow, gut-wrenching grief of someone whose heart had been torn out long ago.

Panic seized my chest. The cold pit in my stomach expanded into a freezing void.

"What happened, Auntie?" I cried out, my voice high and frantic. "Why are you crying? Please... please tell me! Is she sick? Where is she?"

She wept for several minutes while I sat frozen, terrified of the answers I was begging to hear. Finally, she wiped her face with her trembling shawl, rested her hands back on her lap, and looked at me with eyes so hollow they terrified me.

"So many incidents occurred in our life, Bivek," she began, her voice barely above a whisper, echoing softly in the cold room. "So many terrible things..."

She looked past me, staring at the family portrait on the wall, her mind retreating into the painful shadows of the past.

"It had been a very long time since we had met her or heard from her," Auntie said quietly. "She stopped coming home for festivals. When we called her phone, she would speak for only a few seconds, saying she was busy with work, that she was tired, that she just wanted to sleep. Her voice... it didn't sound like our Anu anymore. It sounded empty. Like a shadow speaking through a tube."

Auntie swallowed hard, her frail hand reaching out to touch the wooden arm of her chair.

"We became so worried that my husband and I couldn't sleep. So, one day, a few months ago, we decided to go to her flat in Anamnagar without telling her. We just wanted to check on her, to bring her some homemade food, to see her face."

Auntie paused, closing her eyes as if trying to erase the memory behind her eyelids.

"When we unlocked the door and walked in... she was changed totally. She was thin—so thin her clothes hung on her like rags. Her eyes were sunken, dark, and wild. The apartment was a mess—papers scattered everywhere, untouched plates of old food, cold tea cups. When we met her, she barely recognized us at first. She was packing a small bag, preparing to go somewhere."

"Where?" I gasped, my knuckles turning white against my thighs. "Where was she going?"

"When we asked her, she didn't look at us," Auntie continued, tears spilling down her cheeks anew. "She just kept packing her bag with trembling hands and said that she was traveling to Pokhara. We tried to stop her. We begged her to stay, to sit down, to let us take care of her. But she wouldn't listen. She left the flat right in front of us, leaving us standing there in her empty room. She didn't come back for many days."

Auntie wiped her nose with her shawl, her breath coming in ragged hitches.

"We knew something was deeply wrong. This was the second time she had run away to Pokhara in two months. We couldn't stay in Kathmandu doing nothing while our daughter was losing her mind somewhere out there. So, my husband and I took a bus and went to Pokhara to find her."

She looked at me, her red-rimmed eyes searching my face, though she didn't seem to see the guilt consuming me.

"Before we reached Pokhara, we rang her mobile phone dozens of times," she said softly. "The phone would just ring and ring and ring until it went to voicemail. She didn't receive a single call. When we arrived in Pokhara, we were completely lost. Pokhara is a big city, Bivek. We didn't know where she was staying, which hotel, which street. We stayed at a cheap lodge near the bus park, sick with worry."

Auntie’s voice began to break, becoming sharper with the rising tide of agony.

"Every day, my old husband and I walked up and down the streets, asking shopkeepers, taxi drivers, hotel managers. We showed her photo to everyone. No one had seen her. We gave calls to her phone every hour, but she didn't receive the calls again. We were searching for her frantically, day and night, praying to God to keep her safe."

She paused, taking a long, shivering breath that sounded like dry leaves scraping across concrete.

"And then... finally... on the fourth day, we were walking down a main road near Lakeside, near one of those big car showrooms. As we walked past the showroom's glass windows, we heard a voice coming from inside the gate—a high, frantic, broken voice that sounded so familiar it made my heart stop."

Auntie covered her mouth with her hand, a muffled sob escaping her lips before she could continue.

"We went near the office entrance," she whispered. "And there... we saw Anu."

"How was she?" I asked, my voice barely audible, my whole body shaking. "Auntie, how was she?"

"She was in a terrible, heartbreaking condition," Auntie sobbed, tears streaming freely down her wrinkled neck. "Her hair was matted and uncombed. Her shoes were torn. She was standing in the middle of the showroom floor, surrounded by shocked employees and customers, screaming and crying... recalling the name of Birat."

My heart stopped.

Birat.

Birat was the name of the male protagonist in my novel, Maya Ko Khura. Birat was the fictional alter-ego I had created for myself—the cold, unfeeling lover who used Maya, took her heart, broke it into pieces, and left her alone in the dark.

"She looked completely mad, Bivek," Auntie wept, her hands trembling violently in her lap. "She was holding a crumpled, torn copy of a book against her chest, clutching it like a dying baby, crying out for Birat to come back, begging him to tell her why he had lied to her, why he had used her love just to throw it away. When she saw my husband and me standing at the door, her face turned bright red with rage and fear. She didn't see her parents—she saw strangers. She saw enemies."

The room seemed to spin around me. The walls bowed inward, pressing against my lungs, suffocating me. The image of Anu—gentle, quiet, brilliant Anu—standing in a crowded showroom in Pokhara, broken, mad, clutching the pages of my wretched book and crying out for a fictional ghost, sliced through my mind like a million jagged razors.

"We ran to her," Auntie continued, her voice trembling with ultimate tragedy. "We wanted to hold her, to wrap our arms around her, to take her home back where she was safe. We cried and told her, 'Anu, child, it’s your mother, it’s your father! Please come home!' But she refused to go back with us. She screamed at us to stay away. She was just recalling the name of Birat over and over. She was mad... mad from the love and betrayal of that terrible name."

