The guest room was dark — only the faint shimmer of city lights filtered through the curtains.

Poornima sat on the bed, her knees drawn close to her chest, tears silently streaming down her face.

Her hands trembled as she pressed them against her heart, trying to steady the storm inside her. But the pain wouldn’t stop. It clawed at her chest, choking her with memories she wished she could erase.

Her voice came out as a broken whisper.

“Why did I do that…? Why, Poornima?”

She closed her eyes, flashes of the past hitting her — laughter with Neha and Priyanka, cruel words she once threw at Veeresh, the way his eyes used to harden every time she mocked him, and the helpless pain she never noticed back then.

A sob escaped her lips.

“Pavan… you were my biggest mistake.”

She clutched the bedsheet tightly, knuckles white. “I ruined everything… I destroyed someone who didn’t even deserve my hatred.”

Her tears fell faster now, staining the pillow. “I don’t know why I did such a big crime… I just wanted someone to look at me the way I looked at him… and now, I’ve lost everything because of it.”

She looked up, her eyes red and heavy.

“Will I never get Veeresh’s love? Doesn’t he want me… not even a little?”

Her voice cracked as she whispered his name. “Veeresh…”

Her chest ached — not just with guilt, but with a strange longing that had grown stronger each day. “I need him,” she confessed to the empty room. “My body, my soul… every cell in me needs him. And I don’t even know how or when that happened.”

The night air felt colder, her loneliness sharper.

She curled up on the bed, whispering between sobs, “I’ll do anything… anything to make it right. Just once, I want him to look at me not with hate… but with something close to love.”

Her tears slowed eventually, exhaustion winning over emotion. But even in her sleep, her heart whispered his name — soft, broken, desperate.

Veeresh.