It was just noon.
I hadn't even eaten, hadn't even stood up properly. My hair was still damp from the cold shower I'd taken earlier — not for cleanliness, but punishment. The kind where the water feels like knives against your skin, and you let it. Just to feel something sharp enough to slice through the numb.
I sat on my bed, cross-legged, the blanket around me like a shield. The fan spun slowly above my head, slicing the silence into dull pieces. And then, I heard it.
My mother's voice. On the phone. Loud. Clear.
"Yeah, I know she's nineteen now… it's time we start looking for a guy for her."
I didn't even flinch. My body froze so hard it didn't have room to react. It wasn't new. It was the same conversation I'd overheard a week ago. And the week before that. And the one before that too.
But this time, it hit different.
Maybe because I was already barely stitched together. Maybe because it came exactly twenty-seven hours and thirteen minutes after I sent Nigel my last message. Still unseen.
Still… ignored.
My lips parted. But no sound came out. My heart started its familiar shattering again. Slow. Loud. Inside me.
What now? What now? What now… again?
She's been doing this for a month now — scanning for eligible boys like I'm some item on sale nearing expiry. Showing me pictures. Bios. Talking to distant aunties. Fixing alliances like I'm unaware. Uninvolved.
Like I'm not in love.
Like I don't already ache for someone.
I couldn't go outside. Couldn't yell: I love Nigel. Leave me the hell alone.
They wouldn't understand. No. Worse — they'd treat it like rebellion. Lock me inside. Rip the phone from my hands. Marry me off like I've seen them do to others. One day they were dancing on rooftops, and the next they were gone — bride-girls with sad eyes and frozen smiles.
I'm not ready to risk it. But I'm not ready to marry either.
God, I hate this.
"Rue!" my mother yelled from the other room. "Come here. I want to show you something."
Of course she did.
Of course.
Another face. Another photo. Another 'he's such a good boy' routine.
I felt my blood boil. My limbs trembled with a kind of fury that made my skin itch. And still, my feet moved.
Out of the room.
Down the hall.
Each step like stomping on glass, sharp but numbing.
What now? I screamed as loud as I humanly could, loud enough that whoever she was talking to would hear. Let them hear. Let them all know how EVIL I was, how impossible and ungrateful and undeserving.
She turned toward me, phone still warm in her hand.
"See this guy," she said, holding the screen up with a half-smile.
I didn't look.
Why would I?
I had already seen the only face I needed.
Nigel.
The softness of his eyes when he looked at me. That smirk when I said something dumb. That fake annoyance when I teased him. The calm in his voice when he whispered, "It's okay, Rue. You've got me."
Except I don't.
Not anymore.
I screamed — "STOP IT, MUM!"
She blinked at me like I had slapped her. I didn't care. I wanted her to feel something. Anything.
"I've been telling you this for a MONTH now. Stop looking for guys. I rejected seventeen. This is the EIGHTEENTH. Isn't that enough? Don't you have any self-respect left?"
She recoiled like my words had burned her. Maybe they did. Good. Let them.
"Go do something else with your life!"
She hesitated only a moment before muttering, "But he looks like your type…"
I could've laughed. I could've cried. I did neither.
I turned around and screamed loud enough for the ceiling to shake: "You don't know my type! You don't know anything about me!"
My voice cracked mid-sentence. I hated how weak it made me sound.
"Don't take decisions for me. I'm not marrying anyone!"
I slammed the door so hard the floor vibrated. My breath came in bursts. My vision blurred with unspilled tears.
I collapsed on the floor. My back against the bed, knees drawn in, arms wrapping around myself like I was trying to put my pieces back together.
I didn't cry.
I couldn't.
I reached for my phone.
That stupid, cursed, glowing screen.
Still no notification.
Still nothing.
I clicked open the chat anyway.
There it was.
My last message: "I'm sorry, Nigel. I really am."
Blue background. White text. Tiny grey 'sent yesterday' below it.
Still.
Still.
Still…
Still unseen.
Why is he doing this to me?
Why, Nigel?
Why now?
I buried my head in my knees and whispered to no one, "I can't…"
And I meant it.
When I try to reassure myself with all my poems and metaphors — the stupid coffee theory, the sweetness at the bottom — it feels fake now.
Hollow.
Even if I tell myself I'll be better, I'll heal, I'll rise — I still want him.
I still need him.
I still love him.
NIGEL.
MY NIGEL.
MY CUP OF MOCHA.
Except he's gone cold now.
And I'm still holding the empty mug, hoping he'll pour himself back in.
I unlocked my phone again. Checked his profile. Still no message.
Still no me.
I tried to convince myself — maybe he'll text me by 3 p.m.
Or 5. Or 7. Or 10.
I can wait ten more hours, can't I?
