I was lost in the thoughts of his in the evening of 1st March, one year ago, when I switched my phone on and opened our Instagram chat. The last text that I had sent him was a good night message sent by me the previous night. I don't know what I was thinking, or if my fingers planned on doing some tasks on their own without my consent, but, believing that he was offline, I typed a small, short form of the three words which I had kept in my heart all that time, and sent it to him.
18:57 p.m.
"Ily" (I love you)
I came back to my senses from that subconscious state of mine and quickly realised what I had done. My fingers were slipping on the screen of my mobile as I was trying to unsend the text. To my horror, he viewed the text.
I forced my eyes open in the present time, pushing off the door of cabinet of the dressing table as I gasped for air. That was day when my life started a new journey of its own. From that day on, I had started to heal slowly from my past which had turned my earlier self into a fake person having fake smiles everyone. I tried to wipe the tears which had outlined my face, the course of my tears made way for the course of my past, my present and the upcoming unknown future. I got up from the floor with shaky legs, the sun had filtered in through the open spaces of the window, filling the dark room with a hint of brightness. The clock read 1:08 p.m. I stared at the floor, my hands clasped together as my fingers continued to fidget with each other. I caressed my fingers with a gentle hand, trying to trace in the feeling of his touch of when I had first seen him.
I wished for his touch as much as I wanted to forget the feeling of his touch.
My legs were feeling weak, my skin felt as if it has lost its sense of touch and my mind...my mind felt like it was blank. I did not know what I was thinking about. It was as if a blank, endless, and dark space was created in my brain as it lost its ability to remember and visualise about various different things. It felt like my mind has turned into a cosmos— a vast extent of space where there was a saddening absense of stars, planets and meteors which give a galaxy something it could call its own. Let it be the smallest speck of star dust, at least it will belong to the galaxy. The galaxy would have cherished it, adored it and cared for it like an expensive and priceless possession. Being deprived of its own sense of livelihood, the galaxy was also empty, like my mind where the stars are disguised as my own personal and private thoughts. But in the present moment, even those seemed to just vanish into thin air.
I forced my legs to move towards the bed. Both the furniture and its buyer were deprived of life— the bed couldn't breath from the start, but it once used to provide comfort and warmth to its buyer. The buyer felt lifeless, but her body kept moving, her chest kept rising and falling with each breath she took, yet she felt like a sunflower at midnight— wilted, low and lifeless while having a life. As I reached and laid back on the bed, my eyes dropped close as if some unseen power was forcing them shut.
1st March, one year ago.
He had viewed the text that I had sent in my subconscious mind. I deleted the text none the less, yet my mind kept on thinking about the possibilities and his reaction. I saw three dots appearing, then disappearing and then again reappearing. My palms were sweaty and the temperature in the room felt as if it had dropped a few degrees in the period of just a few seconds which seemed stretch into decades as I waited for him to text something– anything. Just as I was about to take a sigh of relief that 'oh, maybe he did not see the content of the text,' he replied,
"Maine kuch toh dekha." (I saw some thing)
Though I could not see his face or hear his voice, I could still feel the teasing tone that he uses whenever he plans on joking around with me. I typed back, trying to appear casual and playful,
"Nahi, aapne kuch nahi dekha."
He sent a few laughing emojis and kept teasing me about the text. I knew that pretending would do nothing to suppress the way my heart was beating at an unreal pace and the way my mind was getting lost thinking about his facial expression while he was chatting with me. Did he have a smile on his face? Or did he have a non chalant expression plastered to his face? That was when I decided that I would do something that would lead to either a glimmering happiness or an lasting sadness. I told him that I wanted to confess about something and after making sure that even if his answer was negative, my confession would not affect our friendship, I typed and sent,
19:06 p.m.
"I love you."
The air around me suddenly felt like it was equally deprived of oxygen and full of life. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my chest while a ton more was added to the weights over my shoulders. As the three dots kept appearing, disappearing and reappearing, they seemed like three small children playing with me. 'I and here! Now I am not!'. My mind kept on getting filled with thoughts every time the three dots disappeared, and kept on getting deprived of any thought and turning into a blank space whenever the three dots reappeared. It felt like a child's game. Every child's game play appears childish to the eyes of their own when they turn into adults. This love is also a child's game, played by all ages.
Children crave for it from their parents.
Adults give it to their own children.
And the teenagers keep on riding the roller coaster of emotions. Appearing, disappearing and reappearing.