Unrequited

One of my readers found me online and asked me to write about my love story❣️ So here goes…

This is my love story… Nope stories… It’s NOT going to be like ‘To all the boys I have loved before’. I’m not calling out on any one of my crushes and ‘almost lovers’. Their names will be changed.

Wyatt

After the usual tantrums of not wanting to go to school, I budged since dad promised me a burger in the evening. I remember it being a rainy day and 5-year-old me was in the school bus feeling quite nauseous. I held it in for as long as I could, but as soon as we reached school, I let it all out _ the breakfast I had that day was on the floors of the bus and on my sweet pinafore. The nanny at school changed me into the spare clothes that mum had kept in my bag.

I walked with shame that day. All the kids in my class asked me whether it was my birthday, since I was not wearing the uniform _ I said no _ and they figured out the rest. Kids can be mean. My classmates mocked me, “Eeww, I don’t want to sit with you”… ” She smells …. And so on.

The series of unfortunate events didn’t end there _ our class teacher started changing our seats. I don’t understand why teachers change our seats once we got comfortable with the kid sitting next to us. She asked my friend to pack her bags and move to another seat and Ronnie was asked to sit next to me. Ronnie was infamous for being naughty and talkative. I being the perfect student started to cry. I was already having a bad day and now this? I lost it… COMPLETELY. When the teacher asked me why I was sad, I said, “Ronnie is a bad boy, I don’t want to sit next to him”. (I know, I know, I was the real jerk). The teacher felt bad for Ronnie and didn’t ask him to move again and sat me next to the best boy in class… Wyatt 😊. I guess I felt REALLY happy… I believe I was blushing as well. Wyatt smiled and said, “You look nice today”.

I guess we turned out to be friends for the longest time then; but we were in different classes for the next 2 years. Another year later, on the very first day of school, my then-class teacher sat me next to Wyatt 😊 Again! By this time, we had forgotten how good friends we used to be at kindergarten. But the friendship came back to us. We were put in different classes the years after that, had different friend groups and in the blink of time, became “just acquaintances”. I didn’t know that I had a tiny crush on Wyatt… ‘cause I was just a kid. But now I’m recalling these incidents, especially the ones where I used to get jealous when one of my classmates used to joke and laugh with him. You can call it innocent friendship/crush/love. I was mostly floored because of how good a boy he was… I’m pretty sure he still is.

Skye

Last year at school _ I started to admire this boy in class. I’ve written about this story in one of my previous blogs [Gale-Sean-Robin]; the love story at the physics lab. Only one of my classmates knew that I admired him from afar; my closest friends didn’t know. Fast forward _ to the 10-minute interval; I was in the class, and all my friends were out _ when I caught Skye staring at me. We were stuck in that moment of just staring 👀 at each other for 5 seconds and I broke it off _ embarrassed; my secret was out and so was his.

After that, I was too scared to even look at him, since he knew, and I knew what was going on. But I guess we never confessed to each other since we were only 17 and we had to keep our future, our career as our priority. We studied hard for our exams and competed against each other. Sometimes I used to feel bad when Skye scored waayyy… less than me. Soon moved to different cities to universities. He was one of the first people who followed me on Instagram; one of my oldest classmates who still ‘like’ my posts. We remain cordial with each other. He has a girlfriend now, but I’m not sad. I’m glad I could be one of his ‘Almost Lovers’ and I’m glad I could feel that desperation of so-called “teen-age love”.

Quinn

A few more years had passed since Skye, I was 23, and lonely. Didn’t know what the future held and was anxious as well. Quinn was my classmate at university during my Master’s. Really funny guy. His specialty was funny sarcasm, had a flair for The Office, and wasn’t exceptional in anything. Just a normal guy. We were good friends.

Little did I know that while I was finally preparing to confess my feelings 💌 to someone for the first time, he was preparing to do the same for another girl. Even if I was right in front of him, he didn’t see me. It took me a while to realize that and decided that we’d be better off as friends. It was the last day before the Christmas holidays _ we finished our group assignment for the semester and were walking together from the library 📚. We were talking about ‘that’ girl and out of the blue I asked him, “You really like her don’t you”.

“Yeah, yeah… she’s nice,” he said nervously.

I hoped he would tell her his feelings. But another year had gone by, and he still hadn’t told her anything. And I had lost my chance to confess mine. In the end, we are two broken souls 💔who couldn’t tell whom we loved, that we loved them. But I’d like to think, that all that matters is if he is safe and happy.

There is a song called “Ek duje ke vaaste” sung by Jubin Nautiyal, and one of its lines hit me hard and was the reason for this blog post. It goes like this: –

“Kahi Teri khaamoshiyan jeet na jaaye pyaar se…

Mil jaane de Dil Jo Bane ek duje ke vaaste…”

Which translates to, “What if your silence wins over love ? Confess your feelings, let those hearts who are meant to be together, meet each other”

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