Kya se kya hogaya Bewafa tere pyaar mein

There are days when life feels like it’s pulling me in two directions — who I was, and who I’m trying to become.

Yesterday was one of those days.

I went out for lunch with someone I’ve known for a while. It was easy, simple, and honestly… nice. We laughed, joked, raced cars like two children on a highway pretending the world wasn’t heavy. For a moment, it felt like maybe life can still be uncomplicated.

But then he handed me a cigarette.

Just a cigarette.

But it changed something.

I took a few puffs — barely 1 or 2— and suddenly my chest tightened. Not because of the smoke, but because in that moment all I could hear was his voice.

N.

The one who once snatched a cigarette from my hand because he didn’t want me to be “that girl.”

The one who looked at me with this strange mixture of protectiveness and irritation — almost like I was something too precious to be touched by anything harsh or ugly.

And as the smoke hit my throat, I felt like I had crossed an invisible line.

Like a piece of my innocence, something only he ever protected, had slipped away.

I felt unclean.

Not because of the cigarette, but because I suddenly wasn’t her anymore —

the girl he kept safe,

the girl he teased,

the girl whose mistakes he scolded out of care,

the girl he wanted to see untouched, pure, soft.

And the worst part?

I liked that version of me.

Not because he controlled it — but because for once in my life, someone cared about my wellbeing with such intensity that it felt like love.

Maybe I did it because I somehow wished he would appear from thin air, give me an earful and take me in his arms.

Even now, when someone touches my hand or makes me laugh, it doesn’t feel like home. It doesn’t feel like him.

My mind runs back to how he held my wrist, how he hugged me, how he looked at me with that crooked, amused smile that made everything inside me settle.

I don’t know why the smallest things trigger the biggest ache.

Maybe it’s like Lootera, where Pakhi says:

“Tumhare jaane ke baad zindagi ruk si gayi thi… par saans chalti rahi.”

Sometimes I feel like Pakhi — loving someone who has already walked past me, carrying a story that ended for him but still continues inside me.

Maybe he was my Varun in some ways — flawed, distant, confusing —and yet the only one who unknowingly taught me how deeply I could feel.

But here’s the truth I’m finally admitting to myself:

I don’t just miss him.

I miss me with him —the version of me that felt protected, soft, innocent, hopeful.

The version that believed love can shape you into something gentler.

Maybe she isn’t gone.

Maybe she’s just waiting for me to grow into her again —on my own terms this time, with self-respect, with boundaries, without losing myself in anyone’s arms.

Maybe heartbreak doesn’t end you.

Maybe it rebuilds you.

And maybe, one day, I will look at myself and realize I didn’t lose my innocence with him —I just discovered my depth.