Dear Shruti,

I miss you. I miss your impish grin, the way you bit the left corner of your lip, the way you twirled your hair. Did I ever tell you how we first met? It wasn't in the library like you think, but before that. You had been arguing with some friend of yours about how Harry Potter is not the best character in the series, because for a hero, he is pretty dependent. You had sworn you would write the series in Voldemort's point of view, and that he would be the hero instead.

I had gone home that day and reread the series, only to find that you were right, but also wrong. Harry was the hero because he inspired people to help with his goodness, something not everyone could do. Being good came easily for him. I guess you never really bought in on the good-versus-evil thing anyway.

Dating you was the best part of my life. You were this sweet, quirky person, a fragile figurine shrouded with pines. Very few got to see the soft side. You had this habit of messaging me atleast once a day, no matter how busy you were. I fell deeper in love the more I came to know you, and it came to a point where you eclipsed me in my own eyes. That scared me.

When we broke up, I could see the question in your eyes - why? You didn't know what went wrong. Truth is, neither did I. I still don't. I just got scared of the commitment, and I ran. I always meant to thank you for staying strong through it all, because if you hadn't, I would have been torn up.

It has been more than ten years now. I am getting married next month, to the same girl you had argued with that day. We were finalising the list of people to invite, when I learnt that you had passed away in an accident four years ago. I didn't even hear about it, because I wasn't in the country, and I had deactivated all my social media accounts.

I never got to say goodbye. You were a love story that ended unhappily, but you were also my rock. You were the person who sat by my side when I found out about Grandma's cancer. You were the one who stayed awake all night to teach me chemistry the day before the exam. You were the reason I began singing in public, the reason my audience no longer includes shampoo bottles.

And you are gone. You have been gone for years, and I never noticed. Now, I can't stop noticing, I can't stop thinking about it. You always seemed bigger than life, and the image of you, small and lifeless, on a hospital bed? It doesn't fit well.

Give me a miracle. Give me one last message, so that my last memory of you isn't that look of shocked horror when I told you it wasn't working out. I was a scared little boy back then, and now, I am just as scared. Scared that I missed out on life.

Yours,
Raj.

A/n:
What would you do if someone you once card for deeply, is gone forever?