It was just a little past noon, and I hadn't done a thing all day, except writing.
The room was still, but something in me kept trembling. My heart thudded like a warning, my hands were losing feeling again, and my legs felt far away — like they no longer belonged to me. The sunlight slanted across the floor, unaware or uncaring of the ruin it illuminated.
I didn't want to be here.
Not in this room.
Not in this body.
Not in this life.
It was like something inside me had quietly died, and the rest of me had been left behind to mourn it in silence.
I wasn't thinking clearly anymore. I wasn't really thinking at all.
That "hmm" from Nigel — that hollow, cutting, empty sound — it hadn't just hurt me. It had emptied me. As if all the warmth in my soul had been poured out in one final plea, and all he had left for me was cold.
And now?
Now I wasn't Rue anymore. I was a shell. A sentence unfinished. A bruise shaped like a girl.
My phone lit up. Aurora.
I stared at it for a second, then picked up. The ringtone echoed through the silence like it was trying to keep me human.
"Hello," I said. My voice was unrecognizable.
Aurora heard it immediately.
"What happened?" she asked. Or maybe demanded.
"Nothing. I'm fine," I said.
But the lie had no shape. It collapsed as soon as it left my mouth. My voice was cracked. Rough. A dry scrape, like sandpaper against a throat that had given up.
She asked, "Did I do something wrong?"
"No."
"Are you angry at me?"
"Why would I be? You haven't done anything."
She paused for a long breath. "Sometimes you don't tell me when you're hurt. Not right away. You wait until you can say it without crying. So… I'll wait. I'll wait for that."
"If I'll ever be," I said. Quiet. Barely a whisper.
She didn't catch it.
Or maybe she did, but didn't know what it meant.
We stayed on the phone for a few more seconds before she got another call. She promised she'd call me later.
I said "okay."
And then it was just me again.
Me, and the sun, and the thoughts that never stopped.
But I did have one thing left.
Day after Tomorrow.
I was supposed to go to Ananda's place.
I'd asked her before, randomly, if I could come see her. Not because I believed it would change anything. But because I wanted to be near something that once felt like safety.
Maybe to say goodbye.
Maybe to see if I could still feel something.
So I told myself: Day After Tomorrow. Two more days.
After that, I'd go quietly.
Not in anger. Not in revenge.
Just in surrender.
---
I walked to the desk, picked up my phone.
My fingers didn't shake. My breath didn't hitch. There was no fear anymore.
Only stillness.
And then I wrote.
---
"To those who stayed
I want you to know this isn't sudden. It's slow. It's quiet. It's years of trying to hold myself together in ways you never saw.
It's waking up and wondering why I woke up again.
It's watching everyone move forward while I'm stuck in a place that's rotting me from the inside.
I've been hurt — too much, too deeply, too silently.
And I'm scared of what I'm becoming.
Scared I'll become someone who hurts others just by existing.
So I'm choosing to leave before I do.
I'm sorry I couldn't keep my promises.
To Aurora: You're my heart, my mirror, my firefly. I'm sorry I couldn't hold on longer for you. I'll always love you.
To Yaa: Thank you for your honesty, your grace, your text that reached me even when I pretended it didn't.
To Ananda: I'll still come tomorrow. I promise. Just one last time. I want to say goodbye — even if I don't say it out loud.
To Nigel: I loved you in a way that swallowed me whole.
And when you stopped speaking, something in me stopped too.
The silence and that hmm was the final blow.
You won't understand, but I wish you peace. And I love you.
And to all the others — the friends, the almosts, the strangers who don't even know they were part of this story:
One day, you'll hear this, and realize who it belonged to.
This is me. This was me. Rue.
When the ending turns true, maybe then you'll understand.
To those I didn't mention by name — you mattered. You shaped me. You were part of this, even if I didn't know how to write it all.
Thank you.
And I'm sorry.
I can't be who I was.
So I'll be nothing at all.
Goodbye."
—Rue
---
I saved the draft.
And Looked at the screen .
Kept the phone aside for a while
Then I sat still for a moment, my body heavy with the quietest decision I'd ever made.
And I reached for my phone one more time.
Not to text.
Not to scroll.
Just to call.
Ananda.
She picked up on the second ring. Her voice sounded exactly like I remembered — soft, familiar, calm.
"Hey, Ruru."
I didn't waste words.
"You're home day after tomorrow, right?" I asked.
"Yeah," she said, puzzled but warm. "All day."
"Okay," I said. "I'll come over."
She was about to say something more, but I ended the call.
No emotion. Just… enough.
I stared at the wall. At the dust particles floating like lost stars. The curtain was half drawn. The sun still there.
And then my phone buzzed again.
Nigel.
My breath caught. My hands went cold.
The message was short.
"Can we meet?"
For a second, I just stared.
Then — with a sharp exhale — I typed back:
"No."
Not out of bitterness.
Not out of anger.
Just because it was too late.
I had already chosen my last day.
And uncertainty wasn't involved in that day.
Atleast this time
This time i was different kind of broken.
The one that won't stop with words.
---
I went back to bed and curled beneath the blanket.
Day after Tomorrow, I'd go see Ananda.
Then maybe I'd come home.
Or maybe I wouldn't.
Either way, the decision had already been written.
And I… I was already halfway gone.