Dear mystery man,
I have no idea why you were in my dream last night - as if you’ve been plaguing my conscious since the beginning I met you. That fateful day when we wound up together in the same vicinity, one where we would end up seeing each other, being with each other everyday, even if we were at other ends of the room. You never noticed me right away. I was too small, too shy and timid to look you in the eye, let myself be known to you. You had your large group of friends, football, the joy; what difference would it have made if were at the background of it all. And yet, I was still drawn towards you. Just like everyone else who adored you, all those girls who swooned over you, even my friend who fawned over you. I was like everyone else who fell for your charm. I never knew you existed until then.
I don’t know what it was. Maybe your smile. You laughter. Maybe it was the soft and still distinctly sharp features adorned on your face that caught me off guard. Maybe that’s why my chest burned every time you looked my way ever so briefly - like oxygen wrung out dry in my lungs if you stumbled upon my glances and I’d scramble my way to play it off and stare somewhere else. I was too eager to start something and equally as afraid to finish it. But that was always what I perceived you to be: the air you radiated, enticing but if one revelled in it too long it pressured them. Or rather it was me who was too scared to let you know of how I felt, which was why I pretended it was nothing.
That you were nothing.
However, I couldn’t do anything to suppress my obvious affection. Everyone knew it. My own circle of friends, possibly even your best friend, even those who weren’t my friends or yours. And especially that friend of mine who fawned over you. I think it only took me a year to realise that she did and that she felt the same way. About you of course. I’m not sure if it was you who was oblivious to my attempts to get close to you, or if it was me who was oblivious to the fact that you were aware, so I kept trying. Desperately. So much so that I look back and think it was sickening. Pathetic even. But at that time I believed that nothing mattered. That it was worth it. Would you have done the same if you were me? Would I be worth it?
Either way, the emotions remained in the next year when I would inevitably meet you again after 2 months of not having done so.
Who would have known that Coincidence would have graced me with her divine intervention. And Fate would watch in acceptance. Now, our proximity was so close that our breaths would mingle together in the tension only I regarded, thick as the wall I would eventually build up. But for now I basked in the warmth of being next to you, heat scorching my cheeks when your thigh accidentally brushed up against mine. Those seven hours of my day were spent by your side. In the morning you read your book and giggled. Oh how I wished I could be the cause. I asked what it was and you turned your book to me. For the first time we were smiling together. So trivial yet so meaningful was it, to me. You would steal a glimpse of my work and I would turn it towards you, willing to give up all that I worked for if it meant easing your labour. You always took it, grabbed it and scanned it so intently. It was the only thing that you loved from me, thus I gave it as much as I could until you didn’t need it anymore. And when you changed some of my work, made it right, whilst I was called out of the building, I came back and you told me what you had done. The thank you I let out then was the compressed fondness that welled up in my throat, bashful and giddy as I sat down and examined the lingering touch of the slightest effort you put in. For me.
But oh, how Fate plays on disappointment for I am always the toy, subjected to her. She manifests into those closest to me. The one who let you know of what brewed in my heart, overflowing in front of you, unable to reign back. I pushed her away, hid her so you wouldn’t pay attention to here. Too late. So the contents spill out into that betraying message.
I think she likes you.
The cackles and snickering surrounding me echoed in that room. I could feel the embarrassment prodding at the corners of my mouth.
You didn’t talk to me after that day. Between was solely the violent silence that settled. The awkwardness that followed for the next week. Hell even longer. A cold blanket enveloping me, freezing unknown hopes, my heart barren in a snowstorm of worry. Still within a random, forgotten word rekindled that ember of passion. And the old, cheerful conversations that spewed on our laps carelessly. Suddenly, the familiarity of the old blessed me once again.
It wasn’t long before our casualness, the comfortability in what we had, would be known to each and every person on that floor. One of them, our favourite, soon to leave. The room buzzed with questions and stories. Then came that sweet voice of yours when you asked him for advice. Then, for everyone’s ears to channel:
You and her need to stop talking so much.
Said he, with a grin plastered on his face. Had we talked so much? It was so mundane that consistency didn’t feel so abnormal to the normality of what was supposed to be the hushed atmosphere. Only to me it seems. That’s when I buried my face in the palms of my hand and turned to the window, wishing that the cool wind would calm the blush painting me. I feigned ignorance. As if it didn’t mean anything. It meant everything.
And ignorant was I. Fate always reminds, wishes are just illusions. When you gently relayed that horrifying news. How you were going to leave just like that person before, who gave me the happiness I didn’t need to beg for. You were to be sent off cities away; unreachable from my sight, leaving me with only your empty chair and the memories that sat there. I was the first one to know. That privilege didn’t make things better.
Five years later, in this routinely present state, you don’t matter to me. I can’t recall the last time I reminisced you and I. Except those few unwanted moments. When my friends teased me with your name 2..3 years after your exit from our chatter, and my life. And the occasional delusion of my mind when it needs to be asleep because you still find yourself in my thoughts and fantasies of the night. You never liked me back. At least from what I could observe. I hate it. You. And the vision of you blocks my sanity. Right when I should be over you. You’re a cruel torment still to this day. You were always the popular one though, weren’t you? Taking up space, loud and enchanting.
I wonder if you dream of me the way I did of you last night.
- Riya
The best way I can sum this up is:
based on a true story…
To say the least, I had another stupid dream. Won’t say much but definitely will be a story time later if I unfortunately get pressured into doing so. But you guys wouldn’t do that to me, right?????? Maybe I’ll put a gist of this mystery man in my post getting to know me, we shall see. I think it is quite shocking that me of all people would have a mystery man if you know what I’m like and I am more so terrified of the fact he’s constantly in my dreams even though I should be over him. I KNOW I AM. But like I thought the only way for this to go away was if I write it out and it becomes an old file in the archive that I’ll never see in a few years time. He kept showing up and I got so fed up with thinking about him that I just HAD to write it. Nevertheless, I hope u enjoy this new post cuz it’ll be quite a while until I post something again.
@circe /•᷅•᷄\੭