Love Before Graduation

After a long silence, she said it.

Softly. Like she didn't want to hear herself say it.

"Aira... I've been having nightmares."

Her voice cracked halfway through. She was trembling. Not from cold—just fear. Or something worse.

"Nightmares?" I asked. But I didn't ask it like a question. It came out like a whisper I wanted to take back.

She nodded.

"Every night... someone calls me. They say, 'Come meet me, Suhina.' I don't see a face. Just... the voice."

I stared at her. Noticed her hands. Shaking like they were remembering something her mouth couldn't say.

"And it doesn't feel like a dream," she added. "It feels real."

I believed her. Not because of the words. Because of the fear in her eyes. That kind of fear doesn't live in dreams. It lives in people.

"Who's calling you?"

She blinked. "I don't know. But I hear them. And then it's like... I go. Even when I don't want to. I just... go."

My chest tightened.

"You mean you're sleepwalking?"

She nodded.

"Sometimes I wake up... outside Subh's house." Her voice fell to a whisper. "I just stand there. For hours. And I don't know why."

It wasn't a story anymore. It was something else. Something dark and quiet and too real.

"Is someone forcing you?"

"No one's there," she said. "But it's like I'm not in control anymore. Like someone else is inside me. Moving me."

I didn't know what to say. There was no right sentence for this.

She looked at me.

"I think I'm losing control."

That sentence... it stayed with me.

I told her to talk to a doctor.

But I said it like I was writing her obituary.

She shook her head. "They'll think I'm crazy."

I looked at her—this girl who once danced in the rain like nothing could ever hurt her.

"Tell Tenzin," I said.

She looked at me like I'd betrayed her. "What will he think?"

"That you need him."

Silence followed.

Not the peaceful kind. The kind that settles in your bones and makes you feel alone even when you're not.

"We'll talk tomorrow," I said.

I ran inside. Grabbed my keys.

"Get on," I said.

She didn't speak. Just sat behind me.

The ride was silent.

But it wasn't empty.

The city slept. But something else didn't.

We stopped outside her house.

"See you tomorrow," I said.

She walked away. I watched until the night swallowed her.

At home, I sat on my bed. Opened my diary.

Wrote:

What feels real might not be real.

And what is real... doesn't feel like it.

Suhina is slipping away.

Maybe into herself. Maybe into something else.

It has no name. No face. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

But it exists.

Closed the diary.

Nothing had ended.

But something—something I couldn't name—had started.