‘Madhav? Is this true?’ Father George asked.

I nodded in agreement. I just nodded. I could not say a word. I had lost my love and my best friend. I had never felt weaker. I had been deceived by the two people I had chosen to love.

‘Do you want to say anything, Madhav? Or shall we end this discussion right here?’

I shook my head. There was nothing else to say. I decided I would never speak to Shriya again but I did want to ask Parth to justify his action.

Father George signed my termination letter and warned me to stay away from Shriya. He said he would call my parents after the final exams to make my termination official and that I was thrown out of the literature club, effective immediately. Shriya left the room weeping. But I somehow felt Parth’s betrayal more intensely than I did hers.

Sitting outside the dorm, I wrote a poem that night, gazing up at the inky sky. That was the last real poem I wrote. The ones I wrote in college were just to look cool.

I gave you all I had

I tried to make it last

But now all we have

Are the memories from the past.

I went back to the dorm at midnight. Everyone was asleep. Parth’s bed was next to mine. Every night I would arrange his things and his wheelchair so he wouldn’t fall while getting into it in the morning. But that night he had done it himself. He didn’t need me any more, I realized with a stabbing pain in my gut.

Exhausted, I jumped into bed but couldn’t fall asleep for a very long time.

The next day was when I saw Parth for the last time. I never thought that it would end like this. I woke up and got dressed, feeling an odd pain in my body. I hadn’t gone to sleep until dawn and even then, I had slept fitfully. Parth wasn’t in his bed. We had a free day to either study by ourselves or attend extra classes. I walked out of the dorm and my eyes searched for Shriya and Parth.

I didn’t see Shriya. I overheard her friends saying she had already left for the competition. I walked around the campus with a heavy heart looking for Parth.

‘Have you seen Parth?’ I asked a few batchmates when the evening classes ended. One of them told me he had seen him go towards the hill. ‘What happened last night, Madhav?’ asked Joffin, another classmate. The students knew that something had transpired between Madhav and Shriya.

‘Nothing, Joffin. Excuse me, I need to see Parth,’ I said and walked towards the hill through the playground.

I saw Parth sitting on the grass, his wheelchair next to him. He usually avoided taking his wheelchair to the hilltop when no one was around, just to be safe. I wondered how he had managed to find his way there without my help.