Before everything fell apart, most people didn't know Tripti without Isha.

They were always together - walking through corridors, sitting in class, laughing during breaks. Teachers called one name and expected both to turn around. Some juniors even confused who was Tripti and who was Isha. They had become so inseparable that people remembered them as one, not two.

Then, everything changed.

Now, every school day felt like walking through memories she never asked to revisit. The hardest part wasn't the silence between her and Isha - it was everyone else's questions.

"Where's Isha?"

"Aren't you two together anymore?"

"What happened between you both?"

Tripti smiled weakly, changed the subject, and carried the weight of answers she could never bring herself to give.

What hurt even more was seeing Isha every single day. She now sat with other friends, laughing the way she once laughed with Tripti. Every glance felt like a reminder that life had moved on for everyone else. Tripti never interrupted, never complained. She simply looked away, pretending she hadn't noticed, while her heart quietly broke all over again.

There were moments when Tripti almost walked over to Isha, hoping to say someagain - anything. But every time, fear stopped her. What if the conversation made things worse? What if Isha no longer wanted to hear her voice? So, they became strangers sharing the same classroom, passing each other every day with hundreds of unsaid words between them.

Aalankrit quietly noticed the way Tripti's eyes searched the classroom before she sat down. He understood she wasn't looking for a down - she was looking for the version of life she had lost. He never mentioned Isha or asked painful questions. Instead, he stayed close enough for Tripti to know that even if the past couldn't return, she didn't have to face the present alone.

Slowly, people stopped asking questions. The school moved on, new memories were made, and old conversations faded away. But Tripti still carried every unanswered "why" in her heart. She smiled when she had to, studied when she could, and kept walking through the same corridors where she had once been known as one half of an inseparable friendship, now learning how to be seen as herself.