The Distance Between Them:
It had been three months since Aarav left.
And three weeks since he last replied to any of her messages.
Rihanna sat cross-legged on her bed, the flickering screen of her phone painting ghostly shadows across her face. Her playlist played softly in the background—Lana Del Rey, as usual. Her favorite song once made her feel like the main character.
Now it just made her feel like a fool.
Her texts were still marked "delivered." Not read. Not replied to.
Ri: How's Delhi? Are the classes tough?Ri: Saw this book and thought of you.Ri: Aarav… are we okay?Ri: Just tell me if you're done. Please.
She never sent the last one.
"Maybe he's busy," her friend Zoya said for the third time that week. "Or overwhelmed. It's a big change, Ri."
Rihanna stared at the cracked ceiling of her room. "No one is too busy for three weeks, Zo."
"Maybe… he's trying to ghost you gently," Zoya offered softly, instantly regretting it.
Rihanna didn't respond. Because she already knew.She just didn't want it to be real.
The Screenshot:
It was a Tuesday afternoon. Humid, still, ordinary.
Until it wasn't.
Zoya barged into Rihanna's house without knocking, holding her phone in her trembling hands.
"Don't freak out," she started.
That's never a good way to start anything.
"What?" Rihanna asked, not lifting her eyes from the sketch she was shading.
Zoya sat beside her, jaw clenched. "You should see this."
She handed over the phone.
It was a photo. A group selfie, posted on Tanisha Malhotra's Instagram story. Tanisha—Aarav's old schoolmate. Pretty, petty, and loud about everything.
They were at some café in Delhi. Tanisha was pressed into Aarav's side, arms locked. But it wasn't the photo that shattered Rihanna's breath.
It was the caption.
"He used to sketch her. Now he memorizes me."
Rihanna's throat went dry. Her fingers tightened around the phone, like she could crush the betrayal if she just gripped hard enough.
Zoya watched her carefully. "You okay?"
Rihanna didn't speak. She stood up, slowly, methodically, and walked out onto the rooftop like it was the only place she could breathe.
Zoya followed in silence.
They sat together, knees almost touching, saying nothing for a long time.
Then Rihanna whispered, more to herself than anyone else:"He told me I'd be unforgettable."
Zoya touched her arm gently. "You are. He just—"
"No," Rihanna cut in. Her voice cracked, then steadied. "He just didn't mean it. Not really. Not forever."
Her Quiet Undoing:
That night, the heartbreak was loud in the silence.
Rihanna lay curled on her mattress, fists balled in her blanket, her chest aching like grief had teeth. She didn't cry dramatically. She didn't scream. She just broke—quietly, invisibly.
She didn't even tell her mother.
She didn't know how.
Instead, she opened her sketchbook, tore out every drawing of Aarav she'd ever made, and watched them burn in the steel bucket they used for garbage.
And still, his words stayed.
"You're the kind of girl people write tragic poetry about."
She was beginning to understand what that meant.
It wasn't love. It was prophecy.
The Shift:
Two days later, she sat in the school library with her earphones in, pretending to study.
Instead, she was scrolling through mafia romance blogs on Tumblr. Stories of dangerous men, obsessive lovers, twisted fates. She consumed them like oxygen.
Because at least in those stories, heartbreak had meaning.
At least in those stories, the pain wasn't for nothing.
She scrawled a line into her journal, eyes red, lips bitten raw:
"He didn't just leave. He hollowed me."
And just below it—
"Next time, I won't fall in love with someone soft. I want the kind of love that scars."
She had no idea...
That the universe was listening.
And the devil himself was on his way.