The Muddy Staircase - Chapter 13

Chapter 13

She looked at him in utter shock.

“But… why?” she asked, her voice trembling.

Johan didn’t answer.

Instead, he gently placed the diary in her hands.

With a heart full of questions, she slowly opened it.

On the very first page, written in his neat handwriting, she read—

“I saw her again after years.

She no longer had two little braids.

The tiny girl I had watched walking to school in her white uniform had grown into a beautiful young woman.

The first time I saw her in a saree, my heart skipped a beat… just like it had the day she slipped on the muddy staircase.”

She slowly lifted her eyes.

Johan was looking at her.

His eyes had already filled with tears.

Yet…

his lips still wore a smile.

She wanted to smile too.

She wanted to blush after reading how beautifully he had admired her.

But all she could hear were the words he had spoken a few moments ago.

”…we can’t be together.”

She swallowed her tears and turned the next page.

5th September

“Today, I quietly followed her.

A strong breeze played with her long hair and her dupatta.

As they danced in the wind…

so did my heart.”

A tiny smile escaped her lips.

She turned another page.

“Today I stood inside the church holding a heart-shaped balloon.

‘I Love You’ was written on it.

I thought I’d show it to you from a distance.

Before you could even notice it…

a little child came running and burst it.

That poor balloon confessed before I ever could.”

For the first time…

Rhea smiled through her tears.

Another page.

“I never wanted anything more than to see you smile.

Looking at you from a distance was enough to make my day beautiful.

But the day you neither looked at me nor smiled at me…

something inside me broke.

I couldn’t find peace.

I quietly stood near your house…

hoping for just one glimpse of you.”

She turned another page.

“Then he entered your life.

Only then did I realise how deeply I feared losing you.

For the first time…

I understood what jealousy felt like.”

Another page.

“My heart began beating again only after I heard you say…

‘His name is… Jo…’

You never completed my name.

You didn’t have to.

That unfinished syllable completed my entire world.”

Her fingers trembled.

A tear fell onto the page.

She quickly wiped it away and continued reading.

“The next day I finally decided to tell you everything.

But before I could…

that same boy appeared again.

I couldn’t stand there watching him trouble you anymore.

The boy who never had the courage to tell you ‘I love you’…

somehow found the courage to tell another man…

‘Stop bothering her.’

When he asked for proof…

I didn’t even think.

The words simply came out…

‘You wanted proof… that’s why I’m here.’”

She closed her eyes.

That moment replayed vividly before her.

Her hands shook as she turned the next page.

The handwriting had become slightly uneven.

As though every word had been written with tears.

“That day changed everything.

But it also began the hardest battle of my life.”

“My mother saw us.

She saw everything.

But instead of seeing two hearts…

she saw only status, language and religion.”

“From that day until today…

I have been fighting with her for just one word.

A ‘yes’.

But every battle ended the same way.”

“Being her only son…

I became helpless.”

“I could fight the entire world and take you away with me.

But I cannot build our happiness on the tears of the two people I love the most.”

“If I bring you into my home against my mother’s wishes…

I know you will suffer.”

“I don’t want the woman I love to spend her life fighting battles she never chose.”

“One day…

you may look at me with tired eyes and ask…

‘Is this really our life?’

I cannot bear that thought.”

“I cannot watch you lose your smile.”

“I cannot watch you stop loving me because life became too difficult.”

“That is why…

I chose to let you go.”

“Not because I don’t love you…

but because…

I love you the most.”

The page blurred before her eyes.

Not because the ink had faded…

but because her tears had.