“Fragments of a Silent Heart”

By Sayali Sawant

The phone sits across the room, silent and unassuming, yet I can’t stop glancing at it. I tell myself I won’t answer right away, that I need space, that I deserve to feel steady in my own chest. And yet, even as I turn away, a part of me hopes it’s him, that the vibration will carry something familiar, something warm that I can cling to. 

I’ve been trying to pull back. I leave longer gaps before replying. I focus on work, on friends, on little things that keep my mind from wandering down the spiral of “what if.” I tell myself these small boundaries are for me, that they are shields against the ache of uncertainty. But even as I do, a hollow sort of longing presses against my ribs, quiet and insistent, reminding me of every laugh, every glance, every late-night word that left me wanting more than I dared to ask for.

Sometimes I catch myself replaying moments in my head, the way he smiles when he’s amused, the slight tilt of his head when he’s listening. There’s a pull there I can’t explain, a current I can feel but cannot grasp. And every time I imagine reaching out, I pause, because I don’t know what I’ll find. Will it be warmth, or will it be the cold brush of indifference?

I try to distract myself. I throw myself into reading, into long walks, into little projects that make my chest feel lighter, make my mind busy. I tell myself that creating distance is strength, not weakness, that holding my own heart is more important than chasing someone whose tides I cannot predict. Yet, even in the midst of all this, there’s a part of me that aches with the simple, unnameable wish that he feels something similar, even a fraction of the pull I feel.

Some nights, when the world is quiet and sleep hasn’t arrived, I imagine a version of him that exists only in the spaces between reality and longing, someone I understand, someone who reaches back. And then, just as quickly, I remember: I don’t really know him. I don’t know if he feels it, or if it’s just me caught in the current of my own heart. And that knowledge is heavy, pressing against the walls I’m trying to build.

I am learning, slowly, that distance doesn’t erase feeling. It doesn’t make the pull vanish entirely. But it teaches me how to cradle it gently, how to hold my own hand through the ache, how to exist in the tension between wanting and knowing I cannot always have. Maybe, in time, this pull will soften into something I can navigate, a memory that sparkles without breaking me, a longing that doesn’t consume but reminds me I am alive, feeling, human.

And for now, that’s enough. I am stepping back, breathing, and learning to be steady in the space he cannot occupy, learning to be whole, even when part of me still drifts toward him.

By Sayali Sawant