After weeks and months of silence, I finally heard from you. A call. My heart skipped a beat when I saw your name flash across my phone screen. Should I answer it or not? Would it send me back to square one in the process of getting over you? As these thoughts whizzed past in my head, still contemplating whether to answer the call or let it go to voicemail, my fingers had a different idea altogether, because they swiped the ‘answer’ button and your voice was in my ear.
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After weeks and months of silence, I was again listening to your voice. That same voice that had whispered sweet nothings in my ear. That same voice that had murmured naughty and wicked things in my ear. That same adorably gravelly voice that I’d come to love.
You wanted to know how I was doing (not great), and how life had been in general (not great again!). I felt a lump clog my throat, choking the words that so wanted to spill out of my mouth.
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I wanted to ask you what had gone wrong for us to go from such intimate discussions about life and love and work and family and the universe and the soul and religion to… nothing, in the space of one meeting.
I wanted to ask you what I had done to deserve the cold shoulder and the maddening silences from you.
I wanted to ask you what was it that was so important and time-consuming that made you overlook the multitude of texts I sent you.
I wanted to ask you what crime I’d committed that was so horrible that you had to cut me out of your life so unceremoniously, as if I were a gangrenous limb.
I wanted to ask you if you even remembered me once since that last time we spoke.
I wanted to ask you if I was but a blip on the radar that is your life, as if I’d never even been on there.
I wanted to ask you…
…so many things. But in the end, I didn’t; I couldn’t. Because I knew you’d written me off from your life as if I were a bad dream when I heard, ‘Who’s this?’ when I accidentally dialed your number a couple of weeks ago. I think I’ve never cried so hard as I did when I heard those words in your adorably gravelly voice. I think my broken heart shattered into a million tiny little pieces that day. And I’m still floundering, trying to piece together the many different pieces, trying to fit them where they belong.
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But alas, it’s never going to be the same. My poor, bruised, abused heart will never be whole again, as it once was. I guess that’s the price of wearing my heart on my sleeve; the price of giving myself fully to a person I think is worth it, even though you might not think the same about me. Even though I might be falling for you bit by bit, one day at a time, while you think of me as little more than a friend, if at all.
All those feelings that used to surge within me upon hearing your voice welled up inside of me now too, almost choking me with their need to be acknowledged, for they refused to be relegated to the corner. They demanded to be accepted for what they were – my true feelings for you. But I held them at bay with sheer will power. But barely.
As my grip tightened on the phone, waiting for your next words, I found myself daydreaming about what could’ve been, what should’ve been, had you been brave enough to take my hand and step into the unknown. For what relationship is mapped out perfectly with perfect people playing their roles to a T? For what human being isn’t flawed in one sense or the other? A relationship is made perfect by two imperfectly flawed individuals who accept and celebrate their flaws, together. But alas, we weren’t meant to be.
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As I waited with bated breath for the next words out of your mouth, in that adorably gravelly voice of yours, my alarm beeped, bringing me crashing back into cold, hard reality.
There was no phone call.
There was no hearing your voice in my ear.
There was no ‘us’ anymore.
There wasn’t even a possibility of ‘us,’ anywhere in our future.
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For all of it had been a dream, conjured up by my overactive imagination. For all of it had been my brain’s way of coping with the soul-sucking loneliness that I found myself in. For all of it had been in vain.
I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh as I was pushed into the cold, hard reality, head first. I didn’t know how to cope with the shattering of my dream, which seemed a better option than the cold, hard reality.
I didn’t know what to choose anymore…
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