Chapter 1 - The life I Built
The house was finally quiet.
It was almost 11:30 at night, the only time of the day when silence visited the small apartment. Toys were scattered across the living room floor — a plastic dinosaur missing one leg, a tiny pink doll lying on its side, and a school bag that had been hurriedly dropped after homework battles.
I slowly picked up the doll and placed it on the sofa.
My three-year-old daughter had finally fallen asleep after demanding three bedtime stories, one glass of milk, and a long hug that she refused to let go of. In the next room, my eight-year-old son slept with his blanket half kicked off, one hand still holding the corner of his comic book.
They were the most beautiful parts of my life.
Every day revolved around them — school tiffins, homework, doctor visits, birthday parties, spilled milk, lost pencils, and endless questions about the world.
Motherhood had filled my life with noise, love, and responsibility.
But when the night became quiet, something else surfaced.
A loneliness that had no clear name.
I walked into the bedroom. My husband was already asleep, one arm over his eyes, his phone lying beside him. His days were always full — meetings, calls, deadlines, responsibilities. I knew he worked hard for our family.
Still, somewhere between bills, school runs, and work stress, something between us had slowly faded.
We spoke about groceries, schedules, the children’s school events… but rarely about us.
Sometimes I would lie beside him and stare at the ceiling, wondering when exactly our conversations had become so practical and our silences so heavy.
the feelings which i am having was quite hypothetical, one minute i wanted to pour my heart out and shout to him about my feelings and the other i kept quite .
It was just a quiet distance.
The kind that slowly grows between two people who once promised to share everything.
That night, as I watched the faint streetlight glow through the curtains, a strange thought crossed my mind.
What if I had met him earlier?
What if life had allowed us to become friends first… before responsibilities, before expectations, before marriage turned love into routine?
What if I had known him when I was seventeen?
Back in 2008, when life still felt like a story waiting to be written.
Maybe we would have talked for hours.
Maybe we would have laughed more.
Maybe we would have fallen in love slowly, the way people do in movies and books.
I closed my eyes and imagined it.
A younger version of me.
A younger version of him.
Two strangers meeting for the first time… without knowing the future waiting for them.
And for the first time in years, I wondered—
If life could start again from there.
But what can be done , sometimes i felt all the resentment which i was harbouring, can i go longer with this , should we take a break !! I couldn’t muster up the courage to talk to him - Pratham , my husband. He was a wall which i can never break .
Thinking about this i slept .
