By the time Leena turned thirty-two, she had perfected the art of looking functional while feeling like a browser with twenty open tabs. Nothing crashed, but everything lagged. You could talk to her and she’d reply intelligently, but inside her mind tiny fires burned in places she hadn’t checked in months. The unraveling began in a grocery store aisle — an unglamorous place for a life shift, but most turning points choose inconvenience over drama. She was staring at a shelf of lentils, comparing the same two packets she always bought. A man …
When the World Wasn’t Looking, We Grew Apart Anyway
Anika hadn’t spoken to Isha in seven months. Not for lack of trying. Just not enough trying. It started slow. Rescheduled calls. The “let’s definitely catch up soon” messages that came with heart emojis and no actual dates. The growing silence between texts. Then, one day, they just… stopped happening. It wasn’t a fight. Which almost would have been easier. It was distance disguised as busy. They had been close once. Not the kind of close you post about. Not the curated selfies and brunch recaps. But the other kind—the real kind. The …
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Things You Only Say to a Mirror
It didn’t end the way she thought it would. There was no dramatic fight, no raised voices, no suitcase dragged down a stairwell in the rain. Just two people at a kitchen table that had hosted too many takeout meals and not enough truth, pushing at the edges of a life they’d outgrown. “I thought we wanted the same things,” he said, stirring his tea with the absentminded focus of someone who knew this was over but hadn’t figured out how to say it first. Anika didn’t respond right away. She was trying to decide if this was the moment to …
The Man Who Stayed Late at Work
A Short story By the time the last intern left and the lights dimmed themselves into a soft hum, he was still there. At his desk. Staring at a spreadsheet that hadn’t changed in hours. The cursor blinked like it was waiting for him to confess something. He didn’t. To the untrained eye, he looked committed. Focused. Maybe even indispensable. But those who knew him—really knew him—would recognize the signs. The loosened tie, the untouched reheat of dinner, the three draft emails that would never be sent. Home was only twenty minutes …
The Day I Followed My Want Into a Wall
No one tells you how quietly a week can slip by when you don’t leave the house. It was a Tuesday. The kind that feels like a placeholder. I hadn’t showered. My inbox had fourteen unread emails—twelve marked urgent by people with no sense of proportion. The fruit in the fridge was fermenting into a science project. My husband stood near the sink, staring at a leaking tap like it owed him money. And I wanted a croissant. Not just a bite. A mission. The flakiest, warmest, crisp-on-the-outside croissant, possibly filled with almond cream …
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The Version of Her That Chose
Nobody noticed when she started changing. There wasn’t a grand moment or a speech or a meltdown. No cutting bangs or quitting jobs. Just a quiet shift that began somewhere small — like waking up earlier than she needed to. Her name was Meera. Thirty-something. Had tried being everything to everyone and still felt like she was failing at both. She wasn’t dramatic about it. That wasn’t her style. She just carried a tiredness in her bones that no nap or vacation could fix. She didn’t hate her life. That’s what made it trickier. She had …
The Space Between
Raghav ignored the third message from Mira that morning. "We need to talk." He told himself he’d respond after the product sprint ended. He didn’t. He always excelled under pressure. As a product strategist in a bustling tech startup, he lived for chaos—pitching to investors, crafting timelines, fixing bugs at 2 a.m. But emotional connection? Especially with Mira? That was a system crash he never learned to debug. When Mira cried or tried to reach him, a static wall rose in his chest. His mind whispered: flee. He never shouted, but his …
The Woman Who Forgot to Want
Her name was Mira. The kind of woman people described as “supportive,” “selfless,” “a rock.” She had always been the one who made room—for others, for their dreams, for their chaos. A good partner, they’d say. A quiet achiever. The kind who never made too much noise about what she needed. Or maybe she just stopped talking about it altogether. She used to dream. Not in the grand, billboard kind of way, but in soft-focus details—late-night writing sessions with her dog at her feet, a sunlit kitchen where she’d bake bread without watching the …