“I will be your shadow.”

 It all began with a smile.

“Sangay,” she called softly, her voice carrying warmth, “you can lean on me, I am worth enough.”

Sangay’s heart trembled. So many questions rested heavy in his chest. He whispered back, almost afraid of his own words:

“Life keeps teaching me lessons… but why never a solution? Are you the solution I’ve been waiting for? Or are you just another lesson that will carve scars into me later?”

Hopeless, uncertain, Tshering replied with words that pierced deeper than silence:

“Neither am I.”

Sangay froze. His thoughts echoed, What does that even mean?

But then Tshering said again, gently yet strangely,

Sangay wondered, Why shadow? Why not light? For in his broken heart, light meant hope, warmth, life. Shadow, instead, felt like a reminder of darkness, always near, but never guiding.

That day, both of them carried unspoken thoughts that weighed heavier than their smiles.

The next morning, while sharing a small feast together, Sangay finally gathered his courage and revealed his feelings to her. To his surprise, she accepted him willingly. For a fleeting moment, it felt like victory like they had defeated the shadow and stepped into the light together.

But shadows never truly disappear; they only wait for the light to fade.

Time passed, and Sangay began to notice changes. Tshering’s laughter grew softer with him but louder with another boy—Tashi. She leaned closer to Tashi, her eyes carrying a brightness Sangay had never seen directed at himself.

His heart whispered questions he dared not say aloud:

If you never wanted me, why did you hold my hand? Why did you open my wounds wider with your promises? Was it your intention to leave me bleeding?

Broken, he chose silence. He wore a mask of emotionless calm, hiding the storm inside. Yet as the saying goes: The eyes never lie, even if the whole body does. Behind closed doors, in the solitude of a dark room, Sangay cried the tears no one was meant to see.

His friends mocked him.

“Why weep over one girl? There are many others. Why waste your soul on someone who doesn’t even value you?”

But what they never understood was that his tears were not only for Tshering. They were for the years of loneliness, for the battles he fought alone, for the weight of a life without support or comfort.

Meanwhile, Tshering hid her secret affair with Tashi behind grand gestures. She brought gifts, arranged movie nights, dragged him into parties filled with noise and lights. But Sangay, already aware of her intentions, could not bring himself to smile.

Her jokes felt like knives.

Her love felt like mockery.

Her words fell heavy, each syllable striking his fragile heart like stones.

What was once warmth had turned into poison.

And so, a poor and innocent boy who had no one to fall back on, no one to call his own came to his last decision. He could no longer carry the weight of shadows.

On a silent night, he hung himself. Beside him, he left a letter, written with trembling hands:

“Today I finally understand why you chose to call yourself my shadow, and not my light. Shadows never guide they only follow, only remind, only haunt. Thank you for your meaningless efforts and your fragile lies of love. You were never my light. You were only the darkness that never left my side.”

The Meaning of Shadow and Light

Light is hope, a promise, a guide that leads one out of despair. But shadows shadows cling to us. They do not leave, but neither do they help us rise. They stay to remind us of the darkness that lives within and around us.

                                                -Sangay Rinchen (D1M)