I've waited longer.
Maybe he'll say he was busy. Maybe he'll finally say "Sorry love, I was just overwhelmed."
Maybe he'll remember how I sound when I cry and ask me to stop.
Maybe he'll say my name in that broken way again — "Rue…"
But what if he doesn't?
What if this silence is the answer?
What if this is his way of slipping out of me?
It's 1:03 p.m. now.
I guess I can wait ten more hours.
I don't know what else to do.
It's funny how I say that like I'm not already splitting apart in a million directions. Like I haven't already spent every hour since yesterday wondering what I did wrong — again. Like I haven't scrolled through the same empty chat thread hoping it would blink to life. Like I haven't written and rewritten at least four more texts in my head.
But I don't send them.
Because what's the point?
He hasn't even read the last one.
And I don't even know if he has his phone with him. Maybe he lost it. Maybe it's dead. Maybe he's sleeping. Maybe he's angry. Maybe he's gone.
The not-knowing is the worst part.
I'd rather him tell me he hates me than say nothing at all.
Because this? This silence?
It's cruel.
It doesn't even hurt like a wound. It hurts like... like floating in deep, black water, knowing there's no bottom, no surface, just the cold pressing in from all sides.
I curled into myself. The room was too still, too quiet, and I didn't dare play music — not when everything sounded like him. Every soft beat was his heartbeat. Every aching lyric was something he once whispered to me at 2 a.m., laughing into the phone.
"I want to write you a letter," I whispered into my pillow. "But you won't read it."
I sat up and looked around my room — the only place I could be me, and yet the one I hated most.
A prison. A cocoon. A battlefield.
Everything all at once.
The walls held every fight I'd had with my mother, every scream swallowed before it could reach the air, every night I held a pillow against my mouth and cried just enough not to be heard.
And now? Now they held this, too.
This suffocating ache of loving someone who might have stopped loving me back.
I touched the side of my face, fingers cold. My cheeks weren't wet, but they should've been. I don't know why the tears don't come anymore. Maybe I've used them all up.
Maybe this is what numb feels like.
I reached for my journal — the black one with the bent cover, the pages fraying at the edge. The one where I used to write for myself before I started writing only for him.
I opened it. Blank page.
My pen hovered. Then moved.
•He doesn't know, does he?
That I still make food the way he liked it,
Even though it always tasted wrong to me.
That I still check the sky some days
Just to see if it looks like the day he told me he loved me.
• He doesn't know, does he?
That my mother tried to show me another face today.
That I screamed so loud the birds outside flew off in fear.
That I'm still here.
Still waiting. Still yours.
I stopped writing.
I couldn't even look at the words.
I wanted to rip the page out and burn it. In ashes into nothing so no one would ever read it. Not even me.
Because it made me feel like I was begging.
And I hated that.
I hated how much I wanted to beg.
I hated how much I loved him.
Someone said my name.
Soft. Then louder.
"Rue?"
It was her.
My mother.
Again.
Another call. This time more impatient.
"I know you're in there. We need to talk."
I pressed my head against the pillow, breathing slow.
"We've already rejected so many boys," she continued through the other room .
"What's wrong with you."
"Why don't you want a guy."
"I do need any guy, i just need My NIGEL"
I didn't say it out loud.
Because what if they see me like this?
What if someone rips the phone from my hand and finds the messages?
What if they calls Nigel?
What if—
I bolted upright, panic surging like a wave.
I didn't even realize I was shaking until I stood up. My legs trembled.
I locked the door.
Then sat back down.
Then stood again.
Then paced.
I looked at my reflection in the mirror.
I looked like someone else.
Eyes too pale. Lips too dry. A girl who couldn't speak her truth without risking her whole world.
A girl who was in love and couldn't even say it.
I sat back down on the floor and tried to remember his voice.
His voice.
Not the loud one he used when he was angry. Not the cold one he used when he wanted space. The soft one. The one he used when he said things like "Come here, love. You don't need to explain. Just breathe."
I used to believe I was safe in that voice.
Now it felt like a dream I half-remembered from years ago.
And still — still — I couldn't let go.
I picked up my phone again.
Typed:
I miss you. I'm sorry. Please talk to me.
Deleted it.
Typed again:
I don't know what I did wrong.
Deleted that too.
I threw the phone across the bed and curled into myself again.
I wanted him to know I was drowning.
But I didn't want to be the one to scream for help.
I looked at the clock. 1:48 p.m.
Still just afternoon.
Ten more hours.
Ten more lifetimes.
I whispered into the silence, "I just want him to come back."
And somewhere beneath it all, quieter than breath:
"I don't want to marry anyone . I just want my Nigel."
I closed my eyes and pictured him holding me, brushing the hair out of my face like he used to.
But even in the memory, he felt far away.