From a Lover’s Hand to a Crowd of Monsters
The first message arrived at 2:13 a.m.
“Are you awake?”
Mira stared at the notification for a few seconds before replying.
“Unfortunately.”
A reply came almost immediately.
“Good. I was hoping someone was.”
His name was Arjun.
She didn't know anything about him except that he was funny, surprisingly patient, and somehow knew how to keep a conversation alive.
That night, they talked until sunrise.
The next night, he messaged again.
Then again.
Soon, talking to Arjun became part of Mira's routine.
He was there when she woke up.
There when she came home tired.
There when she couldn't sleep.
He remembered things she had forgotten telling him.
Her favorite song.
The name of her childhood friend.
The reason she hated thunderstorms.
The dream she was embarrassed to tell anyone.
“You talk to me like you've known me forever,” she once told him.
“Maybe I was supposed to find you earlier.”
She smiled at her phone.
She didn't know that sentence would later become one of the memories that hurt the most.
Weeks became months.
Arjun became her safest place.
When she had a terrible day, he listened.
When she cried, he stayed online.
When she doubted herself, he reminded her that she mattered.
Eventually, he said the words she had secretly been waiting for.
“I think I'm falling in love with you.”
Mira stared at the screen, her heart pounding.
She typed three different replies and deleted all of them.
Finally, she wrote:
“I think I already have.”
From that night onward, they called themselves a couple.
Their relationship existed mostly through screens.
Good morning messages.
Goodnight calls.
Long conversations about a future neither of them had actually planned.
Arjun began saying things like:
“Someday we'll laugh about how we met.”
“I'll introduce you to everyone.”
“You're the only person I can trust.”
And Mira believed every word.
Then one evening, he said:
“I want to meet you.”
She became nervous.
“What if it's awkward?”
“It won't be.”
“What if you're disappointed?”
“I already know you.”
“Through a screen.”
“That's enough.”
He spent days convincing her.
Eventually, she agreed.
The meeting was supposed to be simple.
A public place.
A few hours together.
Nothing more.
But when Mira finally saw him standing there, every fear disappeared.
He looked exactly like the person she had imagined.
He smiled.
“You actually came.”
She laughed nervously.
“You asked me to.”
For a while, everything felt perfect.
They talked.
They walked.
They took photographs.
And Mira thought she was finally meeting the person who had spent months telling her that she was precious to him.
But slowly, the situation changed.
The warmth disappeared from his voice.
The patience disappeared.
The promises disappeared.
Mira realized that the person beside her wasn't behaving like the person she had known online.
She became uncomfortable.
She wanted to leave.
Arjun became cold.
The details of what happened afterward were something Mira would never be able to explain without feeling sick with sadness.
The only thing she knew for certain was that her trust and virgin have been taken from her.
And when she expected him to stay beside her afterward, he didn't.
The next morning, his messages were different.
Short.
Cold.
Distant.
Finally, she asked:
“Do you still love me?”
There was a long pause.
Then:
“I think we should stop this.”
Mira stared at those words.
Stop this.
As if months of conversations had been nothing.
As if every midnight call, every promise, every “I love you” had simply disappeared.
She called him.
He didn't answer.
She called again.
Nothing.
Then she noticed something worse.
He had blocked her.
Mira sat on the edge of her bed, staring at the empty chat.
She kept reopening it even though she knew there would be nothing new.
She reread his old messages.
I won't ever leave you.
You're safe with me.
Trust me.
She cried until the words blurred.
But the worst part wasn't losing him.
It was realizing that the person she had trusted with her heart had known exactly how to gain that trust—and had used it against her.
After that, rumors began.
People who had no right to know anything somehow knew pieces of what had happened.
Mira didn't know where the information had come from.
She stopped answering friends.
Stopped posting online.
Stopped going places.
She became afraid of notifications.
Afraid of unknown numbers.
Afraid of people looking at her for too long.
And then other people noticed.
Some offered sympathy.
Others pretended to.
A few realized that Mira was vulnerable and began pushing boundaries, manipulating her, and treating her pain as an opportunity.
Every time she trusted someone again, someone found a way to hurt that trust.
She began wondering whether there was something wrong with her.
Maybe she was foolish.
Maybe she deserved it.
Maybe she should never have trusted anyone.
But none of those things were true.
The fault belonged to the people who chose to exploit her.
Still, knowing that didn't make the loneliness disappear.
Months passed.
One evening, Mira opened the old conversation with Arjun.
His profile picture was gone.
His name was gone.
Everything was gone except their old messages.
She scrolled all the way to the beginning.
To the first message.
“Are you awake?”
She stared at it for a long time.
Then she whispered,
“I wish I hadn't answered.”
Not because she regretted loving someone.
But because she regretted believing that love automatically meant safety.
She closed the conversation.
For the first time, she didn't cry.
She simply sat beside the window and watched the city lights.
Somewhere in that enormous city, people were laughing.
Couples were meeting.
Friends were talking.
Strangers were falling in love.
Life was continuing.
And Mira was trying to figure out how to continue with it.
Years later, Arjun received an unexpected message from an old mutual friend.
It contained only one sentence:
“Do you ever think about what happened to Mira?”
He didn't reply.
But that night, he searched for her.
He found an old account.
There was only one photograph.
Mira looked different.
Older.
Calmer.
And beneath the photograph was a sentence:
“I survived the version of love that taught me to fear being loved.”
Arjun stared at it.
For the first time, he understood that leaving had been easy for him because he had never carried the consequences.
Mira had.
He had walked away from a relationship.
She had walked away carrying the weight of everything he had done.
And perhaps that was the cruelest part.
He had been her lover.
Then he became her first monster.
Others followed.
Not because she had deserved them.
Not because she had been weak.
But because one person had shown other people exactly how easily her trust could be exploited.
Mira eventually learned to live again.
Not exactly as she had before.
She became quieter.
More careful.
But she also learned something important:
Trust wasn't foolish.
Love wasn't foolish.
The people who abused them were.
And somewhere inside the woman she became, the girl who had once waited for Arjun's midnight messages still existed.
She hadn't disappeared.
She had simply learned that the next time someone said,
“Trust me,”
she would make them prove it.
Because she had once fallen from a lover's hand.
And survived a crowd of monsters.
But she would never again mistake a monster's kindness for love.
The End...
