The first week was the hardest. It was a phantom limb pain of the heart. Dakshin's fingers would automatically drift to his phone, pulling up her contact before his brain had even fully registered the action. He'd type a half-dozen messages, each one more desperate than the last.
"Anaya, I'm so sorry about what happened."
"Please, just talk to me."
"This isn't my fault."
"I miss you."
He never sent any of them. Deleted every one. What could he say? My father destroyed your family to save it, and I sat in the corner and did nothing? His own inaction, both in the library and during his family's war council, mocked him. His "duty" had rendered him mute.
He tried to find her at college. He'd linger by her usual lecture hall, his heart hammering against his ribs every time a familiar head of hair turned the corner. But she was a ghost. It was as if she had developed a sixth sense for his presence, effortlessly navigating the campus to avoid him.
Then, he saw her.
It was near the campus cafe. She was walking with her friend, Mia. Her head was thrown back, laughing at something. For a glorious, heart-stopping second, she looked like the old Anaya. The one who was his sanctuary.
He moved without thinking, stepping into her path. "Anaya."
The laughter died in her throat. Her smile vanished, replaced by a placid, distant mask. Her eyes, which had once held galaxies for him, were now flat and empty. They looked through him as if he were a pane of glass.
"Dakshin," she acknowledged, her voice devoid of all emotion. It was the tone you'd use for a vaguely familiar cashier.
"Can we... can we please talk? For five minutes?" he pleaded, hating the desperation in his own voice.
"There's nothing to talk about," she said, her gaze shifting to a point somewhere over his shoulder. "Excuse me."
She and Mia walked around him. He stood frozen, rooted to the spot by the sheer force of her indifference. It wasn't anger. It wasn't hatred. It was nothing. It was the complete and total erasure of their history. It was a silence that screamed louder than any argument.
---
For Anaya, the silence was a project. It was a wall she was building, brick by painful brick. Blocking his number was the foundation. Avoiding him was the first layer. But the true mortar was the rage.
She replayed the library scene in her head, but it was no longer a memory of heartbreak. It was a preview. His "not yet" was no longer the hesitation of a boy in love; it was the cold calculation of a son from a family of strategists. He was already one of them. His duty was to them.
Her father's broken face was her daily reminder. Her mother's quiet tears were her fuel. The Park family had not just taken a piece of their property; they had stolen their dignity.
So when she saw Dakshin approaching her near the cafe, the wall held firm. She let the mask of indifference slip into place, a shield she had been practicing in the mirror. She saw the pain in his eyes, the desperate plea, and for a treacherous second, something in her chest twinged.
But then she remembered the sound of David Park's voice in her home. She remembered her mother's scream.
She looked right through him. The words, "There's nothing to talk about," were cold and heavy, stones she laid upon the wall. Walking away from him felt like a victory. A small, painful one, but a victory nonetheless. She was protecting what was left of her family. She was proving her loyalty.
And in the quiet of her room that night, she allowed herself one single, hot tear for the boy she had thought he was. Then she wiped it away, and continued building her fortress.