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Chapter 9 - chapter -9 The unwritten chapter

POV: Max

Some days feel heavier than others.

Today was one of them.

I lay on my bed, phone on silent, light from the window cutting across the room like a spotlight I never asked for.

Why did everything—every twist, every ache—have to lead back to him?

Ram.

Mike.

Or whatever version of him I was trying to erase.

I never told him how long I waited for that one message.

How often I played brave when all I wanted was a sign.

And now?

He gives me someone else's name.

Another boy. Another chance. Another heartbreak waiting to happen.

Why does it feel like every path is designed to remind me I'm not the one?

I closed my eyes.

In the silence, I whispered to no one:

"I want a new life."

One where the ghosts of love didn't follow me into classrooms.

Where I didn't flinch at the word Mike, or smile at the color blue.

Where my name wasn't tied to a history I never got to finish.

I wanted peace.

Not silence. Not distance. Just peace.

No accidental run-ins. No almost-texts. No past showing up with soft eyes and unspoken regrets.

A blank chapter.

Where I could be... me.

Not someone shaped by the memory of him.

She doesn't cry this time.

She doesn't need to.

This is the kind of sadness that lives quietly in the bones.

Like rainclouds that stay even after the storm ends.

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