Auntie’s voice dropped to a hollow, haunting whisper.

"We tried to handle her, Bivek. My husband grabbed her arms gently, trying to calm her down, but she fought us with strength we didn't know she had. She shoved her old father onto the ground, turned around, and escaped from us into the chaotic street outside."

Auntie closed her eyes, and a tear traced a slow path down the deep line of her cheek.

"It happened so fast... in a matter of seconds. She ran straight out into the heavy traffic without looking. A speeding truck came around the bend... there was a loud screech of brakes..."

Auntie collapsed back into her chair, her face buried in her hands, her body wracked with silent, violent weeping.

"Meanwhile... she died in an accident right in front of our eyes. We lost her forever."

Part IV: The Lifetime of Shadows

The world did not end with a crash. It ended with a quiet, icy stillness that froze the blood in my veins.

I sat on the sofa, entirely paralyzed. The room fell into an absolute, suffocating vacuum where the only sound was the steady drip of rain outside and the broken, muffled sobs of a mother who had watched her only child die on an asphalt road in Pokhara.

She died.

The words did not register at first. They hovered in the cold air between us like heavy smoke.

Anu was dead. The quiet girl with the dimpled smile, the girl who had held my cold hands in Bagbazar, the girl whose soul I had dissected and printed onto paper for fifty rupees a copy—she was buried beneath the earth. She had been driven into the dark abyss of madness by the very book I had written, searching for a ghost named Birat, running from the pain of a betrayal she couldn't understand, until a truck tore her away from this world forever.

Our eyes met—hers filled with the boundless, unhealable grief of a mother, and mine filled with the burning, agonizing terror of a murderer.

Due to my disloyalty, she had died. Due to my vanity, my arrogance, my selfish desire to build a literary name upon her bones, her family was suffering a fate worse than death. Her old father was somewhere in this quiet house, broken beyond repair; her mother was sitting before me, weeping for a daughter who would never come home.

I opened my mouth to speak.

The truth swelled in my chest, a violent, screaming wave that demanded to be released: “Auntie! It was me! I am not Bivek the friend! I am the writer! I am Birat! I am the monster who stole her heart and broke her mind! I am the reason she ran away to Pokhara! I killed your daughter!”

I wanted to fall to the cold floor, press my forehead against her feet, and let her strike me, curse me, kill me if she wished. I wanted the punishment. I begged for the pain.

But as I looked at her frail, trembling frame—at her tired eyes that had already seen too much horror, at her weak hands clutching her cotton shawl—a coward’s realization paralyzed me.

If I told her the truth now, it would not bring her comfort. It would not bring Anu back. It would only tear open a fresh, festering wound in this poor woman's heart, forcing her to look upon the beast who had slain her child, adding a terrible, bitter hatred to her unbearable grief.

I was too much of a coward to give her a target for her rage, and too terrified of the monster I would see reflected in her eyes.

"I... I am so sorry, Auntie," was all my wretched tongue could whisper.

With tears streaming unrestrained down my face, I stood up from the sofa. My legs felt hollow, like dry wood about to snap. I couldn't look at her any longer. I couldn't look at the family portrait on the wall.

I turned and walked out of the peach-colored house, stepping into the falling rain. I did not close the gate behind me. I just walked, my wet jacket clinging to my skin, my mind completely blank, my heart heavy like a block of lead dragging me down into the earth.

I don't remember how I made it back to my flat. The journey through the city was a blur of lights, rain, and soundless motion.

When I finally opened the door to my apartment, the silence inside was deafening. I didn't turn on the lights. I walked through the darkness into my study and stood before my desk.

There it lay in the pale moonlight filtering through the window: Maya Ko Khura.

The glossy cover shone softly in the dark. Over 50,000 Copies Sold.

A sudden, violent rage exploded inside me. I grabbed the book and screamed—a raw, terrifying sound of pure agony that tore through my throat. I threw the book against the wall with all my strength. The spine cracked, and the crisp, white pages scattered across the floor like dead leaves.

I dropped to my knees amidst the ruined paper, clutching my head in my hands, and cried a lot.

I wept until my chest ached, until no sound came out of my lungs, until my eyes burned like hot coals. I picked up a handful of the scattered pages—pages containing the descriptions of her smile, her gentle words, her quiet sacrifices—and pressed them against my face, soaking the ink with my bitter, useless tears.

Before I could ask for her forgiveness, she had left the world.

She had died believing she was unloved. She had died terrified, confused, and broken by the very love she had given so freely. She would never know that I had realized my mistake. She would never know that I had come looking for her. She would never know that the man who used her had ended up truly, deeply, and agonizingly in love with her.

My heart and soul will never be peaceful again.

Every copy of that novel resting on bookstore shelves across the country, every praise from a reader, every royalty check that enters my bank account will serve as an eternal, burning reminder of her destruction.

I shall not forgive myself for what I have done. No penance will ever be enough; no length of time will ever clean the blood from my hands. I will carry this burning guilt until the very last breath leaves my body.

And as the years pass and the world slowly forgets the name of Maya Ko Khura, I will remain trapped in the cold, quiet prison of my own making—lost forever in the lingering, beautiful, and haunting memories of Anu... until death finally comes to claim me, too.