She Called, I Stayed.

She called me one evening—without warning, without pretext—just her breath on the line, trembling like a candle in the wind. And I answered, not with words, but with presence. Some calls you don't ignore. Some voices carry the weight of unshed tears, and hers did.

“I just needed someone to talk to,” she whispered, barely holding herself together. And so, I became her someone.

She unraveled slowly—thread by thread—telling me about him, about how he played with her hope, dangled the idea of love just close enough to keep her craving, but never real enough to hold. He never promised her a forever, only borrowed moments—convenient silences, half-hearted affection, temporary warmth.

And while she poured herself out, I listened.

Not because I was supposed to. But because I wanted to.

Because when someone’s soul is crumbling, you don’t ask questions. You don’t rush healing. You just sit with their pain and hold space for their brokenness.

I gave her my time. My stillness. My peace.

I paused my world to steady hers.

Even when my own mind was a maze of unanswered questions. Even when I had stories inside me aching to be heard—about my quiet griefs, my untold anxieties, the nights I couldn't sleep, the mornings I didn’t want to wake up. I never shared those. I made space for her storms and folded my own away like unfinished letters no one would ever read.

I sent her poetry when she felt unlovable, sent her voice notes when silence was too loud, sent her bits of light when she couldn’t find her own.

Not once did I ask her to choose me instead.

I simply chose her, every time.

Then, one day, the calls stopped.

No fights. No farewells. Just absence—quiet and cruel. Like I’d been a waiting room, and her turn for happiness had finally arrived somewhere else.

She ghosted not just my inbox, but the parts of me she once occupied with laughter and pain. And I? I didn’t beg. I didn’t text.

I just… let her go. As gently as I had held her.

Because love, to me, wasn’t about claiming or confessing. It was about showing up—when it was inconvenient, when it was one-sided, when it hurt.

I was never her lover.

Just the pause between her heartbreaks.

But I hope—truly, silently—that someday, when she scrolls through old chats or finds a forgotten photo, she remembers me. The one who never asked for anything but gave her everything he could.

And maybe, just maybe, she’ll wonder why she never asked if I was okay, too.

But by then, I’ll have grown used to being the one who listens… even when no one listens back.

Because that’s who I am.

The one who stays. Even when everyone else leaves.

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© Abhishek Pathak