Everyone told her,
"Time heals everything."
But no one said how much it hurts before it begins to heal.
After blocking Ruhan, Siya tried to act strong.
She told herself:
"I did the right thing."
"He didn't change."
"I deserve better."
And yet…
Her pillow stayed soaked.
Her eyes stayed swollen.
Her hands… kept typing "Ruhan" in the search bar, only to backspace it before hitting enter.
💔 Trying to Fill a Void With Faces
It started as a distraction.
A classmate she barely noticed before suddenly messaged:
"Hey, you look cute today."
She replied. Smiled. Pretended it felt good.
Then came another.
And another.
And suddenly, Siya had 3 boys texting her "Good morning 💌" and "How's your day, sweetheart?"
She laughed at their jokes.
She flirted back sometimes.
She let one of them call her "baby" after just 5 days.
But every time…
It felt fake.
It felt hollow.
It felt wrong.
Because the only voice she longed to hear was Ruhan's.
🧃 Dates That Hurt More Than Helped
One day, she agreed to meet one of them.
He brought her her favorite chocolate shake. Complimented her eyes. Tried holding her hand.
She smiled.
But inside her mind, she heard another voice whisper:
"Ruhan always brought you that shake with extra choco chips."
"Ruhan never held your hand without asking."
"Ruhan used to call your eyes 'sunset brown'."
She blinked back tears, forced a laugh, and stared at the boy across from her—knowing he didn't deserve to be compared…
…but she couldn't stop.
She wasn't over Ruhan.
Not even a little.
🥀 The Collapse
One night, she came back from a "casual hangout" with another boy.
As soon as she closed the door behind her, she broke.
She slid down to the floor, hands over her face, sobbing uncontrollably.
"Why isn't this working?"
"Why do I feel worse now?"
"Why do I miss someone who made me cry too?"
She opened her gallery.
Went to the hidden folder.
And for the hundredth time that month… she scrolled through old photos.
• Him smiling at her from the other side of a coffee table.
• His texts: "Reached home, jaan. Miss you already 🥺💗"
• A screen-recorded video of him lip-syncing a romantic song, just to make her blush.
And then her sobs grew louder.
💭 A Realization That Cut Deep
She had thought dating other people would help her heal.
But instead, every new conversation, every new smile, every fake "I like you too" became a mirror…
Showing her what she lost,
Not what she was gaining.
"Maybe I was never ready to move on."
"Maybe I didn't want someone new. I just wanted the old Ruhan back."
She finally messaged her best friend that night:
"I think I broke myself even more trying to pretend I was okay."
🩹 The Start of Real Healing
The next day, Siya opened her Notes app.
She wrote:
"I need to stop looking for Ruhan in people who are not Ruhan.
I need to stop punishing myself for walking away.
I need to heal—not by replacing him—but by rebuilding me."
She deleted all the recent boys' numbers.
Archived their chats.
Removed the casual selfies.
And for the first time, she looked at her reflection in the mirror and said:
"You're not broken. You're grieving."
And grieving is human.
Grieving means you once loved deeply.
But healing… that's a choice she would now make.
She didn't smile right away.
She didn't feel "okay" the next morning.
But the pretending stopped.
And that…
was the beginning of something real.