A Habit Called Loneliness
I lay there, staring at the ceiling for what felt like an eternity.
The room was silent.
Too silent.
At some point, I had stopped counting the cracks on the ceiling. Instead, I found myself counting the memories that refused to leave me.
Pain is a strange thing.
At first, it shatters you.
Then, slowly... it becomes a part of you.
Maybe that's what had happened to me.
Maybe I wasn't healing.
Maybe I was simply learning how to live with the pain.
I closed my eyes and let out a quiet sigh.
"How did I end up like this?"
The question lingered in my mind.
And before I realized it...
My thoughts carried me back to where it had all begun.
Today was just like every other day.
I was sitting alone in my room, surrounded by darkness. But honestly... it didn't bother me anymore.
It had become my routine.
No friends beside me.
No love waiting for my messages.
No family I could pour my heart out to.
Just...
Me.
Loneliness had become so familiar that even silence felt like an old companion refusing to leave.
Just then, my phone lit up.
A conference call.
A faint smile appeared on my face before I answered.
I already knew who it was.
They were my online friends—the people I'd met through Instagram.
Life is funny sometimes.
The people you've never met in person often understand your heart better than the ones who see you every single day.
The first one was Shanvi.
She wasn't just my best friend.
She was my comfort person.
Sweet, caring, and someone I trusted with every little piece of my life. Every happiness, every fear, every secret—I had shared them all with her.
Then there was Avni.
A beautiful mess.
Loud, short-tempered, dramatic...
Yet one of the softest souls I had ever known.
Her ex had cheated on her, and even after everything, she still couldn't move on.
Talking to her every day, laughing over the dumbest things, teasing each other during calls... somewhere along the way, it had quietly become my favorite part of the day.
And then...
There was Prithvi Bhaiya.
The funniest person in our little group.
He never thought before speaking, yet somehow managed to make everyone laugh.
He proudly claimed he was single by choice.
But every other day he'd dramatically complain to me,
"Behen, please... find me a girlfriend already!"
Every single time, I'd burst into laughter.
The moment I answered...
"Hello!"
Everyone greeted me together.
"Hyy! How's everyone doing?" I asked.
Prithvi Bhaiya sighed dramatically.
"How do you think I'd be? My own sister refuses to help me get a girlfriend!"
The entire call erupted into laughter.
For the next hour...
We laughed until our stomachs hurt.
We teased each other.
We argued over the most random things.
For a little while...
Life actually felt normal.
As if nothing had ever gone wrong.
Then...
Someone casually mentioned my ex.
My smile stayed exactly where it was.
I even laughed with everyone else.
But inside...
Everything froze.
The memories returned one after another.
Every broken promise.
Every sleepless night.
Every tear I had cried when no one was watching.
Every wound I had tried so desperately to bury.
The laughter around me slowly faded into silence.
I had become an expert at hiding my pain.
No matter how brightly I smiled...
Only I knew what my heart was carrying.
That evening, after the call ended, I sat alone in my room once again.
The same silence.
The same darkness.
The same empty feeling.
I looked at my reflection in the dark screen of my phone.
For a few seconds...
I didn't recognize the girl staring back at me.
Then I whispered to myself,
"Enough."
"I can't keep living like this."
"It's time to move on..."
"From everything."
Before fear could stop me...
I downloaded Bumble.
A simple decision.
A single tap.
I had no idea...
That one click was about to change the entire course of my life.
Because that was where...
I met Soyel.
Before I could think any further, my father's voice echoed from outside my room.
"Beta, what are you doing? Come here, I need you."
I quickly locked my phone.
"Nothing, Papa. I was just writing in my diary. I'm coming."
I placed the phone beside my open diary and walked out of the room.
The diary remained there...
Its pages filled with words I had never dared to speak aloud.
Dreams.
Pain.
Questions.
And countless emotions trapped between ink and paper.
Little did I know...
One day, those unfinished pages would become the story of my life.
