Every evening, the slam of the door echoed through the small apartment. Aryan was home.
His wife, Meera, flinched instinctively—not from fear, but from habit. Their 8-year-old daughter, Rhea, quietly turned the TV down. No one said a word. It had become routine. Aryan would walk in, throw his bag on the couch, and sit in silence, his face drawn, his brow furrowed with invisible burdens.
No one knew that Aryan hadn’t slept properly in weeks. That the office where he worked as a team leader was laying off people, and he was walking a tightrope between survival and sacrifice. That the EMI, the school fees, the unspoken pressure of “being the man of the house” was eating away at him.
He never cried. Never shared. He believed men shouldn’t.
Instead, he snapped at Rhea for spilling milk. He ignored Meera’s gentle questions. He grunted his way through dinner. Every irritation was a scream from a soul drowning quietly.
One night, Rhea asked, “Papa, are you angry at me every day?”
Aryan froze.
In her innocent eyes, he saw his reflection—a man lost not in failure, but in silence. His struggle wasn’t just his anymore. It had seeped into the walls of his home, into the people he loved.
He knelt, held her tight, and whispered, “No, beta… I’m just tired of fighting battles I never talk about.”
That night, for the first time, Aryan spoke. Meera listened. And healing began—not from fixing everything—but from finally being heard.
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