Ahana SenSharma

There was a time when my life felt uncomplicated. I woke up trusting the day. I trusted people. I trusted love without calculating its cost. Happiness wasn’t something I questioned—it was simply present, woven into the ordinary rhythm of my life. Back then, I worked in media. I didn’t chase visibility, but it found me anyway. My face appeared on screens, my words travelled farther than I expected, my smile became familiar to strangers. People called me warm. Approachable. Real. I became a quiet kind of crush. Not because I tried to be admired, but because I lived openly. I didn’t perform joy; I carried it. And in the middle of that visibility, I had something far more grounding than attention. I had love. It wasn’t dramatic or consuming. It was steady. Safe. Chosen every day without effort. With him, I didn’t feel smaller or louder—I felt equal. We spoke about the future casually, assuming time would cooperate. As if life were predictable. That assumption didn’t survive. Loss doesn’t arrive like heartbreak. It arrives like interruption. One moment, my life was intact. The next, it wasn’t. No argument. No warning. No slow goodbye. Just absence—sudden, final, impossible to negotiate with. He didn’t leave me. He was taken. That difference changed everything. Grief didn’t show up the way people describe it. I didn’t collapse. I didn’t scream. I entered a strange, efficient stillness. I learned how to function without feeling. I showed up to work. I answered messages. I smiled when expected. Inside, something essential had been removed. The worst part was that the love hadn’t failed. There was nothing to resent, nothing to undo. What we had was good—and because it was good, losing it felt unbearable. Memory became dangerous. Familiar places felt hostile. Even my own reflection felt unfamiliar, as if joy had once lived there and left without explanation. The attention that once felt harmless began to suffocate me. People still saw the girl I used to be—t