Some people say curiosity kills the cat.
But they never talk about what it does to a human heart.
Especially when the heart wasn’t just curious...
It was already broken.
---
I wasn’t supposed to be there that night.
Not outside that room.
Not in that hallway.
Not listening.
But life doesn’t care much for what we’re “supposed” to do.
---
It was a Thursday.
The kind of quiet evening that lingers like a question you don’t want to answer.
Campus was near-empty after 9 PM. Most of the lights were off, and the shadows owned the corridors.
I was just passing through the old science block. Not because I had a reason — I just didn’t want to go home.
Home meant silence. And silence meant thinking.
And I didn’t want to think about her.
---
Anika Rao.
Smart. Charming.
Too good for someone like me.
We were best friends before we fell into that messy, complicated thing people pretend isn’t love until it’s too late.
And it was too late.
We hadn’t spoken in three weeks.
Her last message:
> “I need time. Please don’t text.”
So I didn’t.
I just walked halls I didn’t belong in, and tried to forget how badly I wanted to hear her voice again.
---
That’s when it happened.
I was walking past Lab Room 4 — the one with the frosted glass and broken fan that always whirred like a dying bird.
I heard voices.
I almost kept walking — until I heard a name.
My name.
I stopped.
The door was slightly open. The voices inside were low but tense.
And then...
I heard her.
Anika.
My heart jumped like it remembered her better than my mind wanted to.
---
“I’m telling you, Rhea, I can’t do it. He doesn’t know the truth. And if he ever finds out...”
A pause.
A second voice — Rhea, her roommate.
“Then tell him before someone else does. You’ve kept this secret long enough, Ani.”
I pressed closer to the door, breath shallow. My mind screamed to leave — but my body refused.
What truth?
What secret?
Another voice joined the silence — Anika again, this time quieter. Almost a whisper.
“I never meant to hurt him. But it was never supposed to be me. It was supposed to be her.”
---
Her?
Who the hell was “her”?
I could barely process it when Rhea’s voice cut through again.
“You didn’t choose what happened. You only chose to lie about it. If he finds out... about the accident… about the letter… about everything…”
That was it.
I couldn’t take it anymore.
I took a step back, stumbled slightly, and the floor creaked.
Silence inside.
“Did you hear that?”
Panic kicked in.
I sprinted down the hallway like something was chasing me — or maybe something inside me had already caught up.
---
I didn’t sleep that night.
I didn’t dream.
I just replayed those words, again and again:
> “It was supposed to be her.”
“If he finds out about the accident…”
“…about the letter…”
What letter?
What accident?
And most of all…
Why hadn’t she told me?
---
The next morning, I tried to act normal. Failed miserably.
I avoided the science block. Avoided Anika. Avoided mirrors.
But truth doesn’t hide for long.
And fate is cruelly persistent.
At 2:15 PM, just before our shared elective, she cornered me outside the class.
“We need to talk.”
Her voice wasn’t angry. Just... sad.
I nodded.
---
We didn’t talk in the hallway.
She led me to the back garden — where we used to sit under the neem tree and talk about things like favorite books and star signs and if ghosts were real.
Now, it felt like haunted ground.
She sat. I stood.
“You were there last night, weren’t you?”
I didn’t lie.
“I was.”
She exhaled. Eyes down.
“Then I guess you heard enough.”
I folded my arms. I didn’t want to yell. I didn’t even know what to ask first.
“No, Anika. I didn’t hear enough. I heard just enough to be confused, hurt, and absolutely drowning in questions.”
She nodded slowly.
Then looked at me.
And said three words that twisted my stomach:
“It was Meera.”
> “It was Meera,” she said again, her voice trembling.
I froze.
The name hit me like a gust of forgotten wind.
Meera.
Anika’s cousin. A girl I met only once — shy, quiet, barely spoke.
She had come to visit two months ago.
Then suddenly, she vanished from our lives. No explanation. No goodbye.
Now Anika was saying everything was about her.
---
I sank onto the bench beside her.
“What about Meera?” I asked, my voice low.
Anika looked up at the neem tree above, its leaves rustling like they too were listening.
“The accident… the letter… all of it began with her.”
She sighed.
“You remember the day after our college fest?”
I nodded. How could I forget?
That was the last time I saw Anika truly smile.
“That night, Meera took my bike. Without telling me. Without knowing how to ride properly.”
My chest tightened.
“She hit someone?”
Anika nodded, tears welling.
“An old man… Mr. Dev. He was crossing the road. She didn’t even wait. She panicked, fell off, got scraped up… and ran.”
She paused.
“But I was the one they blamed. The bike was registered in my name. Witnesses were blurry. Nobody knew.”
---
I was silent.
I remembered hearing a rumor back then — someone hit a pedestrian outside campus. The man was in a coma for a while.
I never connected it to Anika.
And she never said a word.
---
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked, voice cracking.
“Because you believed in me,” she whispered, “and I wasn’t sure I believed in myself.”
---
The letter?
“What about the letter?”
Anika pulled something from her bag.
An envelope.
Worn edges. Tear stains.
She handed it to me.
Inside was a page — scrawled handwriting.
From Meera.
> “If you're reading this, I’ve left. I can’t face what I did. I know what it cost you. I’m sorry, Anika. Please forgive me. One day, tell him the truth. He deserves it.”
---
My hands trembled.
“She ran away?”
Anika nodded.
“I covered for her. I even took the blame during college inquiry. Rhea was the only one who knew. I thought I could bury it all. Until… you overheard us.”
---
For a long moment, the garden was quiet. The neem leaves danced above us, casting shadows like ghosts.
---
I finally spoke.
“You hurt me. By not trusting me. By choosing silence.”
She didn’t deny it.
“I know. I was scared of losing you. But I lost you anyway.”
She turned to me, her eyes glistening.
“I don’t want secrets between us anymore. I want to make things right. But only if… you want that too.”
---
I looked at her — not the girl I used to know, but the woman in front of me.
Flawed.
Afraid.
But brave enough to finally speak.
---
“We can’t go back,” I said slowly.
“But maybe… we can go forward. Honestly this time.”
Her eyes lit up. Just a little. Enough.
She took my hand.
Not like before — this time, it wasn’t perfect. But it was real.
And real is enough.
---
⭐ Epilogue:
Two weeks later, Meera returned.
Anika reported everything.
The old man, Mr. Dev, had recovered — and forgave her after hearing the full story.
Meera faced consequences. But she faced them with us.
And Anika?
She no longer whispered behind closed doors.
Because sometimes, the things we overhear…
…are exactly what we needed to hear all along.
-BY.SAIRAM
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