Somewhere between breaths

She was the girl everyone forgot to love when she was alive and loud… and suddenly remembered when she lay silent and breathless. Between life and death, her soul whispered questions no one ever answered "did I matter, did I belong, was I ever truly chosen? "

10 am Bangalore, 

The room was cold, sterile, lit with fluorescent lights that buzzed above like time ticking mercilessly. Beeping machines surrounded her fragile body, each one clinging to a hope the doctors were too afraid to promise.

There she lay the girl who once lit up every corridor she walked through ,now quiet, still, as if the universe hit pause on the very heartbeat of life itself.Her parents clutched each other near the foot of the hospital bed, eyes swollen from nights of unanswered prayers. Her mother’s hand refused to leave her daughter’s, whispering a soft chant, the same one she sang to her as a baby, now a desperate lullaby calling her back.

Her friends stood outside the glass door, tears slipping silently down their cheeks. The same friends who once begged her to stop overthinking everything, who laughed when she ranted about that one boy she could never quite get over, who rolled their eyes at her dramatic yet lovable speeches about life and love and fate,those same friends now wished for just one more rant.
Because silence never suited her.

This was the girl who once doubted if anyone would cry when she died. Who scribbled thoughts into her diary late at night wondering if her presence meant anything more than background noise. Who laughed it off saying, “I’m not that important anyway.”

And there she was, the chatterbox who never learned to stay quiet now locked in a battle between life and death, her voice gone but not forgotten.

She couldn’t move, not even a flutter of her fingers. But she could feel.Not through skin or limbs, but through something deeper.
Her soul hovered in a delicate space between this world and the next, unseen, unheard but completely aware.
She watched her mother sob into the corner of the hospital room, clutching the shawl that still smelled faintly of her daughter.She heard her father whispering broken prayers he once mocked, bargaining now with gods he never believed in.
Her friends? They took turns breaking down and pretending to be strong.One of them even tried to crack a joke,something she would've done and then choked midway through tears, realizing she wasn't there to laugh.

She watched it all from this strange stillness.And she wanted to speak.So badly.
"Don’t cry."
"I'm the loud one, remember?”But the words never left her.
Because deep inside, beneath the silent pain and love she still held for them…
She didn’t want to come back.Not this time.
Not when life had already wrung her dry.
She was tired. Not the kind of tired that sleep could fix but the kind that sat in the bones of your soul. Her laughter had masked heartbreaks. Her kindness had gone unnoticed. Her voice had echoed into voids that never answered.

And the only one she had ever secretly wished to come running -the one she loved without permission was nowhere in sight.

Would he even care?
Would he even think of her now? Just once? Even for a second?
She had imagined it… his face flashing in the hallway, his voice asking someone, “How is she?”
Maybe he'd scroll back to her name. Maybe he’d whisper a silent wish. Maybe. Maybe not.
She hated the maybes.
So she just lay there…. in between.Not quite alive, not quite gone.Watching her body breathe for her,machines ticking .And in that moment, she thought "Maybe letting go is easier than waiting for someone who will never come."
She curled into the corner of her soul and wept silently.
Not for herself……
But for the love she gave that never returned.
For the life that felt more like surviving than living.
And as everyone cried for her to stay “She wondered if peace was finally in leaving.

At 11:11
The room had sunk into silence.Then, without warning, the monitor beeped louder
Her heartbeat surged.
111 bpm.
It was 11:11.
After all her waiting…After all her unanswered cries…After all the quiet love she poured from afar .
He came.
Her soul, hovering in its in between realm, stirred awake.A flicker of breath. A flutter of life.
She felt it ,the warmth of his presence like how one feels sunlight through closed eyes.
Her soul reached out, finally, after all this time.
He walked towards her.Sat down beside her for the first time.Leaning closer to her fragile form, his voice cracked as he whispered.

“Come back Nivrithi , please.”

And that was all it took.For her.For the girl who once said she wouldn’t fight for anything again.Her body fought. The machines beeped wildly, nurses rushing in, eyes wide in hope .
But in the blur of light, she froze.There he was.But his eyes weren’t on her.His hand wasn’t holding hers.
He was clutching someone else’s hand.
His love.
The one he always cared for. Suddenly she remembered what had happened.And in that moment, through the sting of the oxygen mask and the burning in her chest, her soul shattered quietly.

Not in bitterness.
Not in anger.
But in ache.

It was just her imagination. As always .HE NEVER CAME…As always.

Just then someones phone ringed. RANJHANAA HUA MEIN TERA .
What an irony !!

Days passed,
she still hadn’t opened her eyes. The doctors said her vitals were stable, but that didn’t mean she was coming back. She was breathing. Some said she was fighting. Others said she was slipping. Her parents stayed beside her day and night, clinging to the hope that she'd just sit up one day and ask for coffee or go on about something random.
But inside her mind… it was different. She hadn’t woken up. Not fully. Not to the world outside. Her mind was louder than ever.Thoughts rushed like waves through her. Memories. Echoes. Unspoken wishes.
She saw everything.She heard the way people talked around her.She felt the weight of their tears.And yet, all she could think was ,Does it matter now? Her heart wasn’t racing anymore. It had slowed not out of weakness, but out of acceptance. She was tired. Tired in a way no rest had ever cured. Not even peace. It wasn’t just the hospital bed or the exhaustion in her limbs. It was something that had lived in her for years ,being unseen, unheard, yet always there.

And love?
That one love she carried so carefully in her heart?
She was inches away from him, yet galaxies apart.

And it hit her harder than the machines ever could. Even in this moment, even in her near death state, she wasn’t the one anyone truly chose.
Not him.
Not her friends who were too busy until she collapsed.
Not the people who now cried.Now, her mind drifted.
She imagined what it would’ve been like to be loved by him. Not secretly. But openly. As someone worth choosing. Worth holding. Worth staying for. That question lingered like fog in her fading thoughts. Her only regret? She never told him.
Never let her voice reach the one place it always wanted to stay.She poured her feelings into silences, into smiles, into presence but never into words.And now, here she was.
Maybe this was her moment of peace.Maybe, for once, what she wanted was actually happening.No more pretending.No more hoping.
No more waiting for someone to turn back and finally see her.

Back then, her presence was loud yet invisible.Now that she was vanishing, she was suddenly seen. But she knew how it worked.Give it a week.Maybe two.Soon, they’d forget the way her laughter filled the room.
They’d go back to their lives, their routines.
Because she was always with everyone…. but never really part of them. She wasn't anyone’s favorite.Not anyone’s person. Not anyone’s home. Just… there. Always there.

Everyone said, “Go where you are valued.”
But where is that, really?
Where does someone like her go, when she’s never been wanted enough to be held onto?
Even now, as she hovered between life and death, she asked the universe ,not out loud, but deep within.
“Does anyone truly want me back? Not just because they’ll feel guilty if I’m gone… but because they love me? Because they need me?”
There was no answer.
Only the sound of a steady heartbeat on the monitor.A heartbeat that wasn’t hers anymore.Not really.Because somewhere in that hospital bed,
A soul was letting go Softly. Quietly. Like she had lived. Like she had loved. And no one even knew.Because now, all she had was a body she no longer felt connected to, and a room full of people who were only just realizing how empty life felt without her voice.

She didn’t know the answer.
So she just stayed.
Not really fighting.
Not really surrendering.
Just there.
As always.


“God gave her a heart so full it could drown oceans, and then forgot to give someone a lifeboat to reach her."