I was hurt. I was forgotten. I was replaced. The relationship was strained, or strange. He forgot me, I forgave him. Every night. He was a stranger now. I didn’t recall, or remember him. His feelings changed. His habits changed. Even his smell was strange. Lying in one bed. With him. Without emotions. It was heartless, ruthless and cruel. Love was disgraced that night. I was disgraced. With most courage and least self-esteem, I tried to put a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered. So did my heart. I pulled myself back, rolled into a corner of the bed and cried for an entire night. Cried slowly, softly, but loud enough to be heard by someone who was lying barely three feet away from me. But he didn’t utter a word. That piercing silence wounding my heart. Once again. The entire night passed by in the repercussions of the communication-gap that had replaced the love between us since past six months.

‘Who is she?’ I asked him in a neatly written note, shamelessly placing it on the breakfast table the next morning.

He walked out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist. His bare chest no more intrigued me. His wet, slithery body, had no effect on me. I wanted answers. He sat in the chair, just as he was. Looked at the breakfast I made, that loveless platter full of questions, adorned with a note written with shaky hands. He tried to speak something, but choked on his own words. I didn’t force him either. He got up, tore the note apart. I stood there, still demanding an answer. The air between us was intense, suffocating. One moment more, and I could die, but he would still choose silence over anything.

He stormed out of the room after dressing up hastily. Lightening the air. Saving me so that he could kill me in his own ways. I lost control of my body, my legs shaking uncontrollably, and I sat down beside the chair, following the routine I had since last six months. I could neither be with him, nor leave him. Looking at what I had become, disgusted with my own self, sick inside, I cried…