I forced my eyes open my body was shaking like a leaf, hands were feeling cold and sweat was dripping down my face. I raised my head and looked around. The air felt like it was suffocating me and the walls surrounding me felt like they were narrowing more and more with each passing second. I got up from my bed, almost stumbling down due to the intensity by which my legs were shaking and shivering. I gripped the edge of the bed side table as I tried to balance myself. My unfocused and unsteady eyes found the sight of the bookmark which was made by me with the withered rose, tucked within the pages of my diary on the table. A million thoughts raced through my mind, at speeds unachievable yet completely clear, at a glimpse of that piece of paper which felt like life to me.
A rose— a withered rose, which might seem worthless and spoiled, but in my eyes, it carried oceans of unsaid, unheard and unwritten feelings which had now withered from one side but are still being cherished by the other side who had chosen to hold onto the traces of his touch and warmth that were wrapped around her fingers. My legs gave out and I sat back down on the piece of furniture.
My head felt like it was weighed down by tons and tons of weight. My nerves did not feel like they were comprised of body tissues, but composed of needles which were pricking each corner of my body onto the bed. I did not feel like my body was laying on some warm and soft cushions of a bed, but some cold and hard wood of my bed. My eyes travelled down to my ankles which were adorned with anklets.
Two anklets which were delicately painted with a shimmering gold coloured coating. At the centre of one anklet, dangled a petite crown shaped pendant, intricately crafted into a perfect shape and coated with gold colour. The other pice of the pair of anklets was a chain with minimalist design, simple and unadorned yet a piece of jewellery which I had kept clasped around my anklet yet clasped close to my heart. The anklet was a simple of piece of jewellery, but it was carrying my reciprocated of one year and twenty three days.
I looked at the wall clock, it now read 12:17 p.m. The sun's rays found their way through the open crack of a window, filtering into the dark room like a silver lining found after overcoming dark clouds. The ticking clock seemed to speak about the million words that were being said by its arms. Even in the endless silence that I was wrapped in, the ticking sound tore through the hush between my heartbeats which were beating hard and fast. Yet the ticking found its way of getting heard in the quiet between two successive heart beats, as if it was mocking me that even though my lips were sealed in an imperceptible stitch, through the millions of sounds that echoed in my brain, it could still find a way to make itself heard.
Time knew. Time knew that back then, I was on my way of self destruction, yet it did not seem to allow the words out of its lips. But why would time ever wait? The story might be different in the eyes of time, yet in the mind of the author, it comprises unheard verses which seem to speak about fields of answers, even though the subject had remained voiceless. Time can not speak aloud. It can not warn us about a moment that would never return. It can not advice us to value everything that we still have until it slips through the fingers of ours'. It can neither narrate us fables of a lost cause nor preach us about life's unwritten laws. It can not congratulate us for any achievements, nor it can stop us from having incomplete temptations. Maybe it also has its own unsaid story of love, where even time couldn't change the course of fate and destiny.
Time that flies without waiting for anyone,
Might've wished to stay for a certain someone.
That soul had tried to stop it, to make moments last,
But time had slipped away, shattering hearts at long last.
I closed my eyes again. In my mind's eye, I saw the sight of his joyful face as he kept repeating the same phrase again and again, his tone was filled with excitement and happiness,
"Asha smiled at me aur usne chocolate bhi accept kar liya!!"
He looked so happy, it made me smile, but the thought that the smile was not meant for me was what my heart clench and squeeze hard in my chest. Despite the burn in my chest, my heart felt happy on the sight of his smile which still seemed to light up my world. In his two dark brown, deep eyes, I saw affection for her. Our mutual friends congratulated him, the smiles on their faces seemed like nothing compared to the grin that was plastered onto his face.
A bright and wide smile which looked like it stretched from ear to ear. I smiled and congratulated him, my feelings were filled with equal measures of contentment and grief. Maybe it's because of the fact that the ache in my heart was overpowered by the laughter that escaped his lips and filled my mind with a kind of selfless compersion. Though the air around me felt heavy and freezing along with the face of the world appearing blurry, he still felt like the warmth in these breath stealing cold that surrounded me, and the sharpest and brightest star that illuminated the surroundings.
I knew I was broken, and I wished to rewind time and go back when I did not know who he was. Time knew, it could have stopped me from falling for the person who was not there to catch me, but it did not. But how can I blame time which doesn't wait for anyone, doesn't warn anyone and doesn't teach us life's unsaid rules. On opening my eyes, what caught their attention was the bookmark of a withered rose. One of the very few things that was given by him, and which was still cherished by me. How can I let go of him so easily? Even a thought of it makes me guilty, as if I am betraying him. I am not dating him now, but I did date him once. I loved him with my entire life. I still love him, the same as always. And I know no matter how much I deny, I will keep loving him.
I also know, that no matter what I say, the result of 3.14 will never change.
The two points which once got separated, will never meet again.